Monthly and anniversary cycles
- monthly—all cycles start on the same day of each month.
- custom—all cycles use the same pre-determined table of end dates.
- anniversary—each cycle starts on the day of the month that the associated account or subscription was created.
By default, each cycle is a month long. You can use different types of cycles throughout your company.
Custom cycles may not follow a monthly pattern. For example, you can configure a custom cycle that is three months long.
If your company uses monthly billing, you process the billing run once a month because every invoicing period finishes on the same date. If your company uses anniversary billing, you should process the billing run several times a month because the invoicing periods end at different times throughout the month.
Consolidated billing
If an account has multiple subscriptions, by default Smile sets all subscriptions to use the same invoicing cycle as the account. This is known as consolidated billing, and lets you issue a single invoice for the account each cycle.
If you use consolidated billing and add a subscription to an account in the middle of an invoicing period, Smile pro-rates the recurring charges and any period limits, such as download limits, if it is configured to do so.