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Business models

Enterprise SaaS / Custom Contracts

The enterprise SaaS pricing pattern is what happens when standard self-serve tiers stop fitting the deal: the customer is a global company with custom requirements, the sales cycle is months long, the contract is multi-year with negotiated terms, the deal is paid in the customer's local currency under their bank's FX preferences, and finance / legal / deal-desk all need to sign off before the deal closes. The same platform that serves $10/month self-serve customers must also serve $500k/year custom contracts without bending the codebase to accommodate either side.

Real-world examples. Salesforce (custom-priced multi-year contracts with deal-desk gates), Workday, ServiceNow, SAP, Atlassian Enterprise, Snowflake, Databricks, GitHub Enterprise, GitLab Ultimate, MongoDB Atlas Enterprise. Common shape: account-specific pricing dramatically different from the catalog, multi-year terms with annual or quarterly billing, multi-currency under the customer's preferred currency, internal approval gates for any deviation from standard pricing, dedicated success manager per account, custom invoice formatting and PO requirements.

The shape of the problem

Enterprise sales mechanics translate into specific billing requirements:

• Account-specific pricing across many products. A standard plan might have 8 priced products; the enterprise contract carries custom rates on most of them, plus add-ons not on the catalog. Modeling this as a one-off plan creates plan sprawl; modeling it as overrides keeps the catalog clean.
• Multi-year terms, annual billing. Contract is 3 years, but billed annually with the second/third year prices already pinned. Mid-year changes (true-ups, expansions) need handling without rebuilding the whole contract.
• Multi-currency invoicing under the customer's FX preferences. Customer wants invoices in EUR even if the catalog is USD; their finance team wants the FX rate locked at the start of each annual period for predictability (period_start FX policy).
• Deal-desk approval gates. Any deviation from standard pricing above a threshold triggers internal review - sales, deal desk, finance, legal - before the contract activates.
• Custom invoice formatting. Enterprise customers have PO numbers, Leitweg-IDs, internal cost-center codes, custom branding requirements, and (in the EU) often need XRechnung/EN 16931 e-invoice format.
• Payment terms. Net 30/60/90 instead of "due on receipt"; customer pays via wire transfer with a manual recording flow rather than auto-debit.
• Renewal forecasting. Finance needs to know which contracts are renewing in the next quarter, what they're renewing at, and which are at risk.

Kontorion blueprint

Concern	Kontorion primitive
Account-specific pricing	Customer price overrides per (customer, product)
Multi-currency under customer's preference	Customer preferred_currency + org FX policy: period_start
PO numbers, Leitweg-IDs	Standard invoice fields buyer_reference, delivery_date
EN 16931 / XRechnung	GET /invoices/{id}/xrechnung
Net 30/60/90 payment terms	Subscription payment_terms_days override
Manual wire transfer recording	POST /invoices/{id}/record-payment with reference
Renewal pipeline forecasting	Analytics on subscription term_end field

Build it

1. Create the enterprise customer

Code
curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/customers \
  -d '{
    "external_id": "salesforce_acct_42",
    "name": "Acme Industries GmbH",
    "email": "billing@acme-industries.example",
    "preferred_currency": "EUR",
    "billing_address": {
      "country_code": "DE",
      "city": "Munich",
      "postal_code": "80331",
      "line1": "Bayerstraße 12"
    },
    "tax_ids": [{ "type": "eu_vat", "value": "DE987654321" }],
    "payment_terms_days": 60,
    "metadata": {
      "account_executive": "ae_jane_smith",
      "leitweg_id": "991-12345-67",
      "po_required": true
    }
  }'

2. Apply customer-specific price overrides

The negotiated contract gives Acme 30% off the platform fee, custom rate on metered API calls, and a flat-fee for a service that's normally per-call:

Code
# 30% off the platform fee
curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/prices \
  -d '{
    "kind": "CUSTOMER_OVERRIDE",
    "customer_id": "cust_acme_industries",
    "product_id": "prod_platform_fee",
    "list_price": "700.00",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "billing_interval": "yearly",
    "billing_interval_count": 1,
    "effective_from": "2025-04-15T00:00:00Z",
    "effective_to": "2028-04-15T00:00:00Z"
  }'

# Custom flat rate on API calls: $0.001 instead of catalog $0.01
curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/prices \
  -d '{
    "kind": "CUSTOMER_OVERRIDE",
    "customer_id": "cust_acme_industries",
    "product_id": "prod_api_calls",
    "list_price": "0.10",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "billing_interval": "yearly",
    "billing_interval_count": 1,
    "tiers": [{ "up_to": null, "unit_amount": "0.10" }],
    "effective_from": "2025-04-15T00:00:00Z",
    "effective_to": "2028-04-15T00:00:00Z"
  }'

# Custom flat rate on premium support (normally per-incident, contracted as flat-fee)
curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/prices \
  -d '{
    "kind": "CUSTOMER_OVERRIDE",
    "customer_id": "cust_acme_industries",
    "product_id": "prod_premium_support",
    "list_price": "15000.00",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "billing_interval": "yearly",
    "billing_interval_count": 1,
    "tiers": [{ "up_to": null, "unit_amount": "15000.00" }],
    "effective_from": "2025-04-15T00:00:00Z",
    "effective_to": "2028-04-15T00:00:00Z"
  }'

3. Configure deal-desk approval workflow

Trigger an approval workflow for any new override above a threshold:

Code
curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/approval-workflow-templates \
  -d '{
    "name": "Deal-desk override approval",
    "entity_type": "PRICE",
    "trigger_conditions": {
      "discount_percent_above": 20,
      "or_annual_contract_value_above": { "amount": "100000.00", "currency": "USD" }
    },
    "steps": [
      { "name": "Deal Desk review", "approvers": [{"type": "role", "value": "deal_desk"}], "threshold": "any", "timeout_hours": 24 },
      { "name": "VP Sales sign-off", "approvers": [{"type": "role", "value": "vp_sales"}], "threshold": "any", "timeout_hours": 48 },
      { "name": "CFO sign-off (above $250k)", "approvers": [{"type": "role", "value": "cfo"}], "threshold": "any", "timeout_hours": 72,
        "skip_condition": "annual_contract_value_below_250k" }
    ]
  }'

When the AE creates the override above the threshold, an approval.request_created fires; the override stays inactive until all required steps approve.

4. Set FX policy to period_start for predictable annual statements

The org's FX policy is set once at the organization level:

Code
curl -X PUT https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/organization-settings \
  -d '{ "fx_policy": "period_start" }'

Now every invoice for any customer uses the FX rate active at the start of the billing period. Acme's annual invoice has predictable EUR amounts even if USD/EUR moves during the year.

5. Create the multi-year subscription

Code
curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/subscriptions \
  -d '{
    "customer_id": "cust_acme_industries",
    "plan_id": "plan_enterprise",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "items": [
      { "price_id": "price_acme_platform_fee", "quantity": 1 },
      { "price_id": "price_acme_api_calls", "quantity": 1 },
      { "price_id": "price_acme_premium_support", "quantity": 1 }
    ],
    "term_start_date": "2025-04-15",
    "term_end_date": "2028-04-15",
    "auto_renew": true,
    "renewal_notice_days": 90
  }'

Three-year term with annual billing (driven by the price's billing_interval: "yearly" with billing_interval_count: 1). renewal_notice_days: 90 triggers subscription.renewal_upcoming 90 days before term end, surfacing the renewal in your account-management tooling.

6. Generate the first invoice with PO and Leitweg-ID

When the first annual invoice generates, it carries the customer's buyer_reference (PO) and delivery_date automatically:

Code
# Update the AE's PO before the invoice finalizes
curl -X PATCH https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/invoices/inv_acme_2025 \
  -d '{
    "buyer_reference": "PO-ACME-2025-04-1547",
    "delivery_date": "2025-04-15"
  }'

curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/invoices/inv_acme_2025/finalize

7. Customer pays by wire; record the payment manually

Code
curl -X POST https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/invoices/inv_acme_2025/record-payment \
  -d '{
    "amount": "85000.00",
    "currency": "EUR",
    "reference": "Wire ref TXN-2025-0442 / PO-ACME-2025-04-1547",
    "received_at": "2025-05-15T10:00:00Z"
  }'

8. Export XRechnung XML for the customer's e-invoice ingestion

Code
curl https://api.kontorion.eu/v1/invoices/inv_acme_2025/xrechnung > acme_2025_einvoice.xml

The XML includes Leitweg-ID, supplier and buyer VAT IDs, line-by-line tax breakdown, and the PO reference - everything required by EN 16931 for B2B/B2G electronic invoicing.

Variations

• Quarterly billing. Same contract, just billing_interval: "quarterly" on the price. Each invoice is one-quarter of the annual.
• All-upfront prepay. Generate one invoice for the full term value at start; treat each subsequent year as zero-charge cycles via plan configuration.
• Mid-term true-up. Customer adds 50 seats mid-year. POST /v1/subscriptions/{id}/change-quantity with { "subscription_item_id": "si_…", "new_quantity": 250 } produces a true-up invoice for the prorated additional seats.
• Custom branded invoice templates. Per-customer invoice template overrides are configured via metadata.invoice_template_id and rendered by the PDF service.
• Multi-entity invoicing. Acme has subsidiaries in DE, FR, IT - each needs separate invoices with their own VAT ID. Create one customer per entity; group them under a parent account via metadata.parent_customer_id for unified reporting.
• Renewal automation. A auto_renew: true subscription that approaches term end fires subscription.renewal_upcoming for downstream listeners to act on.

What you don't have to build

• Per-customer pricing layered cleanly on top of the catalog (no plan sprawl)
• Multi-step deal-desk approval with role-based gates and timeouts
• Multi-year subscription term tracking with renewal notification
• Period-start FX rate pinning for predictable multi-year contracts
• EN 16931 / XRechnung e-invoice generation
• PO and Leitweg-ID propagation onto invoices
• Net-N payment terms enforcement and dunning behavior
• Manual wire-transfer recording with audit trail
• Renewal pipeline reporting (/analytics/renewal-pipeline)

Next steps

• Customer Price Overrides - the core enterprise pricing primitive
• Exchange Rates - period_start FX policy for predictable annuals
• Invoices - XRechnung export, PO/Leitweg-ID handling
• Tax Compliance - reverse charge and intra-EU invoicing