How to view and manage expenses on the platform?
Estimated reading time: 08 minutes
The Botmaker platform allows you to visualize all the expenses of your accounts in real time for better control. You can also configure the services you wish to enable or disable according to the budget you define for the operation of your projects.
Remember that an account can include several projects. Thus, all the sections corresponding to Menu>Account refer to the account and not to the project (which is the name you see at the top left, as shown below in the Profile detail).
Here are the options you can access from Menu>Account.
- Profile
- My Account
- Products and Expenses
- Payment Methods
- Budget Control
Profile
In this section, you will find the account information (name, account number, zip code, country).
My Account
In this section, you can see all the expenses and movements of your account. As you spend the available credit, the blue bar will move for better visualization and control of expenses. When the bar reaches approximately 80%, the platform will try to generate a charge. If this cannot be done, when reaching 100%, the account will be paused.
Also, from the Make a pre-payment button (on the right side of the screen), you will be able to make a payment to increase your available credit.
The movements generated are shown in real time and you will be able to download the PDF corresponding to invoices, credit notes, debit notes, etc., from the Movements table.
Products and Expenses
This section details the total for the current month and allows you to view the expenses you have made. Thus, you will be able to see the expenses incurred in each of the services activated on the Botmaker platform, in addition to enabling the different products and functionalities.
Additionally, this section shows the base plan from which additional charges for the plan start to be made. In case there are no expenses during the month, you will have to pay the value of the base plan for the Botmaker account to remain active. The total for the current month is the sum of the base plan plus the additional charges. You will also find the billing closing date on the right side of the screen and you can request a plan change. To do so, click on request plan change and a representative will contact you for further details.
For certain products, such as language translator, webhooks, and encryption of sensitive data , it is possible to access the settings and disable them to prevent additional charges from being generated if you consider that the service is not strictly necessary.
In this section, you can also review previous months’ expenses and check how much was spent each day in the daily expenses chart on the service’s internal screen.
Example 1: Language translator
Example 2: Encryption of sensitive data
To access the details of the other products, click on each of them to view the items usage for that product, the pricing table, and the expenses graph. Likewise, below you will find a section referring to the particularities of the WhatsApp product. The expenses generated by each product result in the plan’s additional charges.
Example: Premium actions
Note: The information is available starting _ 1 February 2022. As of March, you will be able to review these expenses, taking into account that expenses before February 1 2022 will not be displayed. Additionally, remember that to access your expenses information, you need an Administrator profile.
Considerations regarding WhatsApp
WhatsApp does not follow the rule of the other products since it manages the costs of messages by differentiating who initiates the conversation (whether it was initiated by the user or by the business). Thus, at the top of the screen, you will see the total cost, the cost per line, the cost of conversations initiated by the business (HSM), and the cost of conversations initiated by the user (Sessions).
In case you have more than one line, the costs for each of them will be reflected. Additionally, you can disable the lines you have configured according to your requirements or needs.
Payment Methods
In this section, you will be able to add one or more payment methods, which will be used to pay for products and items within the platform. Bank accounts, credit cards and debit cards are valid payment methods.
You must add a primary payment method , but we recommend that you also configure an alternative method ( secondary payment method ) to avoid pausing your access to the platform in case of problems with the primary method.
Budget Control
In this section, you will be able to set a maximum amount of budget for the platform usage according to your requirements. You can set a daily amount and a monthly amount (which must be greater than the daily limit), taking the dollar as a reference (you can see the conversion to Argentine pesos according to the official exchange rate).
If the stipulated budget limit is reached, access to the platform will be paused momentarily for the day or for the month, depending on what you have configured. You will receive an email notification when the 80% of any of these limits is reached, or when the 100% is reached so that you can make the necessary adjustments to keep the account active.
Through the Account section, you can monitor your expenses on the platform and, in this way, optimize your business resources.
Remember to visit our Help Center for further information.
Written by: Botmaker Team
Updated: 02/08/2022