Usage charge not increasing balance_used

Retired Boards Appdev Billing

Topic summary

A developer reports that successful usage charges are not incrementing the balance_used field, which remains at 0 despite a 201 status response showing a $316.65 charge created successfully.

Key Details:

  • The referenced recurring application charge is confirmed active with a $0.00 base price and $2000 capped amount
  • The usage charge response shows balance_remaining at 2000 but balance_used at 0
  • Both charges share the same billing_on date (2023-10-24)

Scope & Concerns:

  • Issue appears isolated to a few stores, not widespread
  • This is occurring on a test store (noted by "test": true in the charge configuration)
  • Developer initially believed billing cycles didn’t apply to test stores but found comments suggesting otherwise
  • Concern exists about potential store-specific configuration causing the discrepancy

Status: The issue remains unresolved with no clear explanation for why balance_used fails to update despite successful charge creation.

Summarized with AI on November 12. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

We recently implemented the billing API into our application and as part of our testing we came across an issue where a successful usage charge was not incrementing the balance_used.

STATUS 201
{
   "usage_charge":{
      "id":501194621219,
      "description":"test purchase",
      "price":"316.65",
      "created_at":"2024-01-30T12:00:24-05:00",
      "currency":"USD",
      "balance_used":0,
      "balance_remaining":2000,
      "risk_level":0,
      "billing_on":"2023-10-24"
   }
}   

We double checked that the reaccuringApplicationCharge we were referencing was active

"reaccuringApplicationCharge":{
      "id":XXXXX7987,
      "name":"Chaching",
      "price":"0.00",
      "billing_on":"2023-10-24",
      "status":"active",
      "created_at":"2023-10-24T07:03:30-04:00",
      "updated_at":"2023-12-20T14:27:21-05:00",
      "activated_on":"2023-10-24",
      "return_url":"https://admin.shopify.com/store/chaching-testing-store-pino/apps/XXXX?billing_accepted=1",
      "test":true,
      "cancelled_on":null,
      "trial_days":0,
      "trial_ends_on":"2023-10-24",
      "api_client_id":XXXX,
      "decorated_return_url":"https://admin.shopify.com/store/chaching-testing-store-pino/apps/XXXX?billing_accepted=1&charge_id=31481757987",
      "capped_amount":"2000.00",
      "balance_used":0,
      "balance_remaining":2000,
      "risk_level":0,
      "currency":"USD"
   },

It should be noted that this IS a test store, and I did see some comment about billing not applying to test stores but I was under the impression that referred to shopify billing cycle. This only appears to be an issue on a few stores but I’m concerned that it has to do some store configuration that I don’t understand.