Hello Orb Invoices

We’re excited to announce the release of Orb Invoices, which are purpose-built for the needs of hybrid, usage-based pricing models. With an interactive portal that surfaces product usage data alongside detailed calculations of amounts due, Orb Invoices provide transparency and insights, and most importantly convey the accuracy of your billing process. 

A surface area for trust

Invoicing is a critical moment of truth in establishing and maintaining trust in the customer relationship. As software purchasing has been distributed across end-user buyers and multiple budget owners, it has become harder for customers to understand exactly what they’re being charged.

An all-too-common story: the accounts payable department receives an invoice via email with an unexpected total. They have to locate the budget owner who in turn has to log-in to the tool to understand if the billed usage looks correct. Any discrepancies cause headaches, payment delays, and can chip away at trust between organizations. Combine these operational challenges with the inherent increased complexity of usage-based pricing models, and it’s clear to see the friction involved.  Unfortunately, the invoice medium hasn’t evolved to keep up with these multi-stakeholder workflows or build trust by default in their accuracy.

Enter the modern invoice

Orb Invoices are real-time views of billable usage, showing detailed costs for variable charges as well as fixed costs such as platform fees or seats.

Orb Invoices are always generated in draft form at the start of every billing period and will live-update as usage occurs. Draft invoices can be directly embedded into your product’s billing portal to provide mid-period visibility into accrued spend.

At the end of the billing period, invoices will be automatically delivered to customers via email with a detailed PDF and a secure link to a payment portal.

With integrations to payment gateways like Stripe, Orb enables you to offer convenient payment options such as credit cards and ACH. Customers can opt in to save their payment methods for future use to simplify collection.

Orb facilitates the accounts receivable workflow by surfacing past-due invoices in the dashboard as well as any automatic payment collection failures resulting from our smart retry logic. With rich data exports, reporting, and integrations with accounting providers, you can rely on Orb to automate the end-to-end revenue process.

Getting started

To start using Orb Invoicing, sign up for a demo of Orb. For existing customers, enable invoice delivery in the settings panel and customize to your company’s brand. To learn more about these features in detail, explore our docs.