Customer Billing Billing Contact Verification Coverage

A company's invoices go to an address that belongs to a former employee, while the active accounts-payable team never sees them. This metric measures whether accounts have a current, authorised route for invoice and payment messages.

Define the billing contact by responsibility and legal entity, not the most active product user, since the person using the service may not have finance authority. Stripe documents customer email and invoicing settings that send notices and payment links, but the route works only if the correct customer contact is configured.

Use a source the customer has approved for updates, such as an account administrator, procurement process, signed agreement or secure portal. An email address that passes syntax checks is not a confirmed billing destination, because deliverability alone does not establish authority to receive an invoice.

Large customers may have a shared accounts-payable mailbox plus a separate dispute or procurement contact, and a contact may be valid for payment reminders but not for tax documents, so record purpose-specific permissions where needed. If a customer changes legal entity, verify both contact and billing address, because reusing the old contact can disclose pricing to the wrong organisation.

For resellers, determine whether billing messages go to the reseller and not the end user, and for several subscriptions map the contact to the correct products and payment obligations. Confirm how changes to the contact are authorised, because a reply from an unverified external address should not redirect invoices containing private account details.

If an address bounces, mark it unverified and use an approved backup route instead of silently substituting a guessed person. Check whether a formal notice requires a special contractual address or method, and if the customer uses a procurement portal, record the authorised destination and test the submission path, since a contact field alone cannot represent every invoice route.

Define verified as a route confirmed by an authorised customer source, checked for present purpose and not invalidated by later events, and record when it was last checked. Set a freshness window, with earlier recheck after a bounce, returned notice or account change.

For the rate, count active accounts or upcoming invoices in scope and state which denominator is used, showing missing, stale, bounced and conflicting contacts separately and prioritising upcoming invoices, because a populated field is not always a usable route. Pair contact coverage with actual invoice delivery and payment resolution, since a correct address can still be blocked by the mail system.

For a new customer, verify contact ownership before the first invoice so a wrong destination does not start the relationship with a privacy mistake, and resolve any internal disagreement over the current contact from customer-approved evidence. Other cases need care too: multi-currency accounts should make clear which subsidiary or region each invoice concerns, personal accounts should not trigger contact with a family member simply because their email appears elsewhere, a request to stop notifications should prompt a check for another authorised route before the address is removed, and a billing contact need not receive every operational or support record.