Billing for Agency accounts

The Billing menu allows Agency accounts to view and pay for their sub-accounts’ subscriptions with a single invoice. This feature is free and available to all Agency accounts.

Billing is facilitated by the Consolidated Invoicing feature that lets you group multiple product subscriptions into a single invoice. It is a mandatory feature for any Agency accounts wishing to pay for their sub-accounts’ subscriptions:

• Without Consolidated Invoicing enabled: you can view your sub-accounts’ subscriptions and invoices, but can’t pay for them.
• With Consolidated Invoicing enabled: you can view your sub-accounts’ subscriptions and invoices, and you can select which of them to process in a single combined invoice paid by your Agency account.

Important usage notes

Enabling billing and the Consolidated Invoicing feature entails several under-the-hood technical changes that you should be aware of:

1. Once you select which of your sub-accounts you want to go under your Agency account’s billing, their active subscriptions are canceled and immediately reinstalled as a consolidated invoice. The latest billing period of their subscriptions becomes this consolidated invoice’s billing period.
2. Your sub-accounts’ active subscription payments cover the fee of the new consolidated invoice. Some payment providers may block this automatic process. If you notice any discrepancies, please contact us at https://stape.io/helpdesk/submit-request.
3. You pay for ALL subscriptions of the sub-accounts under your billing. It's impossible to only select a part of their subscriptions and leave others for the sub-account's owner to pay.
4. Due to technical limitations, your sub-accounts won't be able to create free sGTM plans or start a trial period for any Gateway products (such as Meta CAPI Gateway or Signals Gateway) while under your Agency account’s billing. 
5. If your sub-accounts have an active free sGTM plan or Gateway trial and you add them to your Agency account’s billing, those subscriptions will be automatically upgraded to the lowest paid plan.
6. With Consolidated Invoicing, there is a single invoice per billing cycle (i.e., one invoice for all monthly plans and one for all annual plans). This means that, if some of your sub-accounts’ subscriptions are paid monthly and others are paid annually, you will see two invoices: 

• One consolidated invoice for all monthly subscriptions.
• One consolidated invoice for all annual subscriptions.

How to activate billing

1. Log in to your stape.io Agency account.

2. Open Billing → Details → click Add billing info and configure a billing method. 

3. After adding a billing method, you will be prompted to set up consolidated invoicing. You can configure it right away or later, but you won’t be able to use the Billing functionality until you do. Click Set up now to continue.

If you click Do it later, you can continue the setup by clicking Billing → Accounts. 

4. Next, review the terms of consolidated invoicing, check the box, and click Enable consolidated invoice.

How to add or remove accounts under your billing

Once you’ve enabled consolidated invoices, you will be able to access the Accounts menu in Billing. There, you can select one of your Agency’s sub-accounts and add them to your billing by clicking Add user. That account’s active subscription will be canceled and immediately recreated under your account’s billing.

Below, you will see the list of users who are already under your billing. 

At any moment, you can remove accounts from your billing. Also, please keep in mind that your sub-accounts’ owners can choose to unsubscribe from your billing to be able to pay for themselves.

You can click Billing → Invoices to see which of your sub-accounts’ subscriptions were paid as consolidated invoices and which remained separated.

How to add a new subscription under your billing

Once you’ve enabled Consolidated Invoicing on your Agency account, any future subscriptions that your sub-accounts add, as well as the subscriptions of any new sub-accounts you add in the future, will be automatically included in the respective consolidated invoice (i.e., monthly or annual). That consolidated invoice’s fee will be automatically recalculated to include the new subscription – you don’t need to do anything manually.

Example:

• Today is May 1, and you have an annual consolidated invoice with a billing date of June 1.
• You add a new sub-account to your billing. We charge you for that sub-account’s subscriptions for the period from May 1 through June 1. 
• After that, the new sub-account’s subscriptions are included in the consolidated invoice, and on June 1, we charge you for the updated consolidated invoice fee.

How to apply promo codes to consolidated invoices

You can add a promo code in Billing → Accounts, allowing you to apply a single promo code to all subscriptions of all accounts within the consolidated invoice simultaneously.

How to deactivate consolidated invoices

Unlike with Standard accounts, Agency accounts are required by billing providers to enable consolidated invoicing to be able to use the Billing functionality and pay for their sub-accounts’ subscriptions. It is impossible to disable consolidated invoicing for them, apart from deleting your billing method. In that case, you will still be able to see invoices paid by your sub-accounts, but you won’t be able to pay for their subscriptions through your Agency account.

If you wish to deactivate this feature, contact us at https://stape.io/helpdesk/submit-request. 

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