Managing account balances in ActivePlatform: Flexibility, control, and automation

In ActivePlatform, the account balance is a powerful tool that helps streamline subscription payments and gives both resellers and customers better financial control. However, not all businesses are ready to let customers manage an internal monetary balance. That’s why the platform offers detailed settings that allow resellers to customize how balances are used.

The account balance is the amount of money in the reseller's currency that a customer can use to pay for orders. This is not a bonus account or virtual currency account; it's actual funds that can be deposited and used for purchases, including automated and manual payments for subscriptions.

There are several ways to top up the balance:

• Automatically — for example, when a refund is issued.
• Manually — through a balance top-up payment or a promised payment.

The big advantage: paying with the balance is instant. Unlike a bank transfer, which may take several days, balance payments are processed immediately, speeding up provisioning and ensuring no delays in service activation.
Since not all businesses are equipped to issue documents for manual top-ups, enabling or disabling this option is left up to each reseller.

ActivePlatform can use the balance automatically for subscription payments in the Prepaid billing model, but only under specific conditions:

1. Automatic renewal — the balance is used on the subscription’s expiration date if auto-renewal is enabled.
2. Prolongation — for annual subscriptions with monthly payments.

For other payment models or manual renewals, balance usage depends on the user’s actions.

To manage how your customers interact with their account balances, ActivePlatform offers fine-grained control:

• Allow customer to operate without a balance: If enabled, all balance-related actions (viewing, topping up, using for payments) are hidden in the Customer Control Panel.
• Allow customer to top up balance: If disabled, only automatic or manual top-ups from the Operator Control Panel are possible.
• Promised payments: These let customers temporarily increase their balance without immediate funds, with a requirement to repay within a set timeframe.
• Prepaid buffer for pay-as-you-go (PAYG) subscriptions: A required prepayment amount can be set to allow activation of PAYG (like Azure, Google Cloud, AWS) subscriptions. The funds are credited to the balance and block the initial resource usage to prevent interruptions.

When a PAYG subscription is purchased in prepaid mode, services can start consuming resources almost immediately. To avoid service interruption due to lack of funds (especially before the first consumption data is received), ActivePlatform allows you to set a mandatory buffer — a security payment to ensure there are sufficient funds for the first billing.

• This top-up ensures a smoother experience for both customers and resellers, reducing support issues and unexpected service pauses.

When balance usage is allowed, resellers can define credit hold rules to prevent service abuse or missed payments:

• A credit hold can be triggered when the balance drops below a defined threshold (which can be zero or even negative).
• A second condition can be set: how long the balance can remain below that threshold before triggering the lock.

Once locked, the platform restricts:

• New trial subscriptions.
• Activation of suspended subscriptions.
• PAYG subscriptions on Prepaid model may be stopped — although you can enable manual confirmation to avoid disrupting critical workloads.
• Both lock conditions are configurable per customer or customer group.

Account balance management in ActivePlatform offers automation, speed, and flexibility — but it also gives resellers the control to decide when and how customers can use it. With clear settings, risk protection tools, and real-time balance usage, it supports a more efficient and secure payment experience for everyone involved.

ActivePlatform is a full-service automated cloud brokering solution for cloud service providers and internal IT hubs that makes it easier to manage and control the cloud delivery and profitability. ActivePlatform unites vendors, providers, developers, and resellers into a single ecosystem for buying, selling, and managing cloud services. With its open vendor integration framework, ActivePlatform creates a vibrant catalog of cloud services ultimately helping businesses gain access to the services they need to thrive.

ActivePlatform enables SaaS, PaaS, IaaS aggregation, delivery, and monetization, provides simplified administration through central management, and enables critical visibility into resellers and cloud services consumption and usage. The platform has implementations with distributors, cloud solution providers, and telecom operators. ActivePlatform is headquartered in Europe.