Zuora allows you to manipulate every step of the invoice generation process, down to a very granular level of detail. In this session, Zuora experts will walk you through all of the elements of an invoice – how it’s generated, customized, updated, and more. We’ll cover designing, grouping and sorting invoices, setting up bill runs, and configuring notifications for a range of use cases.

2. Top Features in Zuora to Improve
Billing Operations
Zuora allows you to manipulate every step of the invoice
generation process, down to a very granular level of detail.
We’re here to help.
Natalie Kalas & Amy Ly
Customer Success, Zuora

3. content
review
page
03
01Who we are
Introductions
03Invoice
Presentment
Template fun!
02Invoice
GenerationBill Runs, API Generation,
Email Notifications &
Callouts
04Appendix
Resource Links

4. Introductions
Zuora Team

5. Introductions
page
05
Amy Ly, Customer Advocate
As a Customer Advocate, Amy helps her
customers grow their businesses with
Zuora. She uses her deep product
knowledge to guide customers to realize the
greatest value from Zuora. Previously, she
worked as a Support Analyst, Sales
Engineer, and librarian, through which she
honed her customer-facing, business and
technical skills.

6. Introductions
page
06
Natalie Kalas, Customer Success
As a Customer Success Manager at
Zuora, Natalie serves as a Zuora
technical business consultant to help her
customers navigate the Subscription
Economy to get the most value from the
Zuora platform. Prior to Zuora, Natalie
worked on enterprise software
implementations at Splunk and consulted
for forensic investigations at Deloitte.

7. Invoice Generation
Zuora Team

8. Why is Invoice Generation Important?
Other than the fact that you want to get paid….
page
08
• Your invoice could be your most
common branded touch-point with your
customers
• Accuracy matters to prevent churn and
minimize customer dissatisfaction
• Billing should enable you to scale your
business

9. Invoice Generation
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09
Can anyone tell me how they
generate invoices in Zuora?
Hint….there’s more than one way 

10. 1) Invoice Generation – Bill Runs
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010

11. 2) Invoice Generation – API Generated Invoices
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011
<ns1:generate>
<ns1:zObjects xsi:type="ns2:Invoice">
<ns2:AccountId>4028e485225d1d5f012266
2fd6b249c8</ns2:AccountId>
<ns2:IncludesOneTime>true</ns2:Includes
OneTime>
<ns2:IncludesRecurring>true</ns2:Includes
Recurring>
<ns2:IncludesUsage>true</ns2:IncludesUsa
ge>
<ns2:InvoiceDate>2016-08-
01</ns2:InvoiceDate>
<ns2:TargetDate>2016-07-
31</ns2:TargetDate>
</ns1:zObjects>

12. Invoice Generation – Scheduled Bill Runs
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012

13. Invoice Generation – Scheduled Bill Runs Deepdive
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013
• Zuora gives you the ability to run scheduled bill runs on a regular interval or one off for the
future, creating invoices automatically for you.
• You can bill customers in batches (designated at customer account level). Billing batches
allow you process tiers of customers in different ways at different times.
• Schedule your bill runs early to review invoices before posting.
• Pro tip: Pursue Daily Lights Out Billing
Start with Initial Process: Lights Out:
Bill Run → Draft Invoices Bill Run → Auto Post
Spot Check
Post Invoices
Email Invoices

14. Invoice Generation – Ad Hoc Bill Runs & Filter Charges
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014

15. Invoice Generation – Ad Hoc Bill Runs Deepdive
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015
• Zuora gives you the ability to run ad-hoc bill runs for one off accounts on demand.
• You can specify types of charges you want to include or remove from bill runs, you have the
option to select applying the bill run to: usage, recurring, or one-time charges
Real World Example:
• A customer has 2 charges on the subscription (usage and recurring). The one year term of
the contract runs from 01/01/2016-12/31/2016. The customer decides to cancel their
contract on 12/31/2016 but usage for December is uploaded on the 15th of the month, so
usage charges between 12/15/2016-12/31/2016 are not picked up in December bill run
since usage is not uploaded for December until Jan 15th. This is a perfect example of when
the customer may want to do an ad-hoc bill run to capture usage once the subscription has
been cancelled.

16. Invoice Generation – Processing Rules
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016

17. Invoice Generation – Processing Rules
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017
#1: Automatically renew auto-renew subscriptions that are up for renewal
• If I check the box, all subscriptions up for renewal within the target date of the bill run and
are set to auto-renew, will renew now.
When would I use this?
If you are going away on vacation and would like to run your
bill runs in advanced, you can make sure all your
renewals go out by selecting this option.

18. Invoice Generation – Processing Rules
page
018
#2: Do not email invoices with 0 Invoice Total
• We will not email invoices with $0 totals….pretty self explanatory
When would I use this?
If you don’t want to email $0 invoices to your customers, you
would use this setting.

19. Invoice Generation – Processing Rules
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019
#3: Auto-Post documents upon completion of Bill Run
• Once the bill run is complete, this option will allow you to auto-post invoices (i.e. lights
out billing)
When would I use this?
If you are a Zuora ninja and do not need to review your invoices prior to
posting them, you can use this option.
Cautionary Reminder: Once you post the invoice, this contributes to your Zuora usage

20. Invoice Generation – Processing Rules
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020
#4: Email documents after Auto-Post is complete
• Once auto-post is complete, this option will email invoices to customers.
3 Important Tips:
1) Make sure your invoice delivery preference on the account is set to email
2) The bill to contact on the account has an email address
3) Ensure the communication profile on the account is set to receive invoice
emails

21. Invoice Generation – Target Dates
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021

22. Invoice Generation – Target Dates
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022
• Invoice Date = Date that will be displayed on invoice
• Target Date for the Bill Run= Date that determines what charges are to be billed; any charges on
this date or prior (from your last bill run) will be billed.
Advanced Billing
• If you want to send an invoice out on May 1st for the June 1-June 30th billing period, you’d set your
invoice date to 05/01 and your target date for 06/30.
Future Dated Bill Runs
• You have a limit of setting bill runs 10 years in the future, meaning you cannot set bill runs further
out than 10 years after current date.
• If you create a bill run whose target date is one year from the creation date, this processing bill run
cannot be cancelled.

23. Invoice Generation via API – Billing Preview
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023
• Zuora gives you the
ability to preview future invoice items for
more than one account.
• You can use this functionality for a single
customer account or a group of customers
to be invoiced.
• You would query from the most recent
invoice date to a specific end of term date
in the future.
Results
• A summary of invoice item objects that
are to be billed to the customer or group
of customers
Use Cases
• Query for access to real time
usage/consumption date
Field Descriptions in Results File
• AccountID
• Success
• Size (optional)
• Error (optional)
• Invoice Item

24. Invoice Generation via API
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024
• You can also generate invoices via the API, this is similar to running ad-hoc bill run within UI
• You are required to include the following fields for invoice generation: account id, invoice date, and
target date
• If generating multiple invoices, only the id of the first invoice generated will return
Generate ()<ns1:generate>
<ns1:zObjects xsi:type="ns2:Invoice">
<ns2:AccountId>4028e485225d1d5f0122662fd6b24
9c8</ns2:AccountId>
<ns2:IncludesOneTime>true</ns2:IncludesOneTim
e>
<ns2:IncludesRecurring>true</ns2:IncludesRecurrin
g>
<ns2:IncludesUsage>true</ns2:IncludesUsage>
<ns2:InvoiceDate>2016-08-
01</ns2:InvoiceDate>
<ns2:TargetDate>2016-07-31</ns2:TargetDate>
</ns1:zObjects>
</ns1:generate>

25. Notifications & Callouts
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025
Out of the Box Notifications for Invoices

26. Notifications & Callouts
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026
• You can configure your own custom notifications and
callouts
Use Cases for Custom Notifications
Don’t see a notification that’s available OOB, create your
own! (i.e. upcoming invoice, invoice due at custom time
period, etc.)
• Related Event: Picklist
• Name: Custom (Name of Notification)
• Description: Optional
• Event Parameters: What triggers the notification to go
out?
• Email or Callout
Use Cases for Callouts
API Calls to other systems to act on Zuora information
(i.e. call back to your provisioning system to cut off
access after customer is 90 days past due on invoice)

27. Invoice Templates
Zuora Team

28. Turn this:
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028

29. Into this:
page
029

30. Anatomy of an Invoice
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030
Who are you?
Company Logo
and Branding
How do we sum
it up?
Totals
What are they
paying for?
Charge line items.
Invoice
Information:
invoice-level
detail
What about the
customer?
Client information

31. Effort
page
031
Rating: easiest
Pros: straight out-out-of-the-box
Cons: no real customization
Rating: a little more work
Pros: more flexibility
Cons: requires some initial efforts
Rating: kinda difficult
Pros: tailor-fit these to your needs
Cons: complex & may require GS
engagement for complicated use
cases

32. Effort
page
032
Rating: easiest
Pros: straight out-out-of-the-box
Cons: no real customization
Rating: a little more work
Pros: more flexibility
Cons: requires some initial efforts
Rating: kinda difficult
Pros: tailor-fit these to your needs
Cons: complex & may require GS
engagement for complicated use
cases

33. Where do I find the out-of-the-box template?
page
033
• Log into Zuora
• Click on your login name in the upper right-hand corner
• Select the Billing Settings option
• Select the Manage Billing Document Configuration option
• On the Manage Invoice Rules and Templates tab, there should be a
sample template to download.

34. …so what can you do to make invoice templates fancy?
page
034

35. Basic formatting – Word Displays
page
035

36. Basic formatting – Number & Date
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036
Positive; Negative; Zero value formatting
• # ,0.00;(,0.00);free
• # 0.0000;(0.0000) – 4 decimal places
Using “@” for date formatting
Example: @ yyyy-MMM-dd = 2017-June-01
• MM (01), MMM (Jan), MMMM (January)
• d (1), dd (01)
• yy (17), yyyy (2017)
NOTE: Use uppercase 'M's for months - lowercase 'm's are for
minutes.

37. Basic formatting – Currency
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037

38. Table Filters – GroupBy InvoiceItem
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038
Standard Behavior:
• Each line item will show
Why this may not be ideal?
• Repetitive information
• Really long invoices
…so how do we fix this?
???

39. Table Filters – GroupBy InvoiceItem
page
039
GroupBy Behavior
• Lets you summarize charge table data
• Based off a field that shares identical value
• Allows for a sum of the charge amount
Things to keep in mind:
• GroupBy can is used for the InvoiceItem table only!
• You cannot use GroupBy and TableSort at the same time.
• The TableFilter statement must be within quotes.

40. Table Filters – GroupBy InvoiceItem
page
040
No GroupBy Behavior GroupBy
VS

41. Table Filters – ViewBy Subscription or RatePlan
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041
Standard Behavior:
• Each subscription and all
line items will show for
rate plans.
Why this may not be ideal?
• Repetitive information
• Really long invoices
…so there’s a trick to this, right?
Page 1
Page 2

42. Table Filters – ViewBy Subscription or RatePlan
page
042
ViewBy Behavior
• Lets you roll up the Subscription or Rate Plan data so you
only display one row per Subscription or Rate Plan
• This example summarizes by Rate Plan.
Things to keep in mind:
• There’s also a ViewBy
filter that lets you hide
zero-value rows:
• «TableFilter: ViewBy
RatePlan»

43. page
043
No ViewBy Behavior ViewBy
VS
Table Filters – ViewBy Subscription or RatePlan

44. Conditional (IF) statements
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044
When would I use this?
To further customize the template and possibly reduce the need for multiple
template versions.
Some common examples:
• Displaying different Images & Tables
• Instead of $0.00 for a freebie line item, display the word “Free!”
• Show different language/disclaimers based on payment method
• Hide/display certain fields (hide Address2 line if it is blank, etc)
Syntax:
{ IF [Test Condition] [Result Displayed if TRUE] [Result Displayed if FALSE] }
Caveats:
• Not all fields are “if-able” Supported If fields
• Nested “if” clauses can be really complicated – so test well
If this presentation is
interesting, then Zed is:
Otherwise, Zed is:

45. Conditional (IF) statements
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045
Example:
• Change logo based off state
• Hide Address 2 line if the field is null.

46. Conditional (IF) statements
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046
An example of someone with no Address 2 and who doesn’t live in California:

47. Conditional (IF) statements
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047
An example of someone living in an apartment in California

48. Q&A
page
048

49. thank you.

50. Appendix
Zuora Team

51. Advanced Goodies
page
051
When would I use this?
To group and subtotal complicated invoice item and usage charges.
Mergefields Involved:
• NestedTable:GroupColumn (used for grouping information from merge fields
• NestedTable:ValueColumn (used for calculating subtotals that have a numeric merge field
like amount, or qty)
Caveats:
• On the following support nested tables:
• Usage merge fields and custom merge fields
• Invoice item merge fields and custom merge fields
• Best practice: do not use TableFilter:GroupBy for invoice items in nested tables
See examples listed here: Examples of Nested Tables
Nested Tables - Usage and InvoiceItem

52. page
052
• Set the value to a temp variable and display that value somewhere
else in the document.
• USE-CASE: Customer required credit card “last 4” in the
transaction table for payments.
• Problems:
• Last 4 are only listed in the payment table…
[not in the transaction table]
• You cannot re-display a table after it has been created.
SET & REF Statements
Advanced Goodies

53. Advanced Goodies
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053
• This is a combination of Conditional Logic and SET/REF statements.
Display Subscription table only if there are more than one subscriptions on an invoice

54. Advanced Goodies
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054
Display Subscription table only if there are more than one subscriptions on an invoice
No Subscription
Table View
Invoice Charges
+ Subscription
Table View

55. page
055
Advanced Goodies
• Combination of math functions and SET/REF
Calculate the number of days within a service period

56. page
056
Advanced Goodies
• Using math functions, you can do some fancy stuff with the numeric value fields.
Calculate the Sum of an invoice item amount

57. TableFilter CheatSheet
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057
InvoiceItem (Charges) Table
• Used to group similar line items together and sum up
charge values.
• Commonly used GroupBy fields:
• “TableFilter:GroupBy RatePlanName”
• “TableFilter:GroupBy ServicePeriod”
• “TableFilter:GroupBy ChargePeriod”
• “TableFilter:GroupBy ChargeType”
Subscription Summary Table
• Used to display one row per Subscription or RatePlan
• “TableFilter:ViewBy Subscription”
• “TableFilter:ViewBy RatePlan”
• “TableFilter:HideZeroValueRows”
Previous Transactions Table
• Used to display transactions related to the invoice
(payments, adjustments, etc)
• “TableFilter:FromLastInvoice”
• “TableFilter:UpToDaysOld”
• “TableFilter:HideTransactionType Invoice”

58. Formatting Cheat Sheet
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058

59. Resources Links
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059
Knowledge Center Articles
• Creating Custom Invoices
• Customize Invoice Templates Using Word Mail Merge
• Merge Fields for Invoices
• Conditional Logic (If Fields)
• Merge Fields for Conditional fields on Invoices
• Summarize Invoice Items (TableSort:GroupBy)
• Configure the Subscription or Rate Plan Summary Table
(TableSort:ViewBy)
• Displaying Custom Fields on the Invoice
• Grouping and Subtotal Functions in Nested Tables
• Examples of Nested Tables
Community Posts
• Thread where we're posting all the examples
• Invoice Template Tagged Posts