RE: SpendingLimit = 0. How is it possible?

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Inna,

Thank you for reaching out to our API support team. I had to delete your initial post as it contained your account's various IDs information. For reference, I edited and now re-posting below :

Hello! 

I've read in the documentation, that spendingLimit must be -1 or greater than 0:
https://developers.google.com/adwords/api/docs/reference/v201809/BudgetOrderService.BudgetOrder

And I get 0, what does it mean? I will show you my request and the API answer. 

Request:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <soapenv:Header>
    <ns1:RequestHeader xmlns:ns1="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/billing/v201809" soapenv:actor="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/actor/next" soapenv:mustUnderstand="0">
      <ns1:clientCustomerId>XXXXXXXX</ns1:clientCustomerId>
      <ns1:developerToken>XXXX</ns1:developerToken>
      <ns1:userAgent>Calltouch Manual AdWords Collector v1.0</ns1:userAgent>
      <ns1:validateOnly>false</ns1:validateOnly>
      <ns1:partialFailure>false</ns1:partialFailure>
    </ns1:RequestHeader>
  </soapenv:Header>
  <soapenv:Body>
<get xmlns="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/billing/v201809">
      <serviceSelector>
      <fields  xmlns="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/cm/v201809">BillingAccountId,BillingAccountName,BudgetOrderName</fields>
<dateRange xmlns="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/cm/v201809">
<min xmlns="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/cm/v201809">20200601</min>
<max xmlns="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/cm/v201809">20200703</max>
             </dateRange>
</serviceSelector>
    </get> 
</soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Answer:
<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
<soap:Header>
<ns2:ResponseHeader xmlns:ns2="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/billing/v201809" xmlns="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/cm/v201809">
<requestId>XXXXXXXXXXXXXX</requestId>
<serviceName>BudgetOrderService</serviceName>
<methodName>get</methodName>
<operations>1</operations>
<responseTime>240</responseTime>
</ns2:ResponseHeader>
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
<ns2:getResponse xmlns:ns2="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/billing/v201809" xmlns="https://adwords.google.com/api/adwords/cm/v201809">
<ns2:rval>
<totalNumEntries>1</totalNumEntries>
<Page.Type>BudgetOrderPage</Page.Type>
<ns2:entries>
<ns2:billingAccountId>XXXXXXXXXXXXXX</ns2:billingAccountId>
<ns2:id>XXXXXXXX</ns2:id>
<ns2:billingAccountName>Детский сад Legacy</ns2:billingAccountName>
<ns2:primaryBillingId>XXXXXXXXXXXXXX</ns2:primaryBillingId>
<ns2:spendingLimit>
<ComparableValue.Type>Money</ComparableValue.Type>
<microAmount>0</microAmount>
</ns2:spendingLimit>
<ns2:startDateTime>20200915 161432 Europe/Moscow</ns2:startDateTime>
<ns2:endDateTime>20371231 105959 Europe/Moscow</ns2:endDateTime>
<ns2:lastRequest>
<ns2:status>APPROVED</ns2:status>
<ns2:billingAccountName>Детский сад Legacy</ns2:billingAccountName>
</ns2:lastRequest>
</ns2:entries>
</ns2:rval>
</ns2:getResponse>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>

Moving forward, allow me to reach out to the rest of our team so we can discuss how you are getting the 0 value in your spendLimit. We'll reach back to you once we have our findings.

Best regards,

Peter Laurence Napa Oliquino Google Ads API Team

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[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Inna,

Sharing with you some updates.

Upon checking, the account isn't set up to use a monthly invoice system. Although the AdWords API allows any users to use BudgetOrderService.get(), the result is not reliable because of this and actually doesn't reflect the real budget orders. That's why you are seeing the result returning the spending limit as 0.

For now, our team is still investigating. We'll provide more information once available.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor Prod]

Hi Inna,

Just chiming in to add a little context to what Peter said earlier.

Since your account isn't set up to use monthly invoicing the concept of a "budget" isn't applicable, so BudgetOrderService doesn't have a mechanism to know what value to return, so it just returns 0 as a default. Our team has said that this probably shouldn't be exposed at all, so for your purposes it's reasonable to ignore the value for spendingLimit.

Is there something you're trying to do with the API that this behavior is blocking? If so we can try to help with a workaround.

Best,
Ben, Google Ads API Team

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