Option to create Invoice as PENDING for review before email

[Patty]

I want to ask about the possibility to create recurring invoices one day before they're supposed to be emailed, set them as "pending" and on the next cron run, set them as "due" and email them. Pending invoices wouldn't be seen on the client's side, only on the admin side.

 

I asked about this before but was told it wasn't possible, but I think a lot of billing problems could be avoided by giving administrators a chance to review the newly created invoices and correct any issues if needed. It would give WHMCS users more control over their billing and prevent mistakes. It would make WHMCS even better.

 

I'm no programmer, but I don't think it would be hard for a wise developer like Matt to add this feature. What do you say, Matt? Would you think about it?

[Matt]

It's not that it's that hard to add, although it isn't easy, but it's just a feature that I don't think many would benefit from or use which is how a software system becomes bloated - by adding features which the majority don't need. We'll see how people respond to the topic but I'm seeing more and more feature requests for features which yes, may be brilliant and useful for a small proportion of users, but if every one of them was implemented, WHMCS would become more and more bloated...

[Patty]

Fair enough.

 

IMHO I just think it would add more flexibility and control to the system.

I think I would make a pool about this then?

 

Tks for your reply, Matt.

[Adam]

Hey,

 

I could swing both ways on this. Yes it would be nice of having humans look over the invoice before it is sent out, but that what will be the whole point of having a system do it when you are having a person check and make sure its right.

 

Maybe a better solution would have a copy of all invoices sent to the admin or and a different email (On, Off button) which wouldn't be to bad and not hard to make as Matt posted. This way, invoices are still being created and a copy of the invoice is stored in our emails in case of database crash, or human error.

 

From,

Adam

[Patty]

Hey,

Maybe a better solution would have a copy of all invoices sent to the admin or and a different email (On, Off button) which wouldn't be to bad and not hard to make as Matt posted. This way, invoices are still being created and a copy of the invoice is stored in our emails in case of database crash, or human error.

 

Hey, Adam. Tks for your reply.

 

The whole point is having an option to review the invoices before they're sent. Some people wouldn't need it or wouldn't like to go thru the trouble to review them. But others would like to have this option since this could avoid some billing issues and could add more functionality to the program.

 

For instance: one might need to add a charge for an extra service at this month's invoice instead of having to create another invoice and having the client paying two bills. For some of us this could mean saving money as well, for some kind of payment form charge a flat fee each time it's used, so by combining several charges into one single invoice would mean we only pay the fee once.

 

Or maybe a client placed a wrong order and contacted support to have it changed. Instead of having to create a new invoice and delete one already sent, you could just make the change on the same invoice already created when the order was placed and then manually send it. This way the client won't be confused with 2 or 3 invoices and it could save the admin some time and hassle. At least for some of us.

 

Having a copy sent to admin is pointless since it would have been sent out already. And we can check the invoices from your admin panel. As for database errors it doesn't make a lot of difference if you do back ups at least once a day (I do it twice a day).

 

I understand this option would not be used by some, but it surelly would be used by many. That's why I think it could be added as an option.

[thernes]

Well, like I have written in a different topic, I only see the need for a feature like this when I manually create orders in the admin area. Not always you want the invoice to be sent right away after you have finisehd creating the order. But on a regular basis I would not want to see any changes to how the system works when a users places an order.

[Patty]

Not always you want the invoice to be sent right away after you have finisehd creating the order.

 

Exactly. So this option would be handy for those situations.

 

But on a regular basis I would not want to see any changes to how the system works when a users places an order.

 

That is why it would have an option to send invoices immediately after order is created or not. This way admin could have more control over the way invoice is created and emailed.

[Patty]

Hi, Matt. Sorry to keep bugging you about this, but what are the chances to have the ability of manually creating invoices using any gateway and not having it sent right away?

[Matt]

The problem with a manually created invoice is that it would not update the account when it gets paid.

[Patty]

But we do need to manually create invoices. It is done now by using the Paypal Subscription gateway, right? So invoices manually created this way won't update the account either when paid? What if I manually mark it as Paid?

 

I'm gonna have to create all my accounts in WHMCS, since there's no import script for phpCoin. So for every account I create an invoice will be sent? I don't want to create invoices for these accounts or at least I don't want them to be sent as soon as the account is created.

 

This is another case when the option to not send the invoices right away would be useful. I would have the chance to go back and adjust the invoices for the newly created accounts to be sent on their actual due date and not today, when the accounts were recreated in another system, you know what I mean?

 

Anyway, manually created invoices is not the real subject of this topic, sorry for bringing that up, I think I got a little confused. The subject here is that invoices would be created when cron runs, but they wouldn't be immediately sent. They would be sent only next time cron runs. So they wouldn't be manually created anyway.

[brianoz]

I'm not sure that I'd back this exact proposed enhancement, but I think there is a need for a way to preview invoices somehow and this might help meet that need. There's also no way to generate invoices for an individual customer (or indeed to link a manually-created invoice to product renewal such that renewal dates are bumped up).