-1.00 does not disable product/ service

[coghost]

I have setup some products that are only available annually, Biennially and Triennially. I set the other three options to -1.00 as instructed to disable them but on the purchase page under the name of the product it says "$-1.00 USD One Time ". If putting -1.00 is supposed to disable that how do I do this for products that are not available on a monthly basis?

 

 

Here is a link to the page where you can see what I am talking about.

 

https://coghosting.com/cogport/cart.php?gid=10

[coghost]

I have been trying a few things and if I choose to make this a recurring product, when I checkout I am given the three options (12, 24 or 36 months). However the initial price for the three choices is in this case $87.50 for all three choices but the due today is the correct price of $1050. If I chose any of the other options the price does correct in the total due today but I have no clue where this $87.50 is coming from? This price is not even an optional price anywhere on this product.

[brian!]

you may need to post a few screenshots of your products pricing page... I can see you're still playing with this as the price is now showing up as -$1

[bear]

I have setup some products that are only available annually, Biennially and Triennially.

 

Which is this set to?

"Payment Type"

 

I'm guessing you have that set to "one time", as the monthly field shares that box on the setup page.

[coghost]

Here is how I have it setup now.

 

[bear]

You have prices in the setup fee column/row (on purpose?) and have it set to "one time fee" and that column has -1.00 in it. All it's seeing is a one time fee of negative 1. When choosing "one time", that first column matters.

[coghost]

I had the prices in the price field to begin with but support indicated that because I am not using this for a subscription or reoccurring fee it was a setup fee and really that is what it is. They order the SSL cert and I will install it and then send a reminder 30 days before it expires so they can purchase a new one. SSL certs do not renew and have to be purchased for each block of time they are activated for.

 

So should I reconsider and put them back in the price field?

 

BTW bear, thanks for helping me, I really appreciate it.

[bear]

I'm not offering certs (I find them a pain for very little return), but it seems to me the way to set this up is a one time fee only, and separate products for longer durations (2, 3 and so on). I'd create a 1 year product, a 2 year and a three; all with "one time" pricing only.

 

Maybe someone here that offers them has a better approach.

[brian!]

I'm not offering certs (I find them a pain for very little return), but it seems to me the way to set this up is a one time fee only, and separate products for longer durations (2, 3 and so on). I'd create a 1 year product, a 2 year and a three; all with "one time" pricing only.

that would be one way and certainly an option if there were only one or two products, but with Cog having six products each with 3 year options, that would be 18 products!

 

another option might be to setup your cert prices page for each product to be "one-time" and fill all the pricing and setup boxes with zeros... I suspect that as its a one-time product, whmcs doesn't look at the other prices and so you don't need to enter -1.00 in the price fields (though it would not do any harm if you did!).

 

then setup a configurable option, call it "Years", make it a dropdown and add 3 options

1 Year = 1050 (i'm using price for this test, but setup fee might work too)

2 Years = 2100

3 Years = 3150

 

you'd have to setup a configuration option for each product (in your case 6) and then perhaps tweak the template either so that it doesn't give the price (where it now says "$-1.00 USD One Time") or adds the word "From" before it.

 

also, as you are not discounting for multiple years, another solution along the same lines would be that instead of setting up a dropdown config option, you setup a Quantity config option... make the minimum quantity 1, max 3, then setup one option, call it anything, and give it a price of 1050 (e.g for your first product)... then when someone comes to order a cert, they'll choose the product and next be shown a slider on the next page where they can choose the number of years they want to buy - as they move the slider, the price will multiply.

 

remember to tick the box marked "Allow Multiple Quantities" on the product pricing page.

 

I guess the advantage of this solution is that you only have to make six config options with one price, rather than six with three prices in the first option

[coghost]

you'd have to setup a configuration option for each product (in your case 6) and then perhaps tweak the template either so that it doesn't give the price (where it now says "$-1.00 USD One Time") or adds the word "From" before it.

 

That would not work Brian because tweaking the template so the price does not show means it would not show for anything and I do not want to hide the price from my clients because the tool I am using does not work as advertised.

 

Based on the help I am getting here and through my support ticket it is clear that this does not work as advertised. Putting a -1 to disable a field only works for all the fields after the month option. They obviously did not take into account for a product not using the one month option and unless I use the one month option I will not be able to make this work for products that are for a time frame that does not include the month option.

 

There is no where in the documentation that it states the one month option must be used and a price must be setup for it or we cannot use this feature to sell a product or service. Based on the documentation this is a bug but working with support they would rather dance around the fact that this does not work and unlike here where you guys are helping me to see an alternative way to set this up they would rather ignore the issue.

 

So anyone else that is reading this, if you have a product or services that does not use the first field for pricing you may as well find an alternative solution because the documentation will do nothing but confuse you and opening a support ticket only serves to waste your time and make you more frustrated because the documentation left out this very important detail.

[brian!]

That would not work Brian because tweaking the template so the price does not show means it would not show for anything and I do not want to hide the price from my clients because the tool I am using does not work as advertised.

i'm not suggesting you "hide" the price, but the way you have it setup, it's going to say:

 

GeoTrust Extended Validation

$1050.00 USD One Time

1 to 3 year registration $1050 per year

one almost contradicts the other... i'm merely suggesting that you change it to something like:

 

GeoTrust Extended Validation

From $1050.00 USD

1 to 3 year registration $1050 per year

or remove the "From $1050.00 USD Per Year" line entirely.

 

also, you can easily make changes to the template that won't affect the other products.. certainly on a product by product basis and possibly by group too... it's just an {if} statement, which for you might have five 'or' statements in it.

 

I appreciate that telling you to edit the template may sound horrendous, but if you want to go down the one-time route and want to clarify how the pricing is displayed, then it may be necessary.

 

I use a "comparison" based template too, and I tested the above to see if it worked before posting (thought it would, but you never quite know with whmcs!) - it worked with one product, so it should work with your six products too.

 

Based on the help I am getting here and through my support ticket it is clear that this does not work as advertised. Putting a -1 to disable a field only works for all the fields after the month option. They obviously did not take into account for a product not using the one month option and unless I use the one month option I will not be able to make this work for products that are for a time frame that does not include the month option.

I think you may be misreading the situation - if you make it a one-time product, the only column that matters is "one-time/monthly"; if it's a recurring product, then the "one-time/monthly" column is for monthly prices and all the other time periods are valid too.

 

For One Time products, enter the prices in the One Time/Monthly fields.

For Recurring pricing types there are several billing cycles to choose from depending on how often you want clients to be billed.

the above is from the documentation - http://docs.whmcs.com/Products_and_Services

 

if you want to create a one-time product with variations (i.e year length), then you can - but you will need to use config options... or create multiple products with different year lengths.

 

There is no where in the documentation that it states the one month option must be used and a price must be setup for it or we cannot use this feature to sell a product or service. Based on the documentation this is a bug but working with support they would rather dance around the fact that this does not work and unlike here where you guys are helping me to see an alternative way to set this up they would rather ignore the issue.

like bear, I don't sell certs - but please allow me to ask you a question... if a customer comes along and buys a certificate from you for say a year, what do you want to happen at the end of the year?

 

if you set these up as one-time payments, then at the end of the period the customer won't automatically receive a renewal invoice... now I read what you say about SSL certs not being renewable and wanting to manually send a renewal notice, but I would bet that all the customer cares about is that their cert continues to work - they won't care whether its a new one or a renewal of the old one.

 

that being the case, then why not set them up as recurring ? doing that would mean that you wouldn't have to mess with config options and 30 days before expiry, the customer will automatically get sent an invoice for the renewal of the certificate... if they renew, then you buy a new cert and set it up... if they don't, then the old cert expires.

 

if you wanted to go down that road, then for the product setup, all setup fees are entered as zero, put prices in the annual, bi and tri options and -1 in the other price options.

 

So anyone else that is reading this, if you have a product or services that does not use the first field for pricing you may as well find an alternative solution because the documentation will do nothing but confuse you and opening a support ticket only serves to waste your time and make you more frustrated because the documentation left out this very important detail.

aah... some of the documentation is wrong, other bits out of date and sometimes support responses can be a little frustrating... we've all been there!

 

but what you are trying to do is certainly achievable - you just have to decide if you want to go down the one-time billing route, or the recurring path... either will work - albeit the first with more effort than the second!

[coghost]

Slow down Brian, I am going to owe you a case of beer...

 

To much information here to give you a responsible reply but I will work through your post and implement what I can and give you a proper reply afterwards...