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Overview of the new Microsoft billing experience for business subscriptions

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Microsoft has introduced new features that expand and improve the billing experience for our business customers. This article describes the major features we’ve added, and the changes we’ve made to the billing experience.

If you’re a Cloud Service Provider (CSP), see New commerce license-based overview - Partner Center.

The Microsoft Customer Agreement

The Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA) is a new purchasing agreement that simplifies the experience of buying Microsoft products and services. The MCA is a fully digital agreement that doesn’t expire and is automatically updated when you buy new products and services. To learn more about the MCA and for a list of frequently asked questions, see Microsoft Customer Agreement | Microsoft Licensing.

Billing accounts

You now have a billing account associated with your organization. This billing account is used to manage your account settings, invoices, payment methods, and purchases from Microsoft. Together with the MCA, you can use your billing account to buy products and services across different surfaces, including directly from Microsoft, through partners, and through field sales agents. You might have more than one billing account, depending on the types of agreement you signed with us.

Billing accounts have special roles that you can assign to users in your organization. These roles let users do things like assign billing account permissions to other users, edit accounts, sign agreements, and view accounts.

For more information, see Understand your Microsoft business billing account.

Billing profiles

You also now have a billing profile associated with your billing account. A billing profile contains payment method and invoice information and is used to pay for the products that you buy from us. If you have more than one billing profile, each billing profile is invoiced separately.

Like billing accounts, billing profiles also have special roles that you can assign to users in your organization. These roles let users do things like assign billing profile roles, edit the billing profile group, use the billing profile in a purchase, pay bills, and view the billing profile group.

For more information, see Manage your Microsoft business billing profiles.

Additional changes

The following list describes other changes we’ve made to the billing experience.

  • New invoice—The format of the invoice has changed, and you now receive a separate invoice for each billing profile in your billing account. You will continue to get a separate invoice for each purchase you make. Mid-term changes will be invoiced around the beginning of the following month. For more information, see Understand your bill or invoice.
  • More billing frequencies—Depending on the product or service you buy, you can now choose to pay for your subscription monthly, yearly, or every three years.
  • More subscription lengths—Depending on the product or service you buy, you can choose a subscription length of one month, one year, or three years.
  • New cancellation policy—You can now only cancel and receive a prorated credit or refund if you cancel within seven days after the start or renewal of your subscription. If you cancel during this limited time window, the prorated amount is either credited towards your next invoice or returned to you in the next billing cycle. For more information, see Cancel your Microsoft business subscription.
  • New scheduling for license changes—You can now choose to increase or decrease the number of licenses you have for a subscription on the next subscription renewal date.
  • New billing account selector—If you have more than one billing account, you can select Change billing account on the Purchase services page (for some customers, the page is named Marketplace) to use a different billing account to buy new products and services. For some customers, the page is named Marketplace. On the Invoices page, you can select Change billing account to view invoices associated with different billing accounts. On the Your products page, you can select Change billing account to view subscriptions associated with different billing accounts.

Understand your Microsoft business billing account (article)
Manage your Microsoft business billing profiles (article)
Understand your bill or invoice (article)
Payment options for Microsoft business subscriptions (article)