With Authorized Buyers, you make payments after your ads show, and are invoiced monthly. Invoices are generated in the account's time zone and not the default time zone (Pacific Time).
Using monthly invoicing, Google extends a line of credit to you for your advertising costs, and you receive an invoice each month that you pay, according to the terms and conditions that you agree to when you enrol in monthly invoicing.
Apply for monthly invoicing
You might be able to use the monthly invoicing payment setting if your business meets certain requirements. These requirement include, but aren't limited to:
- Being registered as a business for a minimum of one year.
- Spending a minimum of $5,000 a month (this can vary by country).
If you meet these initial requirements and would like to apply for monthly invoicing, contact your customer service representative. We'll review your credit history. If you're approved, we'll send you an email offering you:
- Payment terms: The time you have to pay after we issue an invoice. Typically, this is 30 days.
- Credit line: The maximum balance for all the monthly invoiced accounts for which you're responsible. This balance is made up of all unpaid advertising costs, including charges that have and have not yet been invoiced.
Once you agree to these terms, we'll convert your account to the monthly invoicing setting. But remember that if you exceed either your payment terms or credit line, your ads may be slowed or stopped. We'll email your invoice on the first day of the month, with instructions on how you can pay.
Using a credit line for multiple accounts
As we mentioned, monthly invoicing is often used to pay for multiple accounts. Here's an example of how it would work with two accounts:
Example
Suppose you had two accounts on monthly invoicing and a $20,000 credit line. Let's say the two accounts' unpaid costs -- invoiced and not yet invoiced -- add up to $15,000, as shown in the table below.
Account 1 | Account 2 | Balance | |
Invoiced costs | $4,000 | $3,000 | $7,000 |
Uninvoiced costs | $2,000 | $6,000 | $8,000 |
Total unpaid costs | $6,000 | $9,000 | $15,000 |
In this case, your accounts could accrue $5,000 more in unpaid costs before reaching your credit line. Any payment you make would reduce that balance, giving you more available credit. Just remember to send in your payment on time and to include invoice numbers so we know where to apply your payment.
Controlling costs on monthly invoicing
Once you've been assigned a credit line, you can calculate the maximum amount you can use as your daily budget. This is a good way to distribute your campaign costs over a certain time period. Here's how you'd use one:
Example
Let's say you have an Authorized Buyers account with two campaigns, and you want to spend a total of $10,000 for the 30-day month. To make sure this $10,000 lasts the entire month, first decide how much you want to spend on each campaign. Suppose you want to dedicate $7500 to campaign #1 and $2500 to campaign #2. To find your daily budget, divide each amount by 30:
$7500 / 30 = $250
$2500 / 30 = $83.33
Following this formula, you assign campaign #1 a daily budget of $250 and campaign #2 a daily budget of $83.33.
Keep in mind that if you'd like to spend $10,000 per month and you have 30 days to pay your bill, your credit line has to be at least $20,000. Why? After the first month, you'll have used $10,000 of your credit line. So, by the time you'll have paid the bill, (in other words, after 30 days), you'll have spent an additional $10,000 with Google for that second month. That's why your credit line has to be at least 20k.
Your campaign daily costs might go slightly over or under your daily budget, but you won't be charged more for a campaign than your daily budget times the number of days in that period. This is known as overdelivery.
When setting your campaign budgets, keep in mind that your credit line will need to cover all your account costs, including:
- The costs accruing in your account(s) each day for which you haven't been billed.
- The costs for which you've been invoiced but haven't yet paid.
- The costs that accrue in your account while your previous month's payment is processed (a minimum of several days).
If you don't spend your daily budget each day, your monthly costs could be lower than you expect. That's why it's a good idea to check your costs partway through the month, in case you'd like to raise your bid.
To view costs:
Sign in to Authorized Buyers.
- Click Admin Billing.
- Click Transaction history from the top navigation menu.
- Be sure that the "All transactions" filter is selected.
- Set the date range to viewing the information for This month.