How to assign cPanel account to a client inside WHMCS?

[SMBTom]

Hi,

 

After many years of manual invoicing of my clients, I've now took the plunge into purchasing WHMCS. General setup is taking time but it's coming along nicely. However I seem to have stumbled across a problem which Google won't give me the answer to.

 

We are a web design & development company who only host clients who we've developed websites for. After the clients site is launched, we give them 1 years free web hosting. After the first year, we then begin billing them (unless they've opted to leave us).

 

I have added all my clients to WHMCS manually, but for the purpose of explaining my issue, let's stick with Mrs Smith here...

 

Mrs Smith had her websites launch 11 months ago, which means next month she's due a web hosting invoice. Now... I think I know how to add the web hosting product to Mrs Smith's account:

 

1. View clients profile page

2. Navigate to 'Add billable items' tab

3. Select hosting package from drop-down menu

4. Choose the billing terms and set the date the first invoice should be generated

5. Save changes

 

First question: is the above correct?

 

Now here's the problem - if the above is correct, Mrs Smith is now going to be billed automatically for her web hosting services from now on. However, what if she doesn't pay her invoice on time? I've linked WHMCS to WHM so that accounts can be created/ cancelled automatically. I've set accounts to be cancelled if an invoice hasn't been paid within 7 days of the due date. So let's say 7 days have passed and Mrs Smith still hasn't paid her invoice. The system should now cancel her hosting account automatically.

 

I have about 24 different cPanel accounts on the server.

 

So, my second question is - how does the system know which cPanel account belongs to Mrs Smith, and thus how does it know which one to cancel?

 

I'm sure I've just overlooked something simple, but after hours & hours of looking through the back-end of WHMCS, I can't for the life of me work out how to set this part up.

 

Hopefully one of you guys can help me.

 

Thanks,

Tom

[SMBTom]

Another way I see I could go about this is to:

 

1. Go to clients profile

2. Click the products/ services tab

3. Place new order

4. Select Mrs Smith from the drop-down

5. Enter her domain

6. - the rest of the settings I'm unsure about, since we do manage clients domain renewals, but this is done manually because the registrar we use doesn't have API access.

 

Doing it this way from what I gather, the system will then know which cPanel account belongs to this client (due to entering the domain). However, I have WHMCS set to automatically setup new accounts once payment has been received. In this case however, her account is already created, so we don't want it to create a new one.

 

Is there a work-around for this?

 

------------------

 

Also RE the domains - I want to bill the clients for domain renewals automatically, but once it's been paid I need to then go and renew them manually at the registrars site. Can WHMCS handle this, and if so, how?

 

Thanks again,

Tom

[PascM]

Hi,

 

Mrs Smith had her websites launch 11 months ago, which means next month she's due a web hosting invoice. Now... I think I know how to add the web hosting product to Mrs Smith's account:

 

1. View clients profile page

2. Navigate to 'Add billable items' tab

3. Select hosting package from drop-down menu

4. Choose the billing terms and set the date the first invoice should be generated

5. Save changes

 

First question: is the above correct?

Tom

I think it's better to "Add new order" and un check the options for Order Confirmation /Generate Invoice /Send Email and set the order to active. Also don't forget to "accept" the order without running the "module create" and set the correct dates for next invoice.

 

Now here's the problem - if the above is correct, Mrs Smith is now going to be billed automatically for her web hosting services from now on. However, what if she doesn't pay her invoice on time? I've linked WHMCS to WHM so that accounts can be created/ cancelled automatically. I've set accounts to be cancelled if an invoice hasn't been paid within 7 days of the due date. So let's say 7 days have passed and Mrs Smith still hasn't paid her invoice. The system should now cancel her hosting account automatically.

That's correct!

I have about 24 different cPanel accounts on the server.

 

So, my second question is - how does the system know which cPanel account belongs to Mrs Smith, and thus how does it know which one to cancel?

 

 

You have to go through every account and check that you have assigned every product to the correct server! That's the only way that WHMCS can find the account.

 

I hope i've helped.