iiHelp support
Invoice Alignment Charges

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Occasionally, you may see an extra "invoice alignment" charge on your invoice. An alignment charge is best understood as a catch-up charge which allows us to bill you on the same date each month.

On a New service

To help explain, let's look at an extract from an invoice for John Citizen's broadband service. This service went active on October 26, 2007.

• $69.95 Charge: Monthly charge for Home 5 service john.citizen@iinet.net.au from 17/11/2007 to 17/12/2007
• $48.29 Charge: Invoice alignment: Charge for Home 5 service john.citizen@iinet.net.au from 28/10/2007 to 17/11/2007

Note the dates associated with each charge:

• The Home 5 charge is for the period from November 17 to December 17 and this is a full one month period, and expected as the charges are one month in advance
• The alignment charge is for the period covering October 28 to November 17

From this, you can tell:

• The invoice will be debited for on the 17th of every month.
• The service was opened partway through the month (26th), so a part-month charge gets raised - this is what the invoice alignment is.
• The next invoice's Home 5 charge will be for $69.95, will have the period December 17, 2007 to January 17, 2008 and it will debit on December 17.

The overall idea is that iiNet will only charge once a month on the same date. A single invoice alignment charge allows this to happen.

After a plan change

Alignment charges are also seen after a successful plan change. When a plan change takes place customers are invoiced on the day of the plan change. This new invoice will contain different credits and charges. Here is an example of a plan change that occurred on 08/05/2008 and the subsequent alignment:

• $69.95 Charge: Monthly charge for Home 5 service john.citizen@iinet.net.au from 20/05/2008 to 20/06/2008.
• $26.34 Charge: Invoice alignment: Charge for Home 5 service john.citizen@iinet.net.au from 08/05/2008 to 20/05/2008.
• $83.67 Credit: Invoice alignment: Refund for Home 4 service john.citizen@iinet.net.au from 08/05/2008 to 20/06/2008.

From this we can tell:

• A credit was issued for the old service. For this example this credit is for amounts already paid plus amounts that have been invoiced in advanced.
• An alignment charge was issued from the date of the plan change; this was to catch the bill up to the normal billing cycle.         
• A monthly charge was issued for the new plan, which is one month in advance.

This new invoice will still debit on their normal due date, for this example 20/05/2008. The customer’s next invoice will only have the monthly charge for the Home 5 service.