Forum Discussion
MAICPP Membership payment option breaks enterprise payment policies
Dear Microsoft, dear fellow partners,
A recent change in payment options for partner membership will probably cause a lot of problems in larger partner companies. As announced on https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/partner-center/announcements/2024-january#monthly-update-whats-new-for-solutions-partner-designations-specializations-and-microsoft-ai-cloud-and-partner-program-offerings-and-benefits
any program purchase including annual membership fee will be billed via attached credit card.
quote:
Any partner program membership purchase, such as ISV Success, Partner Launch Benefits, Partner Success Core Benefits, and
Partner Success Expanded Benefits, Microsoft Action Pack, Solutions Partner designation benefits or legacy gold or silver
benefits will move to the new commerce system.
The Global admin will be prompted to create or update their Microsoft billing account and profile in Partner Center before
purchasing or renewing any AI Cloud Partner Program offer using a credit cardOur Finance department is very fond of invoices. Send 'm in and we will pay.
Our Finance department is not thrilled by the idea of adding company credit cards to whichever portal.
The normal renewal was challenging already in the sense it required payment within 30 days after initiating renewal thus requiring an exception to pay sooner that usual terms whilst the invoice only became available after we had paid...
Is this an early April fools joke or is this really how we are expected to pay going forward?
Our PDM has no further information so very eager to hear:
A) are other partners really adding credit cards to their partnercenter account to pay for renewal
B) could Microsoft reconsider and just revert back to old process where we pay via wiretransfer?
Kind regards,
Martijn
Hi all,
after logging a ticket I received more details on announced change.
During our call I informed you that starting January 22, 2024, the Wire Transfer membership purchase option will not be
available for partners located in the 28 countries/regions, due to a currency change, however,
Netherlands is not one of the countries included on the 28 so you do not need to worry about the wire transfer being
disabledStill paying via wiretransfer in the other countries including Netherlands! Might be handy if the list of the 28 countries impacted would be added to the announcement.
Regards,
Martijn
Hi all,
after logging a ticket I received more details on announced change.
During our call I informed you that starting January 22, 2024, the Wire Transfer membership purchase option will not be
available for partners located in the 28 countries/regions, due to a currency change, however,
Netherlands is not one of the countries included on the 28 so you do not need to worry about the wire transfer being
disabledStill paying via wiretransfer in the other countries including Netherlands! Might be handy if the list of the 28 countries impacted would be added to the announcement.
Regards,
Martijn
Hoi naamgenoot! 🙂
A) Yes, we're also having this problem. Yes, we see a lot of partners (resellers) doing this as there's no other choice at the moment. No, we're also not really happy about it.
B) I hope so too!
I really hope that Microsoft is not forcing partners to add their cc to Partner Center now, so that Microsoft could automatically charge partners for eg. consumption/license over usage in the future...
LicensingConcierge1Microsoft
Hi MartijnBreet
Thank you for posting to the community!
A) are other partners really adding credit cards to their partnercenter account to pay for renewal
You are correct. Effective January 22, 2024, 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 - Link billing account and profile to Partner Center account - Partner Center | Microsoft Learn
This new process is in alignment with Microsoft's new commerce platform, which offers a unified purchasing experience across Microsoft products.
B) could Microsoft reconsider and just revert back to old process where we pay via wiretransfer?
There is an option to submit product feedback at the bottom of the link above. Feel free to use this option to submit the questions & feedback that you've posted today:
If this reply answers your question, please Accept as the solution to help the other members find it more quickly. Otherwise, please let me know if you need further assistance on this topic.
Regards,Microsoft CSP Licensing Concierge
Dear LicensingConcierge1
Thank you for adding info. Do you agree the text in linked article is confusing at least?
quote:
The billing account represents an agreement that a customer accepts to use Microsoft products and servicesAlthough most partners are probably also a customer not all customers are partners.
And sorry to break the news: we do not consider credit cards to be a valid payment option for partner related transactions such as membership. The new process is not in line with what is considered reasonable by our Finance department.
Next step will be log a ticket so we'll have something our PDM can escalate. Suggest other partners do the same....
Regards,
Martijn
ps: did I mention needing the GA role for an MPN transaction is a missed opportunity for the existing MPN admin role?
