Usage Accelerator Overview

Nue Usage Accelerator is designed to streamline usage consumption processing and invoice generation for various types of subscription-based services. 

 

The Usage Accelerator seamlessly work in conjunction with the Nue Price Builder. By utilizing the Price Builder, businesses can easily create a variety of tiered pricing models, including volume-based and tiered-based prices using the price tags and discount tags. This allows them to define their pricing structure once and utilize it for accurate usage rating within the Usage Accelerator. 

 

By utilizing the price tags and discount tags created using the Price Builder, the Usage Accelerator rates usage in real-time. This means that as customers consume services or products, their usage is automatically evaluated against the applicable rates defined in the Price Builder. This real-time rating process ensures accurate and up-to-date billing information.

 

An important advantage of the Usage Accelerator is the separation of the rating process from the billing process. By decoupling these two operations, the billing process becomes fast and scalable. The Usage Accelerator focuses solely on rating the usage, while the billing process can efficiently generate invoices based on the rated usage. This separation enhances system performance, enabling businesses to handle large volumes of usage data and process billing quickly and efficiently.

 

With the Nue Usage Accelerator and Price Builder working seamlessly together, you can streamline your billing operations, improve accuracy, and enhance the scalability of your usage-based subscription services. 

Usage Models

Nue Usage Accelerator supports three common usage models: Overage Usage, Credit, and Credit Burndown.

 

Overage Usage

This model allows customers to use services beyond their allocated limits. Usage is tracked and billed separately for the additional consumption, typically at a higher rate. It provides flexibility while ensuring accurate billing for extra consumption.

 

Credit Burndown

With this model, customers prepay for a certain credit balance regularly. As they use services, the credit balance decreases until it reaches zero. Usage is billed based on the consumed credit amount. It offers control over expenditure while allowing customers to manage their usage within the available credits. Consumptions over the credit limit can be rated as overage usage.

 

Credit

Unlike Credit Burndow, in this model, customers prepay for a certain credit balance once instead. As they use services, the available one-time credits can be consumed.

 

How Nue Usage Works

Nue Usage Accelerator streamlines real-time usage rating and billing with following steps:

 

ORDER Revenue Ops users establish volume-based or tier-based pricing as price tags and associate them with usage products. Sales users create quotes for customers based on these products, which are then finalized into orders.

 

CONSUME Customers consume the usage products, while companies collect raw usage data such as the number of API calls, computation minutes, or storage in gigabytes. This raw usage data is ingested into Nue either through API integration or CSV uploads. Nue aggregates this data into hourly or daily records, categorized by customer ID, subscription number, or custom grouping properties.

 

RATE Nue performs real-time rating of the usage records based on the defined tiered pricing. This process determines the appropriate charges for each customer's usage.

 

BILL Nue's billing engine retrieves all the rated usage records for the corresponding billing period, aggregates the amounts, and generates an invoice item for each usage subscription.

• If Credit Burndown usage model is used, customers may have credits in the credit pool.  Nue's billing engine will deduct the credits from the customers' credit pools first, before billing for the overage usage.

INVOICE Nue combines the invoice items generated from usage records with invoice items from other product types, such as subscriptions and one-time physical goods or services. This consolidation results in a single invoice for each customer, encompassing all relevant items within the billing period.

 

The following diagram illustrates this flow.

 

A Usage Scenario

Thoughout this tutorial, we'll provide practical examples using a hypothetical prospect/customer named Sharper Revenue Inc. This potential buyer is interested in the VROOM Webinar product from our hypothetical company Vroom Inc. 

 

To make it simple, Vroom Inc. has a default Bill Cycle Day as 1st Day of January.  

 

 

The VROOM Webinar product is listed at $0.79 per participant, but has a special overage price :

• The first 500 participants in a month is at list price of $0.79 per participant
• For the first 250 participants in a month over 500 participants, $0.69 per participant
• For the second 250 participants over 500 participants, $0.59 per participant
• If the customer consumes over 1000 participants per month, then it is a flat fee of $800 for unlimited total number of participants

The following table shows a summary of this pricing structure: 

Price Tier	Price
0-500	$0.79 Participant/Month
501-750	$0.69 Participant/Month
751 - 1000	$0.59 Participant/Month
1000+	$800 Flat for Unlimited Participants / Month

 

Given this structure for the webinar, if a customer has a total of 1000 participants in a month, it comes to: 

1. First 500 Participants: $0.79/Participant Total cost for the first 500 Participants: 500 Participants* $0.79/Participant = $395.

2. Second 250 Participants: $0.69/Participant Total cost for the second 250 Participants: 250 Participants * $0.69/Participant = $172.50.

3. Third 250 minutes: $0.59/Participant Total cost for the third 250 Participants: 250 Participants * $0.59/Participant = $147.50.

Now, let's calculate the cost for 1000 Participants, which is the sum of the three tiers:

Total cost for 1000 Participants a month: $395 + $172.50 + $147.50 = $715.

 

If a customer has a total of 1100 participants in a month, it falls into the last tier, which will be a flat fee of $800. 

Create Unit of Measure

First, we need to create a Unit of Measure that is used for the usage product.  

• Login to Nue App and navigate to Price Builder → UOMs
• Enter the following information: 

Name	Participants
Quantity Dimension	Participant
Term Dimension	Month
Decimal Scale	0
Rounding Mode	Up
Active	Checked

 

Create Product and Price Tag

First, let's create a product namedVROOM Webinar.  

• Login to Nue App and navigate to Price Builder → Product Catalog
• Click New Product button
• Toggle to Advanced Mode.  In 'General Information' tab, enter the information below: 

Product Name	VROOM Webinar
SKU	VM-738493
Description	Pricing by Attendee Number
Default UOM	Participant
Standard Price	0.79
Product Category	Recurring Services
Revenue Model	Overage Usage
Default Subscription Term	12 Months
Default Renewal Term	12 Months
Auto Renew	Checked
Billing Timing	In Arrears
Biling Period	Use System Default
Status	Active
Start Date	01/01/2023
End Date	(Leave it empty)
Can be sold independently	Yes

• Click Save and Next.  Optionally, you can fill in a few features for this product, e.g., Unlimited webinar sessions for up to 30 hours each.  
• Click Save and Next, or you can click Skip to skip this step. 
• In the Prices step, a price book entry for the standard price $0.79 is already created.  
• Click 'Price Tag' icon to add a price tag.  
• Click Add Price Tag and then New Price Tag
• Add a price tag with the following information and apply to the product:

• Click Save

Now we finish creating a new Overage Usage type product that is billed in arrears, as well as a price tag that mixes Per Unit and Flat Fee price tiers.

Create Quote and Subscription

As usual, Sales user can create an opportunity with a primary quote.  In the quote, the user searches for product VROOM Webinar, and drags it to the Line Editor.  

 

The user sets the Start Date as 04/01/2023, and the subscription term to 12 Month.  (Since we are going to upload usage later, so we purposefully choose a Start Date in the past.)

 

Since this is a usage product, the user can set the quantity to be 0.  

 

The user can click on the 'Price Tag' action icon of the VROOM Webinar line item to see that the previously created price tag "Webinar Price Tiers" has already been associated to the line item.  

 

Since the quantity is 0, so none of the tier price is applied to the line item.  In the line editer, the user can change the quantity to a non-zero value, which is considered a committed quantity.  For example, if the user changes the quantity to 100, the total price will be automatically calculated to $948, which is equal to $79 * 12.  

 

If there is a committed quantity, 

• If the actual consumption is less than or equal to the commited quantity, the booked price will be billed;
• If the actual consumption is greater than the committed quantity, the booked price as well as the overage usage will be billed.

Now the user sets the committed quantity to 100, then proceeds to save the quote, and close-won the opportunity.  An active order will be created, which also provisions a new usage-type subscription.

 

Upload and Rate Usage

Customer Sharper Revenue has hosted many webinars in April.  Admin users can upload the raw usage to Nue via CSV, or ingest the raw usage via API.

 

For simplicity, we're going to upload the usage using a CSV file.

 

You can follow the steps below to upload raw usage: 

• Login to Nue App and navigate to Revenue Manager → Assets → Usage
• Click the 'Upload' icon on the upper right side of the usage list (as shown below) and choose 'Raw Usage'.  This will launch the Upload popup. 

 

• Click 'Download template' to download the CSV template.
• Enter the usage information, and click 'Upload' action icon to upload the CSV file.
  • In this example, you can use this CSV file as an example.
  • Please change the Customer ID as the 18-character account ID of your customer account, and Subscription Number as the subscription number you have for this scenario. 
    
    • You can copy the Subscription Number from the Subscription card in the Lifecycle Manager in Salesforce, and copy the 18-character account ID from the URL of the Lifecycle Manager.
  • Also please note that in the example CSV file, these usage records are in the April 2023 time frame, which works well with the order created in the last step.  If you have a different Subscription Start and End Date, you will need to modify the template with different timestamps for each usage.

     

    NOTE   The timestamps for the uploaded raw usage are determined by the customer's timezone settings. Users can assign different timezones for each customer, and the raw usage will be aggregated and rated according to those specific timezones. If a customer does not have a timezone configured, Nue will default to using the timezone of the connected user to rate the customer's usage.

• After the usage file is uploaded, Nue aggregates the raw usage into usage records based on the window size.  
  • • You can configure the Window Size in system settings.  Navigate to Settings → Usage, and set the usage window size.  The available values are DAY and HOUR.  The default window size is Day.
• Click 'Import'.  

After the usage file is upload and imported, the usage records will be displayed in the list in Open status. , the Nue will rate the usage in a few minutes.  You can click the 'Refresh' icon to refresh the usage list.  When the records are rated, the usage records will be in Rated status. 

 

After the usage records are rated, you can see the rated amount of each usage record.  The following screenshot shows that all usage records are rated with the following information: 

• Start Time: The Start Time of the usage window.  If the Window Size is Day, it will be the start time of the day.  If the Window Size is Hour, it will be the start time of the hour.
• Quantity: The total consumed quantity in the window. 
• Termed Total Quantity: The total consumed quantity in the entire usage term.  For example, if the Term Dimension of the UOM is Month (e.g. Participants per Month), then this number indicates the total consumed quantity in the month.
• Rated Amount: The total rated amount of the consumed quantity.
• Term Start Date: The start date of the usage term.  By default, the usage term is aligned with the subscription's term. However, you can configure the usage settings to align the usage term with the billing period in the system setting.  Navigate to Settings → Usage, and enable the setting Align usage with the subscription’s Bill Cycle Day.
• Term End Date.  The end date of the usage term.  By default, the usage term is aligned with the subscription's term. However, you can configure the usage settings to align the usage term with the billing period in the system setting.  Navigate to Settings → Usage, and enable the setting Align usage with the subscription’s Bill Cycle Day.

 

If your organization has an external system to rate the usage of your products and services, you can choose to upload the 'Rated Usage' directly to Nue application, then Nue will skip the rating process for these rated usage but continue generating invoices for them. When you upload rated usage, the 'ratedAmount' column will be required in the CSV file.

• Additionally, if your organization has enabled multiple currencies, you can upload rated usage in different currencies for the same subscription, and Nue will generate separate invoices for each currency independently. If the 'currencyIsoCode' is not specified for the rated usage in the CSV file, the subscription's currency will be used instead.

 

Ingest Usage via API

Optionally, you can automate the usage ingestion using the Post Raw Usage API.

POST https://api.nue.io/cpq/usage-rate

 

For example, the following API ingest 2 more raw usage records of the VROOM Webinar to Nue: 

 

NOTE   It is important to make sure that the raw usage uploaded is processed only once. This objective can be achieved by selecting a deterministic transactionId that ensures that each raw usage has the unique transactionId.  Nue ensures that raw usage records having the same ID will be processed once and only once.

 

curl --location 'https://api.nue.io/usage/raw-usage' \
--header 'apiAccessKey: {{apiAccessKey}}' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {{token}}' \
--data '{
  "transactionId": "SUB-001336-001",  
  "data": [
    {
      "transactionId": "SUB-001336-001",
      "customerId": "0015f00001UpHpvAAF",
      "subscriptionNumber": "SUB-001336",
      "timestamp": "2023-04-24T09:00:06.000Z",
      "quantity": 129,
      "properties": {
      }
    },
    {
      "transactionId": "SUB-001336-002",
      "customerId": "0015f00001UpHpvAAF",
      "subscriptionNumber": "SUB-001336",
      "timestamp": "2023-04-20T09:00:06.000Z",
      "quantity": 398,
      "properties": {
      }
    }
  ]
}
'

For the rated usage, please reference the Rated Usage API.

POST https://api.nue.io/usage/rated-usage

 

Invoice Usage

Finally, we can run a billing schedule to bill these usage records. 

 

You can follow the steps below to create an on-demand billing schedule for a specific customer (e.g. Sharper Revenue):

• Navigate to Revenue Manager → Billing Schedules
• Select Schedule Type as On Demand
• Set Billing Target Date as 05/01/2023
• In the "Included Customers" field, search and select Sharper Revenue (or the customers you will create the invoice for)
• Check "Run Immediately", and click 'Save and Close'.  
• Now a billing job will be executed immediately.  The billing job will retrieve all the rated usage records ingested within the last billing period, aggregate them into invoice items

 

• Click on the 'View' action icon of the billing schedule to view the billing jobs
• There should be at least one invoices generated for at least one customer.  Click on the link in the Invoice Generated column to see the invoices.

 

• In the list of invoices, click on 'View' icon to view the first invoice.  In the Invoice Popup, you can see that there is one invoice item created for VROOM Webinar with all the rated usage amount, plus the charge from the committed quantity.
  • In our case,
    • The total rated usage amount comes to $558.12 with 868 total participants
    • The total committed usage amount comes to $79.00 (this is booked with the order)
    • So the total amount of the invoice item comes to: $637.12

As a result, the customer Sharper Revenue has a total of 868 participants in the month of 04/2023.    Recall that VROOM Webinar has a tier-based price tag:  0-500 Participants: $0.79 Per Unit 500-750 Participants: $0.69 Per Unit 750-100 Participants: $0.59 Per Unit So 860 participants in 04/2023 comes to:    500 * 0.79 + 250 * 0.69 + (868-750) * 0.59 = $637.12 Which matches the invoice item precisely.

 

Usage API Collection

The Usage API Postman Collection is published here.  You can click 'Run in Postman' to import the API collection into your postman workspace.

 

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Congratulations! You've successfully completed the Usage Accelerator tutorial and now have a solid understanding of how Nue billing works. You've learned how to create tiered pricing and apply it to a usage-type subscription.  You've also learned how to upload usage via a CSV file, and how to execute a billing schedule to generate invoices from the rated usage records.

 

But the journey doesn't end there! You can continue to go through other tutorials that provide a deeper dive of other usage models in Nue.