What are the best practices for using milestone billing?

The MBBRR template can only be associated with a one-time charge of a subscription product in a subscription.

A one-time charge of a coverage type of subscription product can't have an MBBRR template.

It's recommended that if milestones are going to be used for billing or revenue recognition, that a separate subscription with only a one-time charge be used. This is because, in case of amendment, a one-time charge with an MBBRR template instance isn't copied over to the new subscription product line.

Since the interface date of the bill lines is entirely determined by the completion date entered in the template instance, you can bill on an ad-hoc basis. This means that you can enable milestone-based billing, even if you don't bill strictly based on milestones, but instead use this feature to bill on an ad-hoc basis. For example, if there's a one-time charge that must be billed monthly for the first year and quarterly for second year, then you can create 12 milestones with completion dates spaced a month apart and then 4 more milestones spaced a quarter apart.

If the bill schedule line is created from an MBBRR template instance, then the line amount can be adjusted in the bill line actions.

Duplicating a subscription doesn't copy the MBBRR template.

Renewing (both manual and automatic), a subscription doesn't copy the MBBRR template to the subscription created upon renewal.

Milestones can be imported and assigned to a subscription product's one-time charge.

The suspend action isn't available for a subscription product that has a one-time charge with an MBBRR template assigned.

During amendment, the one-time charge with an MBBRR template isn't copied over to the new subscription product line. Therefore, the bill schedule lines (interfaced to Accounts Receivable and not yet interfaced to AR) from the amended subscription product line aren't copied to the new subscription product line. Those bill lines remain in the subscription product lines in Under Amendment status. Even after activation of the new product line, when the previous subscription product line becomes Closed, those Bill lines (both interfaced and non-interfaced) remain the in the Closed line. You can continue to complete the unbilled milestones and recognize revenue for the revenue milestones when they're completed.

If you're importing or creating the milestone template instance through REST APIs, then you can avoid passing a template name. Passing the attributes MilestoneBillingFlag = Y and MilestoneRevenueFlag = Y enables the billing milestones and revenue recognition milestones sections, respectively, in the UI. Also, if you pass milestones for billing or revenue recognition and also an MBBRR template ID or name then the aforementioned flags in import or REST API, payload will prevail over the value of these flags in the MBBRR template. So, you might see that though an MBBRR template doesn't have revenue recognition milestones or billing milestones, yet in the subscription product, these sections are enabled.

Evergreen subscriptions can't have one-time charges with an MBBRR template. You'll see a validation error.

Pricing terms don't have any impact on one-time charges with MBBRR template.

If a subscription is in on On Hold status, the bill lines aren't interfaced to Accounts Receivables irrespective of the completion date of the milestones.

If periodic recognition of revenue or periodic billing is enabled for a one-time charge, then you can't attach an MBBRR template to the one-time charge. The charge level attributes for billing and revenue recognition take precedence over the MBBRR template.