Apex usage billing
Usage-based billing that starts from what was delivered.
For most of the businesses Ferrata works with, usage is not an API call. It is a delivery, a timesheet, a pallet-day or an hour on a machine, and it already sits in the ERP. Apex rates it at the price on the signed contract, checks it before anything is billed, and posts the invoice back to SAP, NetSuite or Dynamics.
Where usage comes from
Three sources, one rating engine.
Apex does not care where a unit of usage was recorded, only that it is counted once and priced correctly.
Your ERP
Deliveries, service tickets, timesheets, equipment hours and meter readings, read through the same connection that brings down your customers and invoices.
Your warehouse
Scheduled imports from Snowflake, BigQuery or Postgres, for usage your product already lands there.
An events API
Events sent as they happen, each with an idempotency key, so a retry is never billed twice.
Pricing it supports
The commercial terms usage deals are actually written on.
- Per unit
- A flat rate per delivery, per hour, per kilometer or per transaction.
- Tiered and volume
- Graduated tiers that price each band separately, or volume pricing that reprices every unit at the tier reached.
- Committed minimum
- A monthly or annual floor, billed whether or not usage reaches it, with overage priced above it.
- Prepaid credits
- A balance bought up front that usage draws down, with a projected run-out date.
- True-ups
- A reconciliation at the end of a term between what was committed and what was used.
Before an invoice exists
Usage is checked before it is billed, not after.
- 01
Collect
Usage arrives from the ERP, the warehouse or the API and is matched to a customer and a contract line.
- 02
Check
A deterministic anomaly check compares each feed to its own history. A spike, a drop or a missing feed holds that customer's billing for a person to look at.
- 03
Rate
Usage is priced against the versioned plan on the contract. Usage that arrives late re-rates the period it belongs to.
- 04
Post
The invoice is calculated in Apex and posted to the ERP as an A/R invoice, then read back to confirm it landed as written.
Agents propose, people approve
The agent drafts. A person decides.
A usage anomaly agent explains why a feed was held, with the history beside it, and an invoice review agent flags lines that look wrong before the run. Rating itself is a deterministic calculation with no model step.
Every agent stops at an approval gate until it has earned its way out of one. Nothing releases cash, commits spend or touches a customer without a person saying so.
Your dataModels that read your data run inside your environment, behind your firewall. No client data reaches a frontier lab.
Start here, keep the foundation
Start with usage-based billing. Add the rest without starting over.
Start with usage billing for one product line. The customers, contracts and invoices it needs come down from the ERP into your Ferrata foundation, and the invoices it produces go back into the ERP. Adding quoting or revenue recognition later works from the same contracts and the same invoices.
FAQ
Questions, answered plainly.
What is usage-based billing?
Usage-based billing charges a customer for what they consumed in a period rather than a fixed fee: deliveries made, hours worked, units shipped, transactions processed. The software has to collect that usage, match it to the customer's contract, price it at the agreed rate and produce an invoice.
Can Apex bill usage that lives in our ERP?
Yes, and for most industrial and services businesses that is where it lives. Apex reads deliveries, timesheets, service tickets, equipment hours and meter readings from SAP, NetSuite or Dynamics through the same connection it uses for customers and invoices, so nothing has to be exported first.
What happens when usage arrives late?
Late usage is attached to the period it belongs to and that period is re-rated. If the invoice for that period has already been posted, Apex proposes an adjustment or a credit note rather than editing a posted invoice.
How are mistakes caught before an invoice goes out?
A deterministic anomaly check compares each usage feed to its own history. A sudden spike, a sudden drop or a feed that stopped arriving holds that customer's billing until a person looks at it. Nothing about the check depends on a model.
Does Apex support committed minimums and prepaid credits?
Yes. A contract can carry a minimum commitment with overage above it, prepaid credits that usage draws down, and a true-up at the end of the term. All of it is rated from the same contract lines that were quoted.
Does Apex take payments?
No. Apex calculates the invoice and posts it to your ERP, which remains the system of record for the receivable. Cash is applied in the ERP as it is today, and Apex reads the payments back down.
Related in Apex
- Usage meteringMeters that turn raw events and ERP records into billable quantities.View
- Subscription billingBilling schedules with phases, amendments, proration and co-terming.View
- InvoicingInvoices calculated in Apex, checked against the PO, posted to your ERP first.View
- Revenue recognitionRevenue schedules computed from your policy, journals posted to the ERP after review.View
- NetSuitePrice levels in, sales orders, invoices and journals out, on Oracle NetSuite.View
From Ferrata Labs
Start with usage-based billing, or talk it through first.
Thirty minutes with Ferrata Labs on one workflow. You leave with a view of where Apex fits, and an honest answer if the sequencing is wrong and you should fix something else first.
Your pricing, approval and billing rules are your advantage, and they stay yours. Apex is configured to the way you sell and bill. You are not handing over a playbook or fitting into a template.