A partner plan that nobody reconciles
Your firm pays for many clients' Xero or QuickBooks subscriptions through its partner arrangement, and for receipt capture, payroll and reporting apps on top. Some clients are recharged at cost, some with a margin, some have it bundled in their fee. When you set each one up, the recharge matched.
Since then, a client upgraded their plan to add payroll. Another added a second company. The supplier raised prices. An app was added for a client who has since left. The monthly bills keep arriving as one lump per supplier, and nobody has lined them up with client invoices in a long time.
Why rebilling gets out of step
The supplier bills the firm in its own format, often one invoice listing many organisations, with names that do not always match your client records. Your client invoices come from a different system. Changes happen on the supplier side without anyone at the firm doing anything, so there is no natural moment to update the recharge.
It is also a small amount per client, which makes it easy to ignore, but across a whole client base and several suppliers, it adds up to a line on your own profit and loss that nobody understands.
What the drift costs
You end up paying for software that clients use but do not pay for, or for clients who no longer exist. When you finally reconcile, you face awkward catch-up charges or write-offs. Clients who are recharged inconsistently notice, especially when two businesses owned by the same person are treated differently.
| Change on the supplier side | Effect if nobody notices |
|---|---|
| Client upgrades plan | Firm absorbs the difference |
| New app added for a client | Never recharged |
| Price rise | Margin disappears quietly |
| Client leaves | Subscription keeps billing the firm |
| Promotional price ends | Cost jumps with no recharge change |
How we build a subscription rebilling check
- Each month we read the firm's supplier bills, from the supplier's partner portal export or the invoices themselves, and extract every line with its organisation name, plan and cost.
- Each line is matched to a client in your practice tool. Unmatched names go to a short list for a person to link once, after which the match is remembered.
- We read what each client was charged for software that month from your billing in Xero or your practice tool.
- The check compares cost and recharge per client, applies your rule for each (at cost, with margin, or included in the fee), and flags every client where they differ.
- Subscriptions for clients marked as left are flagged separately, so they can be cancelled or transferred.
- Approved corrections can create recharge lines on the client's next invoice automatically.
Your recharge policy decides what should happen. The check only shows where reality and policy disagree.
The first run is usually the most revealing, because it covers everything that has drifted since the recharges were last checked. We present that first list sorted by the size of the gap, so the partner can decide which clients to talk to, which to correct quietly from next month and which to leave as they are.
Software costs that balance
Once a month you see a short list of mismatches rather than a mystery on your own accounts. Upgrades and new apps get recharged from the month they start. Subscriptions for former clients are caught quickly. And the firm's software cost line becomes something you can explain, which matters when you review your own pricing.
Is your software rebilling adding up?
- You pay for client subscriptions through a partner plan.
- Nobody has matched supplier bills to client recharges recently.
- You have found subscriptions for clients who left.
- Recharges have not changed since supplier prices went up.
- Similar clients are charged differently for the same software.