Enabling Google Cloud end customer Billing for Google Partner Advantage Partners

In 2019 Google launched the Partner Advantage Program for managed service providers (MSP), value-added resellers (VAR) and indirect resellers to resell GCP services to end customers. By consolidating 16 different programs into one program with clearly defined incentives it allows their partners to further their expertise and ability to successfully drive new business. Allowing them to obtain more value from reselling GCP services.

In 2021 Google has introduced a change in the way they manage discounts, this new system is required for a partner to remain eligible for the Partner Advantage incentives. This change in how Google manages the discounts increases the need for Partners to ‘automate the process of charging resource usage and managed services fee’ to their customers.

• Based on our experience with the Microsoft CSP billing ecosystem and the AWS billing ecosystem, we designed a dedicated GCP integration that allows you to quickly and conveniently bill your customers. In this blog, we show how CloudBilling solves some of the core billing problems faced by GCP Partners.

Manage multiple GCP Master Billing Accounts from a single location

While talking to prospective customers we observed that managing multiple Master Billing Accounts to extract cost and billing information was an important requirement. Dealing with different charges and discounts for a number of billing accounts quickly becomes complicated and cumbersome. CloudBilling allows you to do all the above, combining multiple GCP charges into a single customer’s bill, or pick and choose certain billing accounts and combine them into a single invoice. A whole world of combinations and relationships thus become possible through the CloudBilling user interface.

Google Partner Advantage incentives

As a Google Partner, you want to make maximum use of the available incentives that are applicable for you or your customers. Just because you want to make the best use of bulk purchasing, shouldn’t mean you have to charge your customers in the exact same manner. CloudBilling empowers you to make intelligent use of your GCP incentives.

• Bill your customer on discounted rates or on-demand rates based on your pricing model and contract terms with your customers.
  
• Set up default or custom markups on the GCP service charges so you can easily control your selling margins.

Staying in control of your GCP service costs and invoices to your customers is critical to enhancing your service offerings and getting paid on time.

Manage different charge types

As an MSP you may want to: 

• Share the Committed Use Discounts from Google and partially pass those on to your customers
• Get a report on the Sustained Use Discounts for a specific customer
• Complete insight into the Partner Discounts earned per customer

In addition to the above, CloudBilling extensively supports workflows for each charge type, to automate varied actions for different charges. 

Get insights on costs and charges

Based on the customizations you chose that are offered by CloudBilling, the cost reports that you see on your Google dashboards section might vary significantly from what you actually bill your customers. This is where the CloudBilling Business Intelligence Dashboard comes in extremely handy. More than 90% of our customers that resell GCP services opt for our BI dashboard.

Benefits

• View your costs and revenues based on labelled resources.
• Get detailed insights on the GCP usage across all your customers based on Billing Accounts, regions and service offerings.
• Offer detailed billing dashboards and reports through Customer Portal Services for your customers so they can dive deep into resource usage and spending.
• Empower your customers to have full control over their GCP costs while empowering yourself with insights into your revenues.

Contact us and experience the benefits of CloudBilling for GCP in action.