Not Quite Understanding Billing and Invoice Options

[somecows]

Hello,

 

Sorry, I feel like I always ask such broad general questions.

 

I am having a lack of clarity when it comes to how automated billing/charing is supposed to work. All of my products (web hosting packages) are set up as "recurring". Is that correct? And each has a monthy, bi-annual, and yearly payment option. And I give clients the choice to pay by authorize.net, paypal, or mail in check. So the thing I don't understand is how these different things are treated by whmcs. if someone signs up to pay by check then obviously an invoice is generated every month or 6 months or whatever, i get that. but what if someone signs up to pay by authorize.net, does that mean that their card will be automatically charged every month, 6 months, or year? is there just an assumption that using authorize.net as a payment gateway means automatic billing? what if someone is paying yearly and chooses to pay via authorize.net but does not intend to be automatically billed? what if they just expect to receive an invoice each year and decide each year how to pay? what about paypal, which seems to lie somewhere in the middle? if someone chooses to pay by paypal do they get charged automatically, or do they just receive an invoice automatically that they need to then address? sorry i am not phrasing all this well, but im just trying to understand the relationship between the payment gateways and whether people's cards are charged automatically, i guess.

 

thanks

[WHMCS John]

Wall of text there

 

1. Authorize.net - An invoice will be generated, and the client's card charged automatically on the due date.

If a client doesn't want to be automatically charged each month then enable "Allow Customers CC Delete" in Setup > General Settings > Security Tab. This means they can delete their card details after making a payment so won't be charged automaticlaly next time.

 

2. PayPal - An invoice will be generated and the client will need to pay manually. Unless they have a subscription in which case the payment will be sent automatically (the invoice will still be generated).

[niels]

I could be wrong, but I believe if you send the invoice in advance of the due date and the customer pays using a different method before the due date, the card will not be charged.

 

Is that right?

[WHMCS John]

That is correct.

[somecows]

That all makes sense, thanks. So rather than giving clients the payment options "credit card, paypal, etc" it might make sense to give them the options "get billed automatically, make manual payments, etc".

 

if we are allowed to make suggestions for future versions of whmcs, i might suggest that this be worked into an option somehow. when clients sign up, i imagine they would like to explicitly choose whether they are charged automatically or not. for instance, when i pay my bills online i dont wind up getting automatically charged for future bills unless i "enroll" in some sort of automatic payment plan.

 

at any rate...so just to clarify, even clients who get charged automatically, on a monthly basis, will get a monthly invoice generated, correct? does anyone out there have any experience with this, do clients find it annoying? it seems like it might be annoying to get an invoice every month that you dont really have to "pay", since it will get paid automatically? at the same time i cant disable invoices as a whole because obviously lots of clients will require them.

 

thoughts? am i overthinking this?

[WHMCS John]

at any rate...so just to clarify, even clients who get charged automatically, on a monthly basis, will get a monthly invoice generated, correct?

Yes, everyone gets an invoice.

 

You could always re-word the invoice email to make it more of an advanced warning that their credit card will be charged, rather than an invoice emails. Either way clients definitely prefer some form of advanced notification that they're going to be charged, rather than just receiving a payment confirmation email each month.

[vincent1]

And does the invoice always get sent as a PDF attachment, or is there an option somewhere to avoid the PDF, that either a customer can chose from within the client area or we can setup?

 

I'm trying to avoid my emails getting pushed into the spam box.

 

Thanks,

 

- Vincent

[somecows]

vincent1, if you go to general settings and then to the invoices tab, there is an option that says "Enable PDF Invoices". i dont know for sure but i think this maybe is the setting you are looking for?

[opt2bout]

John,

 

I am using Authorize.net, and since the 3-digit CVS code is not stored, monthly recurring invoices are billed, payment attempted, and then payment declined.

 

The customer has to come back in and pay the invoice manually and enter their security code.

 

I have disabled the Delete CC option in general/security settings, but still get declined.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Thanks

[WHMCS John]

I recommend contacting Authorize.net to find out why the payment is being declined without the CVS.