Copaco Cloud New Billing Process

Summary

In our new copaco cloud platform the billing process is changed. This article describes our new billing process.

Information

General

• The new cloud platform adopts a less error-prone billing method for all Microsoft services, where the Microsoft purchase invoice to Copaco is leading at all times. In fact, the new cloud platform is integrated by way of a ‘two-way sync’ with Microsoft, which means there are no differences between the Copaco Cloud platform and the Microsoft Partner Center - changes are always reflected. This also means that any promotions or price protection you are entitled to are applied automatically.

• Whereas invoices were previously sent from the Copaco Cloud platform, from now on they will be generated and sent from our ERP package. You will now receive invoices from the finance@copaco.cloud e-mail address.

• VAT is not calculated and listed on the new end customer specification, so you need to add this yourself when invoicing your end customer.

Invoice layout (for more detailed information click here)

• From now on, your new Copaco Cloud invoice will contain a Partner ID number that corresponds to the Copaco account number/client number.

• The invoice number format is changing. This will be the same as the number range of the regular Copaco invoices. As such, the Copaco Cloud invoice number will no longer be TN (for Copaco Netherlands) and TB (for Copaco Belgium).

• The total amount will now appear at the top of the first page of the invoice. It is then specified by customer. The annex to your invoice will list the details per subscription for each customer.

• The invoice annex will no longer list a separate discount column. The discount and margin are visible when placing an order and in the subscription report.

• The invoice annex groups the services for each customer by vendor/brand. For example, all Veeam lines are listed together. The invoice is sorted by vendor, subscription ID, period, and charge type.

• For multiple services, the price per component used to be broken down in the invoice annex. This is now a single total amount. The invoice annex does list the usage for each component (for example: 40 GB RAM, 20 vCores, 9000 GB Storage as part of a Copaco VMware Cloud subscription).

• The invoice annex lists usage services under the Usage fee heading.

• Change orders are summarised on a single line in your invoice annex to improve clarity. These can be viewed under Aggregation of your change orders. Details of all change orders can be viewed in the cloud platform itself.

• The cycle fee is listed in your invoice annex under Recurring fee.

• In the first month, the purchase and changes to a subscription are listed under 1st term fee in your invoice annex. This means the changes are listed as a one-time item, not as a correction line.

• Purchase costs are listed under One-time fee in your invoice annex.

Partner portal

Invoices and customer specifications are no longer downloadable from the cloud platform, but available in the Partner Portal >> My Company >> Invoices. You can log into the partner portal with your cloud platform credentials.

APIs

A growing (cloud) business is putting increasing pressure on administration at many of our partners. For both copaco.com and Copaco Cloud, Copaco provides several APIs to minimise manual tasks and errors. The inauguration of the new cloud platform means the Copaco Cloud APIs will change.

Billing API

The Billing API is used to retrieve billing details from the cloud platform. We see this data being used in ERP and/or PSA.

The new platform uses different logic, so that the API content will differ from the previous platform API. All fields from the previous API are available in the new API (backwards compatible) but the data in these fields may be empty or anomalous. What’s more, fields have been added. The Knowledge Base article contains the new API documentation.

Right now, the billing API consists of four different endpoints. Two endpoints will be renamed and two endpoints will be removed.

(*) Due to a different structure of price calculation, a price is not determined per component. You will find the total price of the subscription, as well as the components and quantities in the Billing API. It means this API is redundant.

Changes to Partner Invoices an Customer Specifications:

• Five data fields are populated with

strings instead of hard values

• Field added:

billing cycle

• Field added:

billing frequency

Cloudstore API (APS BUS ACCESS)

This API is used to retrieve or modify platform data in real time. This can be used, for example, to add customers, retrieve and/or amend subscriptions via API.

This endpoint will no longer be accessible after the new platform goes live. Existing logic, structure, authentication, etc. will be completely replaced by the new platform’s various APIs. Functionality will remain largely the same. The Knowledge Base article contains the new API documentation.

Customers API

Thanks to new functionalities in the platform, this API is redundant. The new platform allows you to synchronise all customers in your Microsoft Partner Center with the Copaco Cloud platform with a single click of a button.

Authentication and documentation

The access and documentation for the new APIs can be found in the new Partner portal.