Recurring
Services Escrow Report
Many of our customers use various services with recurring per-month
costs. These services include generally automated services such as Email
SPAM filtering, Website Hosting, Offsite Backup, Email hosting, and Flat
Fee Support Services.
While the cost of these services per unit is fixed, your usage of them
can be somewhat variable, but the variance generally occurs only in
small quantities. These variances are usually small enough that they do
not warrant a new invoice just for a few dollars of changes. So, all of
these services are managed in a Recurring Services Escrow account, which
works very much like your Taxes and Insurance escrow account on your
home mortgage: the bank guesses at your upcoming year’s taxes and
insurance costs, adds 1/12th of that cost to your mortgage note, then at
the end of the year they make an adjustment based on what the actual
taxes and insurance were versus the estimates. That way, you and the
bank can both deal with the whole issue just once a year.
Your Rainmaker Networks Recurring Services Escrow account is managed on
a monthly, quarterly, semi-annual, or annual basis. The determination of
which one you are on is determined mostly by the expected monthly cost
of your services. For example, if all you use is Email SPAM filtering
for 6 people, you are incurring a $6 monthly charge, so you are on an
annual charge basis. In this case, there is just one $72 charge that
covers the whole year. That $72 charge shows up on one invoice. At the
opposite extreme, if you are a customer using Flat Fee SUpport Services,
you are likely using several hundred or a few thousand dollars per month
in services, in which case you are on a monthly billing plan. If you
would like to change your periodic plan, we are of course happy to
discuss that.
No matter which of the four periodic plans you are on, you will receive
a Recurring Services Escrow Statement at some point during that period,
which describes your anticipated monthly uses for the next period, and
adjustments for actual usage for past periods. The resulting balance in
the GREEN box at the bottom of the statement will be reflected as a
single line item on the invoice that the statement is attached to. The
balance may be positive (new amount owed to Rainmaker Networks) or it
may be negative (amount to be credited back to you). For example, if you
are using Email SPAM filtering with annual billing, you may have 10
users on that service at the beginning of the year, but you may add 2
users at some point in the year. By the end of the year, your usage will
have gone up by $2 per month. At some point during the year, you will
receive a new statement that reflects a “catch-up” amount for the months
in the year in which the extra 2 units are used. That “catch-up” amount
will be computed to make you current through the end of that year.
Note that there is also a list of historical list called “Previous
Related Invoice Summary”, provided as a point of reference for your
convenience. This list does not include the invoice number that is
related to the particular statement you are reading, because that
invoice number is not yet known at the time that the statement is
created.
If you have any questions about your company’s service usage, of course
let us know.