Reference → Billing Overview

Billing Overview

How SGEN handles account-level billing — subscriptions, payment methods, invoices, recovery.

Billing in SGEN lives at the account tier inside SG-Dashboard. One billing relationship covers every site under the account, with subscription state and payment method shared across the portfolio. This page is the Reference definition of the Billing surface — what it covers, what stays at account scope, and how the per-billing sub-pages (Subscriptions, Payment Methods, Invoices) descend from this Overview.

What is this for?

Read this page when you want the structural definition of the Billing surface in SG-Dashboard — what billing operations live at the account tier, what the sub-pages cover, and where billing flows touch the rest of the platform.

Good use cases

  • You are scoping a new SGEN account and need to know how billing is organized.
  • You are explaining to a stakeholder how SGEN handles multi-site billing under one account.
  • You hit a "where does the renewal happen?" question and want the model laid out.
  • You are designing internal SOPs around billing-related incident response.

What NOT to use this for

  • Step-by-step billing procedures — open the relevant Guide.
  • Per-customer pricing detail — out of scope; covered in the customer agreement.
  • Per-release shipped billing change — open What's New or Changelog.
  • Store-side payment processing — open Payment Gateways Reference.

How this connects to other features

Definition

Billing in SGEN is the account-tier financial surface. It owns subscription state, payment method management, invoice history, and the recovery flows operators need when a billing-related event blocks normal operation.

The defining property is account-tier. One subscription covers every site under the account; one payment method handles renewal regardless of how many sites are active; one invoice ledger captures the account's billing history.

Purpose

The purpose of this page is to define the Billing surface as a Reference layer rather than as a configuration walkthrough. It explains what lives in Billing, how the sub-pages are organized, and how Billing relates to SGEN-side operational state.

Scope

This page covers the Billing surface at the Reference level.

The page covers:

  • The account-tier scope of Billing.
  • The four billing sub-pages (Subscriptions, Payment Methods, Invoices) that live under it.
  • The boundary against site-tier operations and store-side payment processing.
The page does not cover:
  • Per-step billing procedures — Guides.
  • Per-customer pricing — customer agreement.
  • Store-side payment processing — Payment Gateways Reference.

What lives in Billing

Four kinds of billing work happen inside the SG-Dashboard Billing surface.

Subscription state

The active subscription, its tier, and its renewal cadence. The Subscriptions sub-page covers this.

Payment method management

Configured payment instruments and the renewal-target payment method. The Payment Methods sub-page covers this.

Invoice history

The historical record of every invoice issued against the account. The Invoices sub-page covers this.

Recovery flows

Recovery surfaces for billing-related lockouts — failed renewal, expired card, capacity exhaustion. Recovery flows live across the Subscriptions and Payment Methods sub-pages but share a common recovery framing.

Account · Billing

Active subscription

Plan

Pro · 5 sites

Active · renews 2026-06-01

Healthy

Capacity

3 / 5 sites

2 site slots available

Payment method

Visa ···· 4242

Renewal target · expires 2027-04

Last invoice

2026-05-01

Paid · USD 149.00

Where Billing relates to other surfaces

Billing is account-tier and intentionally separate from site-tier operational state.

Account-tier operations

Billing operations all stay in SG-Dashboard. Operators do not move into a site's SG-Admin to manage account billing.

Capacity and provisioning

Capacity (how many sites the active subscription supports) lives in Billing. Provisioning a new site (which uses an available capacity slot) lives in SG-Dashboard Site Manager. The two surfaces relate but stay distinct.

Store-side payments

Store-side payment processing — customer transactions through configured payment gateways — is a different surface entirely. Payment Gateways live in the Integrations section, not in Billing.

Constraints and boundaries

Billing is a Reference area for the account-tier financial surface. It is not a substitute for the customer agreement (pricing) or for store-side payment processing.

Use Billing for:

  • Subscription state, payment method, and invoice management.
  • Recovery flows for billing-related lockouts.
  • Capacity reasoning at the account tier.
Do not use Billing for:
  • Per-customer pricing — customer agreement.
  • Store-side payment processing — Payment Gateways Reference.
  • Site-tier operational state — SG-Admin.

Public boundary

This page is intentionally public-safe. It does not expose pricing detail, internal billing engine internals, or protected operational identifiers.

Examples

Example 1 — Account owner reviews monthly billing

The owner opens SG-Dashboard → Billing once a month, confirms the active subscription, scans the invoice history, verifies the payment method on file. The Reference frames what each sub-surface covers; the operational surface delivers it.

Example 2 — Failed renewal triggers recovery

Renewal fails because the payment method expired. SG-Dashboard surfaces the failure state. The operator opens Payment Methods to update the card, retries the renewal, and confirms the subscription returns to healthy state.

Example 3 — Stakeholder asks "how does multi-site billing work?"

The platform lead opens this page and walks the stakeholder through the model — one subscription covers every site, one payment method handles renewal, one invoice ledger captures history. The Reference resolves the structural question without requiring per-customer detail.

Documentation guidance

Use this page as the structural definition for the Billing surface. Procedural detail belongs in Guides; per-release behavior change belongs in What's New or Changelog.

Reading order

Open this page first when scoping any billing question. Descend into Subscriptions / Payment Methods / Invoices for the sub-page detail.

Related reading

Vocabulary cross-reference

  • Subscription is the account's active plan and renewal commitment.
  • Capacity is the number of sites the active subscription supports.
  • Payment method is the configured payment instrument used for renewal.
  • Invoice is a historical record of a billing event.
  • Recovery flow is the surface that resolves a billing-related lockout.

Maintenance discipline

When billing behavior changes across releases (new plan tier, new capacity model, new recovery surface), update this Reference and log the change in Changelog. The page stays valuable because the four-area shape (Subscriptions, Payment Methods, Invoices, Recovery) stays small.

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