Your Available Balance

Prepaid credit held by your organization and spent before any card. Add to it with a Subscription Code or by buying usage directly.

Your organization's Available Balance is prepaid credit. It belongs to the organization rather than to any particular logger, and every subscription charge draws from it first — only what the balance doesn't cover goes to your default payment method.

There are two ways to add to it, and both live in the same place: Setup, then Billing, then Add Usage in the Available Balance card. The Redeem tab is for Subscription Codes; the Buy tab is for card purchases. Both add to the same balance.

You'll need the Editor role or higher, and billing already set up for your organization — see Set up billing for your organization.

Adding credit doesn't subscribe anything. It puts money on your organization. Choosing which loggers to subscribe, and when, is a separate step on the Devices page — see Subscribe a device.

Redeem a Subscription Code

A Subscription Code is a prepaid code worth a fixed dollar amount. Redeeming one adds that amount to your balance.

Where to find your code

Your code arrives by email from alerts@zentracloud.io when METER issues it. Along with the code itself, the email gives you its dollar value, the sales order it was issued against, and a Click here to redeem button that opens the right screen for you.

The code goes to whoever placed the order, so if you weren't the one who bought the subscriptions, check with whoever handles purchasing for your organization.

Still nothing? Contact METER support. They can look your code up and give it to you directly. Have your sales order number to hand if you have it, or the email address the code was sent to.

Redeem it

1. Select Setup, then Billing.
2. Select Add Usage.
3. Stay on the Redeem tab — it's the one that opens by default.
4. Enter your code in the Subscription Code field.
5. Select Validate code — the arrow at the end of the field.
6. Read the preview that appears, then select Apply.

You'll land back on Billing with the message "The code was applied successfully." and your new total showing under Available Balance.

What the preview is telling you

Checking a code shows what will happen before you commit to it, with a running total above the list: "This will add $<amount> prepaid usage to your balance."

If nothing in your list will add funds, Apply stays greyed out — so a code that has already been used can't be applied twice by accident.

A code that reads as not found is usually one of two things: a typo, or a code issued to a different organization. Codes can be tied to the organization they were sold to, and from anywhere else they simply don't resolve. If you belong to more than one organization, check you're in the right one before assuming the code is bad.

Several codes at once

You can enter more than one code, separated by commas. Each is checked separately and listed on its own line, with the combined value in the running total. A mixed batch is fine — as long as at least one code will add funds, selecting Apply processes the good ones and skips the rest.

One exception: if two codes in the same batch carry different negotiated rates, the whole batch is refused. Redeem those codes one at a time.

From your cart

Add Usage isn't the only place to enter a code. Your cart has a Subscription Code field at the top, so if you're about to check out you can put a code toward what you owe without leaving the page.

Buy usage with a card

Estimate what you need

This step is optional. If you already know the amount you want, skip to the next one.

On the Buy tab, the Usage Cost Calculator holds a row for each plan your organization can buy. In the row for the plan you want, enter the number of loggers you want to cover for a year, then select Estimate Cost. The figure appears beside the button. Estimate Cost stays unavailable while every row reads 0.

The estimate is a planning figure, not a quote. Nothing is charged by asking for it, no prices are held, and no logger is affected.

The amount you're eventually charged can differ from it, usually by being lower. It prices a full year, and a logger you subscribe partway through your organization's year is charged only for the remainder of that year. Your cart shows the real total, itemised, before you pay anything.

Enter an amount and pay

Your estimate fills the Amount field in the Add Usage card below the calculator. You can change it, or type an amount without using the calculator at all — there's no requirement that the two match.

Select Checkout. It stays unavailable while Amount is empty, or while it's below $1.00, the smallest amount you can buy.

Checkout hands you to our payment provider's page. It shows a single Add Balance line for the amount you entered, sales tax where it applies, and the total due. Your default payment method is pre-selected; you can change it there, or use one of the other methods the page offers. Select Pay.

Nothing is credited to your balance until the payment goes through.

Wait for it to appear

The payment page warns that your account can take several minutes to reflect the new balance, so Available Balance may still show the old total when you land back on Billing. That's expected. Reload the page after a few minutes and the new total will be there.

Extend subscriptions you already have

Balance is normally spent for you — automatically, on every charge, before your card. You can also spend it deliberately, on the loggers you already subscribe, pushing their expiration dates further out.

This action spends your entire balance. Read the rest of this section before using it.

You'll need some Available Balance and at least one logger with an active or expiring subscription. Loggers with no subscription can't be extended — subscribe them instead.

1. From Setup, select Billing. In the Available Balance card, select Apply To Existing Subscriptions.
2. Open the Devices list and tick each logger you want to extend. The list shows only loggers eligible for extension, and your selection appears in the field as you go.
3. Select Calculate Extension. A line appears telling you roughly how many days each selected logger would gain past its current expiration. Nothing has been spent at this point — if the number isn't what you wanted, change your selection and calculate again.
4. Tick the box acknowledging that this uses all of your organization's available balance, then select Extend. Extend stays unavailable until the box is ticked.

Your balance goes to $0.00 and the expiration dates move out.

How many loggers you pick decides how far the balance stretches. The same credit is spread across everything you select, so choosing more loggers means fewer extra days for each of them. If a particular logger matters more than the others, select it on its own.

Your next renewal will need a card. Renewal charges come out of balance first, so an organization that was relying on its balance to cover the next renewal no longer has it. Make sure a default payment method is on file, or plan to add credit again before then.

A logger extended past your renewal date renews on its own date instead. Your organization has one shared renewal date, and a logger already paid beyond it has nothing to renew when that date arrives. It sits that renewal out and rejoins the shared date later. This is normal, and it's why an extended logger may show a different renewal date from the rest.

Worth knowing

• Balance stays with the organization it was bought for. It can't be moved to another organization, so buy it in the organization that will use it. As the redemption notice puts it: "The entire usage amount will be added to your organization account. Once redeemed, the balance cannot be transferred to other accounts."
• Codes work once. Once redeemed, a code is spent.
• Everything is priced and billed in US dollars.
• Tax is charged when you buy, not when you spend. Sales tax is added only when your organization's Shipping Address is in the United States. Because the money was already taxed, applying balance to a later charge reduces the taxable amount — when it covers a charge in full, the tax is $0.00 and nothing reaches your card.
• Value adds up, rates don't. Redeem several codes and their values accumulate in your balance. But some codes carry a negotiated rate, and redeeming one applies that rate across your whole organization. Your organization holds one rate at a time, and a new one replaces the old. (GSA rate for example).