Balance, invoices and team access

Overview

A messaging account is connected to money, customer data and brand reputation. Running it well means three habits: keeping an eye on balance so campaigns never stop unexpectedly, keeping billing details correct so finance gets proper invoices and keeping access tidy so that only the right people can do the right things. This guide covers each in turn.

Balance and top-ups

Messages are billed against your prepaid balance. When the balance reaches zero, sends fail. The fix is simple but needs discipline.

• Set a low-balance alert above one day of normal spend
• Add a second recipient to the alert, so it is not missed during leave
• Top up before large campaigns, using the segment estimate from the segments guide
• Check the billing view for a per-message breakdown after each large send
• Keep a buffer for peaks such as sale days and festival periods

Estimating what you need

Multiply expected recipients by expected segments by the per-segment rate for each destination. Add ten to twenty per cent for resends and growth. If you send to several countries, calculate each separately because rates differ.

Billing profile and invoices

Invoices are generated from your billing profile. Correct details at the start save a great deal of finance work later, because a tax invoice usually cannot be edited once issued.

1. Open the billing profile. Under account settings, choose billing details
2. Enter your legal name. Use the registered company name exactly as it appears on your documents
3. Add tax details. Enter your tax registration number and registered address
4. Set the billing contact. Use a shared mailbox such as accounts@ so invoices reach finance, not one person
5. Check the first invoice. After your first top-up compare the invoice to your profile and ask support to correct any mismatch

Team access

People change roles and leave. The safest account is one where access follows the principle of least privilege: each person has only what they need.

Roles in your account may be named differently. The principle is the same: give the lowest role that lets the person do their job.

Protecting the account

1. Turn on two-factor sign-in. Require it for every user, especially owners and admins
2. Use separate API keys. One per application and environment, so one can be revoked alone
3. Review users monthly. Remove people who have left or changed teams
4. Restrict key permissions. Where possible allow only the actions an application needs
5. Watch the audit log. Look for unusual sign-ins, key creation and settings changes

Offboarding checklist

• Remove the user from the account on their last day
• Revoke any key they created or knew
• Change shared passwords or secrets they had
• Move ownership of templates and campaigns to someone else
• Review the audit log for their final week

Common billing questions

Budgeting and forecasting

Messaging spend is predictable if you measure it. Record, for each campaign type, the recipients, the average segments per message and the effective cost per recipient. After two or three months you will see a pattern: transactional traffic is steady, promotional traffic follows your calendar. Build your monthly forecast from those two lines.

Use a simple monthly review: planned spend, actual spend and the biggest difference. If a single template accounts for most of the overspend, the cause is usually encoding or an unexpected rise in volume. The segments guide shows how to check the first; your campaign reports show the second.

Working with finance and audit

• Give finance read-only access to billing and invoices rather than sharing an owner login
• Keep a record of who approved each top-up and why
• Export invoices and usage reports monthly and store them with your other vendor documents
• Reconcile usage reports to invoices, and raise differences within the period your agreement allows
• Document your key and access review so that auditors can see it happened

Account recovery

Plan for the day the account owner is unreachable. Keep at least two owners, store recovery codes for two-factor sign-in in your company password manager and keep the billing contact current. Test the recovery path once a year; the worst moment to learn it does not work is during an outage.

Spending controls

Controls turn good intentions into guarantees. Where your plan offers them, set a daily spending cap, a per-key limit and a maximum campaign size that requires a second approver. A cap stops a runaway loop or a misconfigured campaign from draining the balance in an hour. Review the caps each quarter, raising them deliberately when your volume grows rather than removing them.

What to do if you see unexpected spend

1. Pause sending. Disable the application key or campaign you suspect
2. Check the logs. Find the template, destination and key behind the spend
3. Rotate the key. If misuse is possible, revoke the key and issue a new one
4. Contact support. Send message IDs and times so that we can investigate quickly
5. Add a control. Introduce a cap or alert so the same problem cannot recur unnoticed

Most unexpected spend has a dull cause: a retry loop, a duplicated job or an encoding change. Look for those before assuming an attack.

Further reading

• Your organisation's finance and procurement policy for vendor invoices
• Telnxo guide: Create, scope and rotate API keys