Route quality debates end quickly when you can see profit and loss per connect. The Message Billing Summary shows, for every connect and date, what you billed clients and what the vendor cost you, with the difference as profit or loss.
Message Billing Summary (per connect)
Filters: Connect, Is Final? (Yes/No), From Date, To Date.
Columns:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Date, Vendor, Account | The row’s connect, vendor and user |
| Total | Total message count |
| Delivered / Delivered % | Delivered volume and rate |
| Failed / Not Sent | Failure breakdown |
| Total Cost | What you billed for the row |
| Delivered Cost | Billed amount for delivered messages only |
| Vendor Cost | What the vendor cost you |
| Profit/Loss | Total Cost minus Vendor Cost |
| Profit/Loss % | Margin as a percentage of total cost |
Use Export to pull the data into your own margin sheet.
How to read it
- Negative Profit/Loss on a connect: either the client’s rate is below the route’s cost, or the connect’s Cost/Rate and Price Map are wrong. Check the connect’s settings before you renegotiate with anyone.
- Total Cost far above Delivered Cost with a low Delivered %: you are billing on submit while delivery is poor. That’s a client complaint waiting to happen, even when the margin looks good.
- Is Final? = No: figures may still change. Use final rows for commercial decisions.
- Same client, two connects, different margins: move traffic toward the better connect by adjusting route percentages, not by changing the client’s rate.
Vendor’s Provisional Billable Statement
Before a vendor’s invoice arrives, generate your own expected payable:
- Open Vendor’s Message Provisional Billable Statement.
- Enter Month/Year, select the Vendor.
- Enter Submission Rate per Message and Delivered Rate per Message from the contract.
- Enter the Tax Rate as a decimal.
- Click Generate.
The statement shows submission count, submission base amount and tax, delivered count, delivered amount and tax, plus the total base and tax amounts, with a grand total across statements.
Use it as the check against the vendor’s invoice. If their invoice exceeds your statement, you have the counts and rates to dispute it line by line, in the same month the traffic ran.
A simple monthly routine
- Generate the provisional billable statement for each vendor on the 1st.
- Compare it to the vendor invoice when it arrives; query differences immediately.
- Run the Message Billing Summary per connect for the month and export it.
- Look for any connect with negative or thin margin, and fix the rate, the route mix or the client’s price.
Related articles
- How to Set Up Vendor Pricing and MCC/MNC Cost Rates
- How to Add a New SMPP Connect
- How to Reconcile User Billing and Spot Discrepancies
- How to Create a Route and Choose a Distribution Strategy