Customer Account Hierarchy

Classify customers into various account types and organize them using a parent-child relationship. Streamline billing management with efficient customer organization based on business line, location, divisions, or branches.

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EarnBill Customer Account Hierarchy feature enables you to classify customers into various account types and organize them using a parent-child relationship. You can classify customers based on specific criteria like line of business, location, divisions, or branches, depending on how you want them categorized in the system for efficient billing management.

There are no restrictions on customer accounts and sub-account creation. You can create as many as needed, with hierarchy supported to unlimited levels.

The customer account hierarchy comprises two essential functionalities:

1) Account Types

Customer Account Types are templates for groups of customers that require the same or similar details. In other words, it facilitates the grouping of customers who have some common attribute and enables you to establish customized account types. For example, divisions inside your company or clientele groups such as VIP, B2B, and B2C customers - depicted in the diagram below.

EarnBill Account Types

Organization "A"
Account Types (Categorization)
(Create Your Own Account Types Based on Different Attributes or Entities)
B2B Customers
B2C Customers
VIP Customers
Customer Type "Y"

Further, EarnBill also allows you to create user-defined sections (account information types) to capture additional information. For instance, an account type for business customers might include data fields such as company name. In contrast, an account type for residential customers might include data fields such as employer name.

2) Customer Account and Sub Accounts

EarnBill supports multiple-level customer management through its sub-accounts feature. Any customer account can be a parent account with one or more sub-accounts (child accounts). A sub-account (child account) can also be a parent with its sub-accounts. It is also possible to set up invoicing with parent-only pricing for every child account.

EarnBill Customer Account Hierarchy

Organization "A"
B2B Customers
Customer Account C1
Customer Sub Account 1
Customer Sub Account 2
⋮
Customer Sub Account n
B2C Customers
Customer Account C2
Customer Sub Account 1
Customer Sub Account 2
⋮
Customer Sub Account n
VIP Customers
Customer Account Cn
Customer Sub Account 1
Customer Sub Account 2
⋮
Customer Sub Account n

For instance, your customer is a business-to-business (B2B) entity with several branches or locations. Although the parent customer (head office) demands a single invoice that includes all locations, each location (the client's sub-accounts) is independently subscribed to your services. The usability is demonstrated in the business use cases below.

Business Use Cases

With the help of EarnBill's customer account hierarchy, businesses can organize their customers using a parent-child relationship where the child account acts as the end user of your services, and the parent account is the one who gets (and pays) the invoice. There is a good chance of using sub-accounts, especially when the customer using your services is not the same as the customer paying for them.

Many real-world scenarios may seem to be very different from each other at first, but they always retain a similar account structure. Let's examine a few common usage cases:

EarnBill's Parent-Child Account Invoicing

Customer Account
(Parent = HQ)
*HQ customer also uses services & is billed for the service (for own use).
Branch Office MA
(Child)
* Each child customer has MB service & bill sent to child invoice
User
(Child)
User
(Child)
User
(Child)
Branch Office MB
(Child)
* Each child customer has MA service & bill sent to parent invoice (sent to "customer account")
Invoice of ABD goes to $800 (Parent)
Parent Invoice goes to customer account for own use includes bill services.
SERVICE & INVOICE USAGE
User
(Child)
* HQ customers use services & bill sent to their own invoice
SERVICE & INVOICE USAGE
User
(Child)
* HQ customers use services & honor their own invoice (sent to main parent)

A LARGE ACCOUNT WITH MULTIPLE LOCATIONS

Suppose your customer is a company that has multiple locations or branches. At some places, each employee is responsible for their invoices. At other locations, the branch office might pay for the services. At some locations and for some employees, the head office pays for the invoices.

AN ORGANIZATION WITH MANY USERS

A typical client could be a company with many employees. A few of these employees will get company-paid cell phones. Every month (per billing period), this company receives a single invoice that includes all the charges associated with each of its employees. Thus, the company will be represented as a parent account and each employee as a child account.

A FAMILY

Suppose a family serves as the customer, where multiple people may use the same (or different) products and services at the same or separate locations, but all accounts are combined into a single invoice.

Advantages

Additionally, EarnBill's sophisticated solution offers configurable functionality to accommodate your requirements.

Preference to invoice a parent or a child customer and notify accordingly based on customer choices.

Flexibility to define custom fields to capture any specific information at different levels like account type, customer account, and sub-accounts.

Flexibility to provide specific parameters/settings at the customer account level (like contains the languages, currencies, credit limit, notifications, payment method, billing cycle, and invoice template at the account type level.

Option to apply parent pricing and use customer-specific pricing with easy customization per your requirements.

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See how EarnBill's Customer Account Hierarchy can simplify complex billing structures

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