Why do we need Cloud Billing Operations Tool for MSP’s & CSP’s

Cloud Billing Operations Tool helps in managing cloud bill generation with markups and service additions across multiple public clouds. This tool is primarily for MSP’s and CSP’s. As a billing management tool, it makes billing each resource used by end-users to be customizable and simple. The billing can take into account the pricing in multiple dimensions, e.g. tag-based, tier-based, and seasonality-based, etc. With Aquila Clouds, CSPs and MSPs can focus on their priorities in providing the best services to their customers, and leave all the billing details to our billing platform

Since there are many problems that MSP’s & CSP’s face when it comes to managing Billing for customers in multiple public clouds, namely: AWS, MS Azure and GCP. Billops can deliver many advantages to  MSP and CSP organization towards building a financial and operational billing structure. 

BillOps is an efficient Cloud Billing Operations tool, This billing platform by Aquila Clouds specializes in providing cloud billing operations to CSP(Cloud Solution Provider) and MSP(Managed Service Provider). BillOps can be used on multiple public clouds like AWS, CGP, Azure Stack and MS Azure. The CSPs, MSPs are great in providing cloud services to its customers and here with BillOps we help the MSPs & CSPs hassle-free bills out for all their customers. 

Why should you have a Cloud Billing Operations tool as an Organization?

In an MSP Or CSP organization, there are multiple instances, storage, memory, network components of 100’s to 1000’s of customers, which makes customer billing a complex and tedious process for these organizations.

A Cloud Billing Operations tool helps an organization in these ways.

• Efficiency – Level up CSP billing operations. Eliminate manual errors and generate accurate financial reports.

• A cloud billing software can help increase customer retention, Self-service customer portal with variable billing cycles and cloud resource usage reports. Keep Information at customers’ fingertip

• Keep CSP finance team sane, no more monthly spreadsheets and manual errors. Bills for all clouds (AWS, Azure/Azure Stack, GCP) generated under one single roof. Accelerate CSP subscription growth
• Improve CSP margin, Adjustable markups and discounts. Flexibility to tune to market needs. ML-generated recommendations on saving plans.

Choosing BillOps by Aquila Clouds provides you with more benefits along with the ones mentioned above:

Aquila Clouds specializes in Cloud Billing Operations for CSPs and MSPs. Our BillOps is a SaaS platform for customizable bill compilation and generation across multiple public clouds: AWS, MS Azure and GCP.

Each resource used by end-users can be customized in pricing in multiple dimensions, e.g. tag-based, tier-based, seasonality-based, etc. With Aquila Clouds, CSPs and MSPs can focus on their priorities in providing the best services to their customers, and leave all the billing details to our billing platform.

Level up CSP billing  operations efficiency

Automate CSP billing operations. Eliminate manual errors and generate accurate financial reports. 

Increase customer retention

Self-service customer portal with variable billing cycles and cloud resource usage reports. Information at customers’ fingertip.

Keep CSP finance team sane

No more monthly spreadsheets and manual errors. Bills for all clouds (AWS, Azure/Azure Stack, GCP) generated under one single roof. Accelerate CSP subscription growth.

Improve

CSP margin

Adjustable markups and discounts. Flexibility to tune to market needs. ML-generated recommendations on saving plans.

Some finer points: 

1. Automated consumption data ingestion from the clouds, Connect directly to the Clouds to ingest consumption data of each end-user and have them ready for CSP adjustments

1. Flexible mechanisms for charging, Customizable discount levels for end customers as a group or an individual.
2. Policy & alerts, Configure policies such as discount cap for governance, configure thresholds for usage overage and alerts to be sent automatically
3. Automated bill generation, Generate bills for each billing period automatically or on-demand, high level or in detail.
4. End-user facing portal, Self-service for end-users to view their bills and usage.
5. User management, Role-based access management providing access control for administrators, users, and end-users.
6. Multi-cloud coverage, AWS, Azure, Azure Stack, GCP.

Aquila Advantages:

• For a CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) that offers multiple cloud solutions to organizations, often the biggest challenge is not enabling customers to use these solutions, but it is in ensuring that the customers are correctly billed for their usage. Primarily, most CSPs find it difficult to properly account for all the resources offered to a client in the monthly bill and to apply the correct discount offer/rate card/rate pack that is defined for a customer or a group of customers. If usage bills are not generated correctly, they may not only lead to revenue losses but they may also impact the organization’s reputation if customers notice any issues in monthly bills. Often customers request for access to a portal that provides them with an itemized snapshot of their bills based on their usage so that they can optimize operating costs and manage resources. For this reason, many CSPs, using unreliable cloud billing solutions which might result in other market players getting access to your customer information.
• If your organization is a CSP and has been worried by any of the problems like these or other similar problems, Aquila Clouds platform offers a specialized solution that precisely addresses all billing requirements of CSPs. You automatically ingest customer data from your cloud service provider to Aquila Clouds platform, and account for as many resources as used by customers and customize the resource rates for each customer. Aquila Clouds not only guarantees operational excellence but also assures you that your customer satisfaction index will be the highest when it comes to providing them with accurate monthly usage bills.
• Aquila Clouds platform features BillOps system that enables the CSPs to perform the following tasks for billing customers using the Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure / Azure Stack and Google Cloud Platform:
• Define a rate card line: You can define region-specific rate card lines for each category and sub-category of resources. The rate card can be defined for hourly, daily and monthly units according to the resource count. Aquila Clouds enables you to define the period for which the rate card remains effective and set the state of rate card to Active or In-Active so that rate card can be reused as and when required. This saves you from wrongly applying rate cards to customers or regions
• Define a rate pack: You can define a rate pack to bundle up two or more resources that are frequently used by a customer or a group of customers. This enables you to consider all resources (of same or different categories) that are used and to offer discounts to customers that use many resources. For a rate pack, you can define a pack level rate or define a rate for each resource included in the pack. This saves you from wrongly applying discounts to customers or regions.
• Import rate packs: You can also import any existing rate pack that is defined for any other region or customer and reuse it. This saves you from duplicating rate packs
• Define a managed service: You can account for the costs incurred for managed service for any resource used by your end-customer. You can add cost for the managed service as markup or add it as a discount.
• Generate and view monthly bills for customers: You can generate monthly bills for customers and set their state to Draft to review the bill details before publishing it. This helps you to ensure that the rate cards and/or rate packs are properly assigned to the required customer or group of customers.
• Billing portal for end-customers: Aquila Clouds provides end-customers access to the billing portal to enable your customers to get an itemized snapshot of their operating costs and accordingly plan their operations. This provides additional transparency and assurance to your customers.

Note: Itemized snapshot is available to the customers only if the bill is generated and set to the Frozen state

All these features come with an assurance of complete protection of your customer information. So, if you are a CSP, Aquila Clouds is the perfect solution to your organization’s any billing needs.

• Highlights of Aquila Clouds BillOps Capabilities
• Multi-cloud coverage
• AWS, Azure, Azure Stack, GCP
• Automated  consumption data ingestion from the clouds
• Connect directly to the Clouds to ingest consumption data of each end-user and have them ready for CSP adjustments.
• Flexible mechanisms for charging
• Easy to define rate cards and rate packs to charge different rates for infrastructure resources and managed services. Customizable discount levels for end customers as a group or an individual.
• Policy and alerts
• Configure policies such as discount cap for governance. Configure thresholds for usage overage and alerts to be sent automatically.
• Automated  bill generation
• Generate bills for each billing period automatically or on-demand. High level or in detail.
• End-user facing portal
• Self-service for end-users to view their bills and usage.
• User management
• Role-based access management providing access control for administrators, users, and end-users

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