If you have a manager account and one of your client accounts applies for monthly invoicing, you’re required to link your manager account to a payments profile. Linking your manager account to a payments profile allows you to perform certain billing and payment actions. It also prevents any unauthorised billing changes in your account.
See the list of payments profiles linked to your manager account
- In your Google Ads manager account, click the Billing icon
.
- Click Payments profiles.
.Select a payments profile from the table to see the payments profile’s information card and the list of all manager accounts linked to it. Your manager account must have 'Link-management permission' access to see the list of manager accounts linked to that payments profile.
Link types for manager accounts and payments profiles
There are Google-managed links (labelled 'Google managed: yes') and user-managed links (labelled 'Google managed: no') for payments profiles. With Google-managed links, only Google support specialists can set up billing for Ads accounts under the manager account. With user-managed links, admin, standard and billing-only users of the manager account linked to the payments profile or a manager account above can set up billing.
Google decides the link type based on the structure of your account, your legal arrangements with Google or your geographical location.
Permitted actions for different link types
The table below summarises the actions for Google Ads manager accounts with admin, standard and billing-only access, based on whether they have a link to a payments profile and the type of link:
| Action | No link to payments profile | Google-managed link | User-managed link |
| View billing/invoice setup |  |
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| View budget | |
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| View all payments profiles linked to manager accounts within hierarchy | |
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| View all billing setups and budgets within the hierarchy | |
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| View invoices within the hierarchy | * | |
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| Create/edit account budget | |
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| Change the payments profile that pays for an Ads account | |
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| Change the Ads account’s invoice setup | |
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| Set up billing/Invoice, including consolidated billing | |
*If a link existed in the past but was later removed, any billing setups that were created when the link was present will still be visible after the link is removed.
Link-management permission
Link-management permission can be granted to only one manager account per payments profile, but one manager account can have link-management permission to more than one profile. This permission, which is indicated by a 'Yes' in the 'Link-management permission' column of the payments profile table, will provide greater visibility and allow Google Ads manager account users to self-manage payments profile links.
Admin users of this Google Ads manager account with link-management permission can perform the following activities related to the payments profile that they manage:
- View manager accounts within the hierarchy or outside of it, linked to the payments profile
- Approve or reject the payments profile linking request from another manager account
- Link any manager account within the hierarchy or outside of it, to the payments profile
- Unlink any manager account from the payments profile, if there's no Google Ads account using this payments profile
When an admin user of the manager account with link-management permission invites another manager account to link to the payments profile, an admin user of the invited manager account must accept the link within 30 days for it to become active. If the user of the manager account with link-management permission is also the admin user of the invited manager account, the link will be automatically approved and become active.
Which manager account should have link-management permission?
The link-management permission can be granted to only one manager account per payments profile. Consider these general guidelines:
- Pick the topmost manager account which is linked to that payments profile.
- If there's more than one manager account at the same level linked to the profile, pick the manager account with the highest number of child accounts paid by that profile.
- If your manager account structure is organised by country and the child accounts are paid by different subsidiaries in each country, you may consider granting link-management permission to that 'country-based' manager account for the associated 'country-based' payments profile.
Link-management permission automatically granted to your manager account
To check if your manager account has been granted link-management permission, first log in to your manager account. Review the “Link-management permission” column of the payments profile table in your manager account. If you see a “Yes” with a label that says “Automatically granted” in, your manager account has been automatically granted the link-management permission to manage a payments profile. Google grants link-management permission based on the following criteria:
- The payments profile is linked to only your manager account or a manager account within the same hierarchy.
- Only your manager account or any manager account in the same hierarchy can manage all accounts paid by the above payments profile.
If you'd like to change the manager account who has this permission to manage your payments profile, contact our support team.
Link or unlink a manager account to your payments profile
Link a manager account to your payments profile
- Sign in as an admin user to Google Ads manager account with link-management permission.
- Click the Billing icon
- Click Payments profile.
- Click on the payments profile which your manager account has link-management permission to, which is indicated by a 'Yes' in the 'Link-management permission' column of the payments profile table.
- Click the
button, enter the 10-digit manager account ID that you want to link and click Send invite.
- For security purposes, the admin user who sends the invitation must have at least read-only access to the invited manager account or the parent manager account of the invited manager account.
- If the admin user who sends the invitation is also an admin user of the invited manager account, the link will be automatically approved and become active.
- If the admin user who sent the invitation has access but isn't an admin user of the invited manager account, an admin user of the invited manager account must access the payments profile table and accept the link invitation within 30 days to activate it.
Unlink a manager account from your payments profile
- Sign in as admin user to Google Ads manager account with link-management permission.
- Click the Billing icon
- Click Payments profile.
- Click on the payments profile which your manager account has link-management permission to, which is indicated by a 'Yes' in the 'Link-management permission' column of the payments profile table.
- Click Remove in the manager account row that needs to be unlinked.
- You can only remove the manager account that has zero accounts using the payments profile.
Link or unlink a payments profile to a Google Ads manager account
Log in to the Google Ads manager account to check if there's already a Google Ads manager account with link-management permission for the payments profile of your interest.
Link a payment profile to a Google Ads manager account and opt in to link-management permission
If there's a manager account with link-management permission already linked to the payments profile, admin users of that manager account or the manager account above will have the permission to link other manager accounts to the payments profile. If no manager account has link-management permission, you'll need to allow a Google support specialist to link the payments profile to the manager account. In this case, you also have the option to request link-management permission for the linked manager account.
To allow Google to link a payments profile to a manager account and/or grant link-management permission, the primary contact listed in the payments profile, someone from the company domain of the primary contact or the company domain of any user added to the payment profile (for example, '[email protected]') must send an email to the appropriate Google support specialist, with the following content:
Please use this email as confirmation to link Manager Account xxx-xxx-xxxx to [insert Payments Profile Name AND Payments Profile ID] {OPTIONAL: “with link-management permission”}.
Google will decide the link type based on the structure of your account, your legal arrangements with Google or your geographical location.
Unlink a payments profile from a Google Ads manager account
Admin users of a manager account or a manager account above can unlink a payments profile by themselves if both conditions are met:
- The manager account has link-management permission for the payments profile
- There are no Google Ads accounts using this payment profile
You'll need to allow a Google support specialist to unlink a payments profile from Google Ads manager account in the following cases:
- There's no manager account with link-management permission for the payments profile
- There are Google Ads accounts using the payments profile
To let Google unlink a payments profile from a manager account, the primary contact listed in the payments profile, someone from the company domain of the primary contact or the company domain of any user added to the payment profile (for example, '[email protected]') must send an email to the appropriate Google support specialist, with the following content:
Please use this email as confirmation to unlink Manager Account xxx-xxx-xxxx from [insert Payments Profile Name AND Payments Profile ID]. I understand that all Ads accounts paid by this payments profile will stop serving.
Keep in mind that when you unlink a payments profile, the Google Ads account will stop serving since their billing setups using this payments profile will be deactivated. A new billing setup is required for these Ads accounts to continue serving. The unlinked manager account users will continue to be able to view all invoices, but they'll no longer be able to manage the invoices setups using this payment profile.
Change the manager account that has link-management permission
To let Google change the manager account with link-management permission for the payments profile, the primary contact listed in the payments profile, someone from the company domain of the primary contact or the company domain of any user added to the payment profile (for example, '[email protected]') must send an email to the appropriate Google support specialist, with the following content:
Please use this email as confirmation to remove link-management permission from Manager Account xxx-xxx-xxxx and grant the permission to Manager Account xxx-xxx-xxxx for [insert Payments Profile Name AND Payments Profile ID #].
