Changing domain registrars

[madsere]

We've been using various registrars but now have a reseller account with better prices, so we want to move existing customer's hosting to the new registrar as they are expiring.

 

I can't find any way to do this through WHMCS.

 

One sort-of-hacky-way would be to delete the domain in WHMCS, then issue a transfer request to the new reseller.

 

Because customers are normally not billed until the domain actually expires, and some registrars such as Enom immediately block transfers for expired domains we need to start the transfer before it expires. I'm fine with the risk involved, but to start the transfer I have to confirm the order, and when it is then paid for, WHMCS automatically renew the domain for another year.

 

How can we avoid that?

[RebelOne]

I copied this from somewhere a while back and it may be relevant to what you wish to do...

 

For some trusted customers you may wish to register or renew the domain before you have actually received their payment. To do this:

  1. Access the domains tab in the client's profile for the desired domain
  2. Click the Register or Renew Module Command button to immediately send a request to the domain registrar
  3. If successful, the expiry date will update. You should also increment the next due date if you are manually handling payment as below. 

Now if the domain is already invoiced, when that invoice is paid another domain renewal request would get sent to the registrar unless you stop it. So to do that you need to also perform these steps:

  1. Locate the invoice for the domain (click the View Invoices link on the domain page to jump straight to a list of invoices for just that domain)
  2. Copy the line item and amount for the domain from the existing line to a new invoice line item and save
  3. Then delete the original line item from the invoice and by doing that you are removing the actual link to the domain when paid so no further renewal will occur 

[othellotech]

Are you looking to migrate all your domains, irrespective of whether a client renews, or trying to migrate as/when they pay ?

 

If doing them all ( subject to your registrants approval, not all will want their domain moved to a-n-other random registrar, there are several scammy scumbags I'd NEVER allow a domain of mine to be managed by ) then you need to unlock them all, get the epp transfer codes, change the registrar in whmcs, save, click transfer, enter the epp, put the dates back to their original value

 

This of course means you've paid for that extra year on tlds that extend domains on transfer.

 

Otherwise you could set them all to email and do the transfers individually on payment, but that will often be too late to transfer

 

The simplest method is to setup the automation for the new registrar for new domains, and leave the current domains where they are ( every domain you have can be with a different registrar )

[madsere]

@RebelOne: Thanks much, it looks exactly what I was looking for. Will try it out!

 

@othellotech: I think you misunderstood my question - I know how to make domain transfers, the question is how to do an early transfer without getting the domain registered for two consecutive years. Oh, and as far as my customers are concerned I *am* the registrar.

[madsere]

Hm, actually let's say it is now 10-OCT and the domain will expire 20-OCT, and this is when it will be invoiced.

 

I now go ahead and delete the existing domain entry, and re-create it as a transfer-request.

 

This now generates an invoice immediately due. As the invoice isn't really going to be due until 20-OCT I go ahead and delete that, and adjust the expiry/due dates as appropriate.

 

Now on 20-OCT a new invoice will automatically be raised. Of course that needs to be paid, but that will automatically trigger WHMCS to add another year to the registration. How do I avoid that? I guess changing registrar to "none" would do that, right? Any better way of handling this?

[RebelOne]

I think after the invoice you intend to send to customer is generated but before it is paid is when you can delete the invoice line item (after manually making a new line item for the transfer charge).

 

You could set registrar to none, or you could disable "auto-renew on payment" on the domain tab of whmcs -> general settings.

 

You may also consider doing the transfer manually at the registrar and leaving whmcs out of the deal completely, then after setting the registrar = none in whmcs, let the invoice come due as normal and just keep the payment when it is made. As long as when all is done you make sure the expiry and next due dates are correct and you set the registrar to the new one you should be good.

 

Ok I'm gonna stop cause I'm getting confused! ha! good luck...

[madsere]

I don't see "auto renew on payment" but there is a "Disable Auto Renew", is that what you mean? Are you sure that will disable renewals by payment?

 

I prefer doing the transfer through WHMCS so registrar data gets set to what the customer has set up in WHMCS.

[Troy]

We're transferring from Enom to Resellerclub, after too many shady practices by Enom.

 

Here's how we're doing it:

 

1. Renewing domains 30 days in advance (Setup -> Automation -> Billing Settings -> Invoice Generation -> Advanced Settings).

2. Automatic renewal is off so we have to manually perform renewals (Settings -> General Settings -> Domains -> Uncheck "Auto Renew on Payment").

3. For domains registered at Enom we manually perform a transfer by a) sending the customer a note about what we're doing and why, b) unlocking the domain, c) changing the registrant and admin email addresses to an internal address, d) requesting the epp key and e) changing the registrar on the domain and submitting the transfer.

 

To-Do items are created for renewals and we process them. Instead of going by the to-do list which doesn't really show renewal dates, we use a sql query to pull back the domain names with a manual renewal to-do item by expiration date and make sure we kick off transfers at least a week in advance of expiration. We have a few thousand domains so it's a bit of a chore and will take a good long time to complete, but we're slowly moving away from Enom.

 

We also warn the customer of the impending transfer in our expiration reminders. We do have a few clients that wait until the last second to renew (auto-renew disabled) and those we go ahead and renew at Enom for now--we'll probably always have some of these but once the total number of domains at Enom is smaller we can decide how to handle the remaining ones. Have had some trouble with .ca transfers too--some of those we've just had to renew at Enom until we can figure it out later.