Creating Prepaid Subscription Quotes with Zuora

This document provides a detailed walkthrough on creating prepaid subscription quotes using Zuora. Prepaid subscriptions allow customers to pay in advance for a specified amount of usage over a defined period, such as storage capacity, API calls, or user licenses. This is achieved through prepaid subscriptions with drawdown, enabling users to quote a fixed quantity upfront and consume it over time.

Step 1

Demonstrate creating a prepaid subscription quote. Customers may prefer usage-based prepayments instead of postpaid billing.

Step 2

Some customers wish to pay in advance for a defined amount of usage over a set period. Zuora CPQX supports prepaid subscriptions, which allow quoting a fixed quantity upfront and consuming it over time.

Step 3

Suppose a customer, Harper, requests heavy cloud storage usage for six months. Harper wants to prepay for a set amount of gigabytes of storage to be consumed as needed. We'll create a prepaid subscription quote to capture this upfront commitment and then verify the prepaid balance in billing.

Step 4

Before creating the quote, verify certain prerequisite administrative settings for prepaid drawdown functionality. First, your Zoho Billing tenant must have orders enabled.

Step 5

Ensure orders are enabled in your CPQX environment in Salesforce.

Step 6

Navigate to Zoho Config, advance quote, and select advance quote configuration settings.

Step 7

Verify that the "Enable Prepaid with Drawdown" option is enabled.

Step 8

This option cannot be edited directly here. You need to run an OPEX code from the developer console.

Step 9

Enable "Prepaid with Drawdown" in CPQX. This setting cannot be edited here; navigate to the developer console to proceed.

Step 10

Open the debug window, execute the anonymous window, and copy the code to enable "Prepaid with Drawdown" in CPQX. Execute the code, and once complete, you will see the option enabled in CPQX.

Step 11

Close the window and return to quote configuration. Verify if the quote version is greater than 10 or beyond 10.8.

Step 12

For standard prepaid usage, use quotes greater than 10.8. For prepaid with minimum commitment, use version 10.31. Ensure you are using SOAP API 141.0 or newer.

Step 13

Verify this by navigating to 360.

Step 14

Navigate to your Connection Setup and verify the API version.

Step 15

The version should be beyond 141.0 to accommodate prepaid minimum commitment use cases.

Step 16

Add relevant fields to the CPQ field set, such as prepaid drawdown rate, drawdown UOM, and prepaid quantity.

Step 17

Include fields like prepaid total quantity, validity period, and prepaid UOM.

Step 18

Add these fields to your quote rate plan charge object and select Charge Display Fields.

Step 19

In the Charge Display Field set, add these fields. After adding, click Save. We have already created a product in Zoho Billing; let's review it quickly.

Step 20

Navigate to Zoho Billing, go to Product Catalog, and access the cloud storage base plan.

Step 21

This is the Usage Cloud Storage Plan, a prepaid usage plan. Let's examine the prepayment charge.

Step 22

The prepayment charge is $30 per month for five gigabytes. Now, let's look at the details.

Step 23

The prepayment total units are five gigabytes per subscription term. Let's cancel this and examine the drawdown charge.

Step 24

The drawdown is a usage-based charge. It has per-unit pricing at two gigabytes, drawing down at one gigabyte per gigabyte of usage.

Step 25

Scrolling down reveals other configurations. Let's cancel this and return to Salesforce to create a quote for Harper.

Step 26

On the Opportunity page, click "New Quote."

Step 27

Create a new quote and verify the quote information.

Step 28

Fill in the quote name and proceed to the subscription section to view the details.

Step 29

Search for the usage, cloud storage product. Add both the prepaid and usage charges.

Step 30

The prepayment charge is $30, and the usage charge is $2 per gigabyte.

Step 31

The prepaid quantity is valid for a subscription term. The second usage charge draws down accordingly.

Step 32

The unit of measure is gigabytes, and it is a usage-based charge. Click Save to add this charge to the quote.

Step 33

Charge metrics are calculated for the prepayment charge, but the usage or drawdown charge is calculated based on uploaded usage data. The quote is now created; submit it.

Step 34

View the quote details.

Step 35

View the detailed display of charge information. The prepayment charge uses flat fee pricing with a prepaid option, top-up operation type, and recurring charge type.

Step 36

No discount is applied, and the effective price is $30 for five gigabytes.

Step 37

The drawdown charge uses usage-based per-unit pricing. Save and send the details to Zuora. The quote is successfully sent to Zuora.

Step 38

Subscription 95 is created from this quote. In Zuora Billing, you will find subscription 95.

Step 39

View all TCV values and MRR. Scroll down to view charge details, including prepayment and drawdown charges.

Step 40

Check the charge history; no changes have been made yet.

Step 41

Scroll to the Prepaid Balance section to see the total prepaid amount of $5, with no drawdown yet. Remaining balance is $5, indicating 0% drawdown.

Step 42

Click the arrow to view details. Return to Salesforce and review the quote.

Step 43

On the Opportunity page, select Harper's opportunity and click "New Quote."

Step 44

Scroll down to see subscription 95 with a prepaid balance icon, indicating a prepaid-based subscription. Click the icon to view the prepaid balance.

Step 45

From November 2020 to 2026, the total prepaid unit is $5, with no drawdown yet. The balance remains at five.

Step 46

Close this information and return to Zuora Billing to process usage. We have the usage file with account ID, unit of measure, quantity, and start date.

Step 47

The total quantity is 2.7 gigabytes, not fully consuming the prepaid amount yet. Save and upload this usage file.

Step 48

Click "Add Usage Records."

Step 49

Choose the file.

Step 50

Click Submit.

Step 51

The uploaded usage has a status of "Processed." Review what has been processed in the subscription.

Step 52

Scroll to the Prepaid Balance section. Total prepaid units are five; drawdown units are 2.7.

Step 53

The remaining balance is 2.3, meaning 54% of drawdown is consumed. Review the details.

Step 54

Uploaded usage data shows a drawdown from a prepayment of five. It includes minus 1, minus 0.5, and plus 1.2. Review this data in Zuora Billing and Salesforce.

Step 55

Return to Salesforce and refresh the page.

Step 56

Review the updated prepaid balance. The prepaid unit was five, drawdown units are 2.7, and the remaining balance is 2.3.

Step 57

You can view the prepaid balance in Zuora CPQX.

Step 58

Prepaid subscriptions are ideal for customers preferring upfront payments, avoiding month-to-month fluctuations. Usage is drawn down against the prepaid balance, with configurable prepaid quantity, unit of measure, validity, drawdown frequency, credit option, and rollup behavior.

Step 59

Minimum commitment integration is allowed only if enabled by the tenant. CPQ must have the "Enable Prepaid with Drawdown" setting enabled to display prepaid balances in the UI.

Step 60

Ensure accuracy across environments by using 360+ Sync on supported versions if relying on synced prepaid charge data. This concludes the demonstration.