Pax8 billing: how to check your Pax8 bill against client invoices

Every month Pax8 bills you for what your clients used, and every month you bill your clients. The two documents are built by different systems, from different records, often by different people. When they disagree, the difference is either margin you are giving away or a charge your client will eventually question.

This guide is about the check between them: how to read the Pax8 bill so it can be compared with your invoices, which lines cause false alarms, and a routine that takes less time each month than it does the first time.

Why the Pax8 bill and your invoices drift apart

Pax8 knows what was ordered. Your invoices know what was typed into an agreement or pushed there by an integration. Drift starts whenever one changes without the other:

• A seat is added in the Pax8 marketplace or in the client's tenant through Pax8, and the agreement or invoice template is not updated.
• A subscription is cancelled or not renewed, and the recurring invoice line keeps going.
• A new client is set up in Pax8 under a slightly different company name, so any name-based sync or lookup misses it.
• Your cost changes at a renewal, and the price on the invoice does not.

Pax8 offers PSA integrations meant to keep these in step. If you use one, the check below tells you whether it is working. If you do not, it is the only thing standing between a seat change and your invoice.

Reading the bill so it can be compared

The Pax8 bill is organized for paying Pax8, not for checking your own invoices. Before you compare, turn it into one number per client and product:

1. Download the detail, not the summary. You want one row per charge with the company, the product, the quantity and the amount. A spreadsheet export is far easier to work with than a PDF.
2. Check the total. Add up the export and make sure it matches the bill total. If it does not, you have the wrong file or the wrong month.
3. Net the prorations. A seat added mid-month usually shows up as a partial-period charge alongside the regular charge. A seat removed or a subscription cancelled can show up as a credit. Add the charges and credits per client and product, so you end up with the net seat count and the net cost.
4. Treat net zero as cancelled. If a client's product nets to zero seats, it was cancelled. If that client is still on your invoice for it, that is a finding.
5. Set aside what you do not resell per seat. Usage-based Azure, one-time purchases and products included in a flat fee are checked differently, if at all.

Now you have a short table: client, product, seats you pay for, monthly cost.

Doing the same to your invoices

From QuickBooks Online, a PSA or whatever you invoice from, export the invoice lines for the same month: client, item, quantity, unit price, amount. Then:

• Pair the clients. Pax8 company names and invoice client names rarely match exactly ("Harbor Dental Group LLC" and "Harbor Dental"). Make the pairs once and keep them.
• Pair the items. Map each invoice item to the license it represents. If you sell a bundle, record how many seats of which license each unit includes.
• Keep the billing month straight. If you invoice in advance, your October invoice may be the one that should match September's Pax8 usage. Decide which months you compare and stick to it.

The comparison

For each client and product, put the two numbers side by side and label the difference:

The numbers above are illustrative. Sort the differences by monthly dollar value, largest first, and work down the list.

Also compare price where you have both: a line billed at the right count but below your current cost is a leak too, and often the first sign that a renewal changed your price.

Things that look like errors but are not

• Internal licenses. Seats for your own staff appear on the Pax8 bill under your company. Mark that company internal.
• Free seats you chose to give. A client owner's license thrown in, or a trial. Record the reason so it does not come back next month as a finding.
• Timing. A seat added on the last day of the month may be on the Pax8 bill and not on this month's invoice. If it is on next month's, it is not a leak.
• Annual terms. With Microsoft's new commerce subscriptions, seats can be added at any time, but reductions are allowed only in a short window after the seats were added or renewed (Microsoft's cancellation policy). A client who "removed" users mid-term may still be costing you those seats until the renewal date. What you can pass on to the client depends on your agreement with them.

A monthly routine

1. When the Pax8 bill posts, download its detail and check the total.
2. Export the matching month of invoice lines.
3. Compare per client and product, using the pairs you saved last month.
4. Fix agreements or invoices for real differences before the next invoice run.
5. Note the reason for every difference you leave in place.

The first month takes longest because of the pairing. After that, only new clients and new products need attention.

Doing it without the spreadsheet

License Drift runs this check from your Pax8 export and your QuickBooks or PSA invoice export. It nets prorations and cancellations, remembers your client and product pairs, and emails the under-billed, over-billed and cancelled-but-still-billed lines with an estimated monthly amount for each. A reminder arrives on the day of the month you choose. It does not connect to Pax8 or your PSA; it works from the exports you already download.