Account Hierarchy 

Introduction 

Account hierarchy streamlines subscription management for you to manage your multiple customers within the same organization. Whether customers handle subscriptions individually or organizationally, this feature enables the creation of a structured hierarchy based on factors like business lines or geographic locations.

Let's consider this as an example for further use:

Imagine ACME as a parent company that has ACME-US, ACME-India, and ACME-EU as branches (child companies). Payments for invoices belonging to the child customers can be either done by a child customer individually or the parent customer, depending on the configuration in Chargebee Billing.

There can be three scenarios with respect to the parent or the child customer being the payment owner or the invoice owner:

• Parent customer is the payment owner and the child customer is the invoice owner
• Child customer is both the payment owner and invoice owner
• Parent customer is both the payment owner and invoice owner

Let us understand these scenarios in detail:

Parent customer as payment owner & child customer as invoice owner 

Chargebee Receivables focuses on the payment-related aspects of subscriptions, so certain configurations and information displays may differ from Chargebee Billing to emphasize payment-related details.

• Definition: In this scenario, for a subscription belonging to a child customer, the invoice is raised to the child customer, but the payment is made by the parent customer. According to our example, the invoice is raised to ACME-India but payment is made by ACME.
• Invoice Presentment: This is where it differs from Chargebee Billing . In Chargebee Billing, the invoice is present under the child customer, but in Chargebee Receivables, the same invoice is present under the parent customer (both in Customer View and Client Portal). Additionally, an invoice owner field (custom field) exists in Receivables to distinguish between the parent and child customer invoices.
• Payment Reminder: In Receivables, you can send a consolidated email to the parent customer that contains invoices belonging to both the parent and child customer. The same applies to account statements.
• Limitations:
  • You can not send emails or account statements to child customers directly because there are no invoices under child customers in Receivables. For this scenario, all of them are mapped to the parent customer.
  • Credit Notes and payments belonging to child customers are not visible in the parent customer's account statement, unlike invoices.

Child Customer as Payment and Invoice Owner 

• Definition: In this scenario, for a subscription belonging to a child customer, the invoice is raised to the child customer and the payment is also made by the child customer. According to our example, the invoice is raised to ACME-India and payment is also made by ACME-India.
• Invoice Presentment: Here, the invoice visibility is the same as Chargebee Billing , i.e., the invoice is displayed under the child customer.
• Payment Reminder: The payment reminder emails and the account statement are shared with the child customer directly.

Parent Customer as Payment and Invoice Owner 

• Definition: In this scenario, even for a subscription belonging to the child customer, the invoice is raised to the parent customer and the payment is also made by the parent customer. According to our example, the invoice is raised to ACME and payment is also made by ACME.
• Invoice Presentment: Here, the invoice visibility is the same as Chargebee Billing , i.e., the invoice is displayed under the parent customer.
• Payment Reminder: In Receivables, you can send payment reminders to parent customers where they can see their own and child customer subscription invoices.
• Limitations:
  • You can not send emails or account statements to child customers directly because there are no invoices under child customers in Receivables. For this scenario, all of them are mapped to the parent customer.
  • Credit notes and payments belonging to child customers are not visible in the parent customer's account statement, unlike invoices.

Visibility in Chargebee Receivables 

You have understood the scenarios and how the account hierarchy plays its role. Now, let's see how you can use custom fields in the Customer View and Invoice View to distinguish between parent and child invoices and other related details.

Custom Fields in Customer View 

Follow these steps to enable account-hierarchy-related custom fields in the Customer View:

1. Login to Chargebee Receivables .

2. Go to Receivables from the left navigation pane and select the Customer View tab.

3. Click the Filter icon and select Column Chooser.

   

4. Scroll down and expand the Custom Fields section.

5. All the displayed fields can be used as columns in the Customer View. Select the required fields and click Apply.

   

You can also save the view for your future reference. Learn more about Views.
A saved Account Hierarchy View looks like this:

Custom Fields in Invoice View 

Similar to the Customer View, you can use the same customer-specific custom fields in the Invoice View as columns and also save it as a view (if required).

Follow the steps to enable account-hierarchy-related custom fields in the Invoice View:

1. Login to Chargebee Receivables .

2. Go to Receivables and select the Invoice View (Open Data).

3. Click the Filter icon and select Column Chooser.

   

4. Scroll down and expand the Customer Level Custom Fields section.

5. All the displayed fields can be used as columns in the Customer View. Select the required fields and click Apply.