[unconfirmed] activation date, due date, invoice data questions

[massa]

Hi,

I'm new WHMCS user. I have middle size hosting company and I would like to switch all business from current billing system to WHMCS. After of integration of my site I found a lots of bugs in WHMCS. I would like to know does the WHMCS staff have plans for bug fixes some time soon (month or so) or should I found alternative?

 

Bug No. 1:

For example: User makes an order on 10/10/2014. and choose pay via bank transfer. Makes a payment after 20 days (30th of October of 2014.) After activation of hosting service invoice an service is created for the period from 10/10/2014. till 10/10/2015. instead of 10/30/2014. till 10/30/2015. With that I stole from my client 20 days (and no one wants to host their web site with some one who's stealing from clients). Date of registration should be date of product activation, logically. Due date is date of product activation+cycle.

 

bug No. 2: When client or my staff change some of informations like address, company name, etc. all invoices that are created earlier are changed and in my country that's criminal activity and for that you go to jail! I believe that is not much of different in rest of the world. Once the Invoice is created you should not change anything on it!

 

Bug no.3: When I delete some user all of it's invoices are deleted too. That's also illegal. It's illegal to destroy business documents, tax evasion and you go to jail for that too! In my country, every company must keep business documentation for the past 7 years. In some country is more or less.

 

Things about bug 1 can't be fixed via hooks because there's no hooks that can be done after the service is activated. "after accept order" option or "after payment" is not suitable because sometimes I need to activate the service before service is payed or to charge the service without finalizing it with "accept order". And thing is, why would I should fix WHMCS bugs?? It's logically that the service is valid since the day when you give it to someone or from the day when you activate it and not from the day when the service is ordered.

For example: You order hosting for 1 month period, you pay 25 days after you have ordered that and 5 days after payment and activation, your service is suspended because it's expired. Who's crazy here? Me or the my client? He's payed for entire month and me, as service provider gave to him only 5 days of service, is it ok?

 

I do not want to discuss this a lot. I just need an answer from WHMCS staff; do you plan to fix these bugs? I lost a lot of time on integration and adjustment of WHMCS to my system and if you don't want to fix bugs I will not loose my time any more. Kind regards...

[brian!]

while you're waiting for whmcs staff to reply, i'll give you my opinion on 2 & 3...

 

bug No. 2: When client or my staff change some of informations like address, company name, etc. all invoices that are created earlier are changed and in my country that's criminal activity and for that you go to jail! I believe that is not much of different in rest of the world. Once the Invoice is created you should not change anything on it!

that's not quite the way to think of it... invoices (in terms of pdf) are not stored in the database, they are generated each time you either press the view pdf button in the invoices page, or when an invoice is created by the cron... so that is why when you change your client info, the content of the invoice changes... it is not editing old invoices, it is generating them again with the current information stored in the database for your client.

 

there is an option in general settings -> mail to add a bcc email address to ensure you receive a copy of all emails, including pdf invoices... that way if you ever need to send an original invoice again to the client, you can do so.

 

i'm not a lawyer, but surely the invoice sent to the client is the important document - and that's what they receive and also what you can print/save for your own records.

 

Bug no.3: When I delete some user all of it's invoices are deleted too. That's also illegal. It's illegal to destroy business documents, tax evasion and you go to jail for that too! In my country, every company must keep business documentation for the past 7 years. In some country is more or less.

then don't delete the user!

 

http://docs.whmcs.com/Client_Management#Changing_a_Clients_Status

 

Changing a Clients Status

 

Rather than deleting a user you would normally just change the users status for record keeping purposes. To do this, go to the Profile tab of the client you wish to change and then select the status you want in the dropdown box. Then click the Save Changes button to save the new status.

 

• Active - Can login and has active services
  
• Inactive - Can login but has no active services currently
  
• Closed - No active services and cannot login to the client area
  

thankfully I don't work for WHMCS, but I doubt that they will consider #2 & #3 to be bugs, nor probably #1 for that matter.

 

WHMCS tend to think of "bugs" as when the software isn't working in the way they intend it to, but with the three issues that you highlight, I think the software is working as WHMCS want it to... it might be flawed in your opinion, but I suspect they won't see them as bugs.

Edited November 8, 2014 by brian!

[WHMCS Nate]

Massa,

 

Thanks for talking to us about the difficulties you are having with the WHMCS. Normally in this forum area we ask that you report one bug per thread, that allows the statuses I set to apply more clearly. Brian is right, to treat something as a bug, typically I am looking for something to not be behaving as intended to behave. Sometimes if there is something that was not thought through and is confusing most people we will treat it as such. In reality if something is a bug or a very small feature request we still triage it, prioritize it, and release it the same way.

 

The first reported issue is slightly complicated, when a item should be renewed depends on when the product was activated / the order accepted, not when the related invoice was paid. You can set a number of different settings for how/when an item is activated based on the workflow you set up. If you think things are not behaving as you expect, that would be a great discussion item with our support team. You can describe the workflow and renew dates you expect and they can help you get that setup correctly. As I read your report, it does not seem like a bug yet. If our support team can't work with you to get the invoicing setup the way you expect, they can file a bug report / feature request to get exactly what you need.

 

The second issue you reported was changing the behavior of invoices once generated. The correct behavior here is one where opinions differ. I am aware of some countries where the law is really clear about this and invoice data can't ever change. For those customers we wrote an free official addon that allows it to behave the way you expect:

 

http://www.whmcs.com/appstore/306/Fixed-Invoice-Data.html

 

Because we have a specific addon available that gives you the behavior you expect, I don't consider #2 a bug.

 

The third issue you reported was about deleting a customer is who has transactions is not a recommended behavior. If they are no longer your customer, the we expect you to mark them as closed. A transaction without a user to point to would lead to odd reports across the system. Because there is a workflow that provides the behavior your looking for, I don't consider #3 a bug.

 

Have a great day,

 

Nate C

[mbit]

I can help you with all 3 problems 'cause i use my own solutions for them.

 

Feel free to contact me.

[massa]

mbit, on which email i can contact you?

[mbit]

My email is mario{AT}m-bit.eu

[massa]

Nate,

As for your answer to my problem # 1, your claim, at least in my case, is not correct.

You say:

The first reported issue is slightly complicated, when a item should be renewed depends on when the product was activated / the order accepted, not when the related invoice was paid.

 

this is what I want too; that renew date depends on when the product is activated, ie. order accepted but WHMCS with me is not doing so, and I was also confirmed that via support ticket.

Renew date strictly depends on when the order was placed and not when the product is activated, I'll repeat again my example.

User makes an order on 10/10/2014. and choose pay via bank transfer. Makes a payment after 20 days (30th of October of 2014.) I activate hosting on 10/30/2014 (20 days after order is placed). After activation of hosting service and accept order invoice an service is created for the period from 10/10/2014. till 10/10/2015. instead of 10/30/2014. till 10/30/2015. With that I stole from my client 20 days. Date of registration should be date of product activation, logically. Due date should be date of product activation+cycle.

Problem 2 and 3:

User account can not be closed because the same user, under the same e-mail address can not have two accounts, and he wants to be re-registered using the same email address. Example: Nate has a firm XXXX LLC, after a few years he close that company and opens a new one YYYY LLC, or wants to buy as physical entity uses has standard e-mail address. When orders will put out the message that there is already a client with this e-mail address! So, to open a new user account, I have to delete the old one. Deleting or modifying data on the old client account is not an option because with that I'll change all information on any purchases from the past, which is, as I have already said, a criminal offense. I must have all invoices in electronic form too. Printing copies is not solution when it comes to a large number of hosting clients. Module Fixed Invoice data is not working in the new versions of WHMCS, so this is also not a solution. from the very beginning WHMCS had to define some things, at least for the invoice. No change inside the option of WHMCS or client option should not affect the data stored on the already generated invoice.

Edited November 9, 2014 by massa

[othellotech]

For #1 - just set whatever date on the product/service you like when you apply the payment

 

User account can not be closed because the same user, under the same e-mail address can not have two accounts

Correct

and he wants to be re-registered using the same email address

So you just add .closed or .(id-number) on the end of the email address in the 'old' account

 

I must have all invoices in electronic form too. Printing copies is not solution when it comes to a large number of hosting clients

The obvious solution would be to archive the emails you send

[WHMCS Nate]

Massa,

 

I know a number of users using the Fixed Invoice addon without any difficulty. I am not aware of any open cases against it off the top of my head. I would note that the module only will apply to new invoices created after the module was enabled.

 

If you are having trouble with it, please open a support ticket so our team can investigate things further and if there are any defects in the software they can address that. Our support is included in the price of your new license and I think they are quite awesome. Today they have replied to 95% of tickets within 4 hours of the customer reply. You will get faster replies talking to them.

 

This forum area really is for reporting software defects, not for general questions about how you do this or fit that workflow. We have a different area for those kinds of discussion questions. Brian and Rob are well known users and both of them confirm that the behaviors you are reporting are what they expect from the product as well. They are not new defects. As such I am going to close this thread. If you want to discuss how you think the software should behave in the future feel free to use our Feature Request system or post in the Technical Issues and Questions area.

 

Have a great day,

 

Nate C