Microsoft CSP Monthly Invoicing FAQ

This article is written in a question and answer format, a problem statement/question will be listed, and then an explanation as to why this may have occurred.

 

Why doesn't my monthly Invoice Unit Price doesn't match the current pricelist?

This relates to Microsoft's Price Protection rules (Each subscription created in PRISM/Partner Centre has price protection rule applied to it. The price protection rule lasts for 12 months, at the end of the 12-month period the subscription will then revert to being charged at the current pricing; and this price will be locked in for another 12 months.).

In PRISM you can use the Pricelist feature on the left hand tool bar to look up the historical price from when the subscription was provisioned.

 

Why do I have two or more line items for the same product?

Microsoft CSP invoicing is consumption-based, so any changes made to the subscription during the period will be recorded on the invoice, and each line item will be charged pro-rata for the period it was active.

 

Why do I have two line items on my invoice for the same tenant/product with the same quantity but a different price?

This is the representation of Microsoft's Price Protection rule reverting at the end of the 12 month period from the stored price to the current price, then locking again for another 12 months.

 

My line total doesn't match the Unit Price multiplied by Quantity?

This will mean that the charge wasn't for the full month, if you review the dates next to the subscription you will note that it is for a portion of the month, this will mean that there is a pro-rata charge. In PRISM you can download the CSV file against the invoice, this will contain the billable ratio that is used to calculate the line item. The formula is Unit Price*Quantity*Billable Ratio, and includes any specific country rounding rules.

 

Why is the Retail (End Customer) Price the same as Partner Price?

Microsoft sells some products where they sell to Crayon, partners and customers all at the same price. Example, Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing

 

I provisioned a SKU in the current month but was billed for one day of the previous month?

PRISM is set in UTC time zone, so if the provisioning occurred on the last day of the month in UTC time the billing for that month capture this.

 

Where can I find Azure Usage Data?

In PRISM, navigate to the Invoices tab on the left-hand toolbar, locate the invoice relating to the period you would like to see azure usage for, then select the expand icon on the right. Then select the button Download Associated files; there will be a file for any subscriptions under Azure Classic and another file for Azure Plan; select download and the CSV files will be available for you.

 

What do the columns mean in the Azure Usage Files (CSVs)?

New Azure Plan

Column ID	Value	Column ID	Value
A	Your End Customer's Name	R	Unit
B	Your MPN ID	S	Partner Buy Currency
C	Your Billing MPN ID	T	RRP – End Customer Buy Price (Partner Sell)
D	Your End Customer's Tenant Domain	U	Total Pre-Tax – Partner Buy Price (Partner Buy)
E	The Subscription ID, as per PRISM	V	Additional Info
F	The Azure Resource Group	W	Billable Contract Agreement ID
G	Instance Data	X	Consumed Service
H	Any Tags, if present	Y	Meter Type
I	The Usage Date, the metered day	Z	Product ID
J	Meter Category	AA	Product Name
K	Meter Sub Category	AB	Resource Location
L	Meter ID	AC	Resource Uri
M	Meter Name	AD	SKU ID
N	Meter Region	AE	SKU Name
O	Period Charge Start Date (this is the billing period)	AF	Vendor FX Rate, the rate Microsoft used to convert from USD to Currency
P	Period Charge End Date (this is the billing period)	AG	Vendor Subscription ID, Partner Centre ID
Q	Quantity	AH	Subscription Name

 

Azure Classic

Column ID	Value	Column ID	Value
A	Your End Customer's Name	L	Meter ID
B	Your MPN ID	M	Meter Name
C	Your Billing MPN ID	N	Meter Region
D	Your End Customer's Tenant Domain	O	Period Charge Start Date (this is the billing period)
E	The Subscription ID, as per PRISM	P	Period Charge End Date (this is the billing period)
F	The Azure Resource Group	Q	Quantity
G	Instance Data	R	Unit
H	Any Tags, if present	S	Partner Buy Currency
I	The Usage Date, the metered day	T	RRP – End Customer Buy Price (Partner Sell)
J	Meter Category	U	Total Pre-Tax – Partner Buy Price (Partner Buy)
K	Meter Sub Category	V	Subscription Name

Why does my Azure Usage Data mention a date from a different month?

Within new Azure Plan, Microsoft send Crayon a recon file on the last day of each month, and this is then imported to make monthly charges on the MS CSP invoice. If Microsoft find any charges that were missed, they add them into the next month’s recon bill. 

 

So, you may have cases where you have September 2021 usage (in the PRISM recon file), but the invoice billing period is October 2021. This problem is very specific to Azure Plan. 

 

What are Azure Marketplace charges?

Some products from Microsoft's Azure Marketplace are recorded separately in Microsoft's system from standard Azure Plan charges; therefore, these are created as separate invoices in PRISM due to the manual nature of exporting the charges from Microsoft's system. A technician from the partner company would have provisioned these services directly within the Azure Portal.

 

What is a billable ratio?

A billable ratio is how PRISM calculates the charge value for a pro-rata line item. To calculate the billable ratio, first, you need to take the number of days in that specific month, for example, October 2021 = 31 Days; then you need to calculate the number of days the subscription was active for in this period (including the last day) for example if the subscription was active from the 1st of October 2021 to the 19th of October 2021, which equates to 19 days. So the billable ratio formula is {Number Active Days}/{Total Days in Month}. For the previous example, this is 19/31 = 0.612903226. 

When using to calculate a line item you take the Unit Price * Quantity * Billable Ratio. For the previous example where the subscription was $10.00 and a quantity of 5 the formula would be 10*5*0.612903226 = 30.64516129, this would the be rounded using Crayon's rounding rules to $30.65