Link billing account and profile to Partner Center account

Appropriate roles: Global admin

Microsoft AI Cloud Partner program purchases were migrated to Microsoft's new commerce platform, which offers a unified purchasing experience across Microsoft products such as Office and Azure, in addition to Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program offers, including Microsoft Action Pack, Solutions Partner designations, and Legacy Silver/Gold benefits. Partner accounts will transition from the existing payment platform to Microsoft's new commerce payment platform.

As part of this migration, it's necessary for the Global admin to complete this process to make any purchases after January 2024. During this process, you can either link your Partner Center account to the existing Microsoft billing account and billing profile or create a new billing account and profile.

Billing account

The billing account represents an agreement that a customer accepts to use Microsoft products and services. It contains one or more billing profiles. You use your billing account to manage invoices, payments, and track costs. A billing account contains one or more billing profiles that let you manage your invoices and payment methods. Each billing profile contains one or more invoice sections that let you organize costs on the billing profile's invoice.

The following diagram shows the relationship between a billing account, billing profiles, and invoice sections.

Roles on the billing account have the highest level of permissions. By default, only the user who created the billing account can access the billing account. These roles should be assigned to users that need to view invoices, and track costs for your entire organization, for example, your finance or IT managers. For more information, see billing account roles and tasks.

Billing profile

The billing profile represents an agreement that a customer accepts to use Microsoft products and services. It contains one or more billing profiles. Use a billing profile to manage your invoice and payment methods. A monthly invoice is generated at the beginning of the month for each billing profile in your account. The invoice lists charges for all purchases from the previous month.

A billing profile needs to be created for your billing account. It contains one invoice section by default. You can create more sections to easily track and organize costs based on your needs whether it's per project, per department, or per development environment. You can see these sections on the billing profile's invoice reflecting the usage of each subscription and purchases you assign to it.

Roles on the billing profiles have permissions to view and manage invoices and payment methods. Assign these roles to users who pay invoices, for example, members of the accounting team in your organization. For more information, see billing profile roles and tasks.

Link billing account and billing profile to Partner Center account

For Membership purchases, you need to link a billing profile and corresponding billing account to your Partner Center account. You can either reuse your existing Microsoft billing account and profile, or create a new billing account and profile and link it to your Partner Center account.

Note

If you have multiple tenants linked to your account, log into Partner Center through the tenant with which you want to make Membership purchases and complete linking of billing profile.

Prerequisites

To link a billing account and profile to your Partner Center account, you need:

1. The user should be a global administrator.
2. The Partner Center account should be in an Active state.

Create a new Microsoft billing account and profile

1. You'll receive an email from Microsoft and in-product notification that prompts you to link your Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Partner Center account to the Microsoft billing profile. Select Link Microsoft billing profile. Alternatively, you can start the process by selecting link Microsoft billing profile.

   

2. Once in the Billing profile page in the Accounts settings workspace, select Start.

   

3. Select Create new billing account.

   

4. Update the details of your billing account. Some information, like your legal profile data, are prefilled by default. Select Save.

   Note

   Some mandatory fields like Sold to address are non-editable on this panel. In case you want to update these fields, you can do that from the Legal profile page in Account settings. Once the changes are verified, it will start reflecting on this panel and you can continue the process again.

   Primary Contact is not listed as a mandatory field. We strongly recommend including it, because if this field is empty it can prevent a purchase from going through.

   

5. Select Next to proceed to enter billing profile details. The billing profile is created under the previous billing account.

   

6. Select Create new billing profile.

   

7. Enter a billing profile name, then select Save.

   

   Note

   Payment details cannot be added during billing profile creation. Payment details for a new billing profile created as part of this process will appear as None. You can add them later to the created billing profile during purchase.

8. The billing profile details get saved. Select Next to move to review page.

   

9. Review the details of the billing account and profile that you entered. Check the box to confirm acceptance of the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA), then select Finish.

   

   Note

   If your Sold To address is in Italy, you're prompted for a secondary acknowledgement of the MCA.

10. The billing account and profile get created and linked to your Partner Center account successfully. Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Admin can continue with the Membership purchases on the Membership page.

    

Reuse the existing Microsoft billing account and profile and link to your Partner Center account

1. You would receive an email and in-product notification with a link to start the linking of billing account and profile. Select the link to land on the Billing profile page in Partner center.

   

2. Select Start.

   

3. Select the billing account that you want to link with your Partner Center account, and select Next. If you want to see the list of billing profiles under a billing account, select the billing profile dropdown. If you want to see more details around a billing profile, select View details (this will redirect you to Azure portal).

   

4. Select the billing profile under the selected billing account and select Next.

   

5. Review the details of the billing account and profile you selected. Check the box to confirm acceptance of the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA). (If you already signed MCA in the past for the selected billing account, the checkbox is disabled. You need not sign it here again.) Select Finish.

   

   Note

   If your Sold To address is in Italy, you're prompted to provide a secondary acknowledgement of the MCA.

6. The billing account and profile get linked to your Partner Center account successfully. The Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Admin can continue with the membership purchases on the Membership page.

   

Change the billing account and profile linked to your Partner Center account

If you want to change an existing billing account and/or billing profile linked to your Partner Center account to another billing account and/or profile, you can do so on the Billing profile page. After the change, all your subsequent purchases would start reflecting on your new billing profile.

1. On the Billing profile page, select Change billing account if you want to change the billing account linked to your Partner Center account. If you want to change only the billing profile under the billing account linked to your Partner Center account, select Change billing profile.

   

2. Select the billing account that you want to link with Partner Center account from the existing list for your tenant. Select Next. (You can also create a new billing account and link it. If you want to change billing profile, you'll land directly on the Select billing profile page.)

   

3. Select a billing profile from the existing list under the billing account. Select Next. (You can also create a new billing profile under the selected billing account and link it. If you already have a billing profile without a payment instrument, you need to reuse the same, you can't create a new billing profile.)

   

4. Review the details of the billing account and profile you selected. Check the box to confirm acceptance of the MCA (if you already signed MCA in the past for the selected billing account, you need not sign it here again. The checkbox would be disabled). Select Finish.

   

   Note

   If your Sold To address is in Italy, you're prompted to provide a secondary acknowledgement of the MCA.

5. The billing account and profile get linked to your Partner Center account successfully. The Microsoft AI Cloud Partner Program Admin can continue with the membership purchases on the Membership page.