Recurring invoices

[mlungu]

Hi

 

I just cannot figure out how to set the date for recurring invoices. Depending on the client, we want those to always happen on the 25th of the month, or on the 1st. How do we set this?

 

While on the subject - how do i make recurring invoices "pending" - so that they can be viewed and approved first? In most cases we have variable amounts, so while there must be an invoice, the amounts will have to be edited first before it goes out to the client.

 

Thanks for any input.

[Kian]

Hi,

 

It seems to me that since you have to manually verify/edit invoices, maybe it's more appropriate to use a solution that allows you to invoice your clients manually. In fact when WHMCS creates an invoice there's no forgiveness. Clients can immediately view and pay them.

 

Anyway are you sure that it's really not possible to implement your "variable amounts" directly in WHMCS? Maybe you could "explain" to WHMCS your your criteria with Configurable Options.

[mlungu]

Hi,

 

It seems to me that since you have to manually verify/edit invoices, maybe it's more appropriate to use a solution that allows you to invoice your clients manually. In fact when WHMCS creates an invoice there's no forgiveness. Clients can immediately view and pay them.

 

Anyway are you sure that it's really not possible to implement your "variable amounts" directly in WHMCS? Maybe you could "explain" to WHMCS your your criteria with Configurable Options.

 

Hi

 

Invoices in our case would for example consist of monthly recurring services that are static. But on top of that they would have made VOIP calls that we need to invoice for during the past month. So on the 1st of the month the recurring invoice needs to be generated, but we need to slot in the value of the voip calls as well.

 

Then there are clients who have no monthly services, just voip calls. We need an invoice to be generated so that it is not forgotten about (or some other prompt that will force the invoice to be created), but the amount still needs to be slotted in.

 

We would do a lot of manual invoices throughout the month as well by the way, you are suggesting a solution that would allow that? But WHMCS does allow that? - clients who are on prepaid for example would top up their accounts with X, we will manually generate an invoice for this and it tops up the account on the voip billing side.

 

Thanks for your input!

[Kian]

Invoices in our case would for example consist of monthly recurring services that are static. But on top of that they would have made VOIP calls that we need to invoice for during the past month. So on the 1st of the month the recurring invoice needs to be generated, but we need to slot in the value of the voip calls as well.

I understand. I worked for a VoIP provider in past then I suppose that you have a database where all these calls are stored. In addition to this probably you already have a script or a system that allows you to match all these calls against your tariff plans based on your criteria (prefix, location, duration, connection etc.). That said, keep in mind that you can "transfer" all this logic into WHMCS so that it can automatically create invoices with all the necessary informations (portability code, hh:mm:ss of conversation grouped by few macro area with detailed cost for each of them etc.). Of course I'm not saying that it's easy but you can do it. You need to integrate your VoIP database including your tariffs with WHMCS with API, few action hooks and lot of PHP code. Anyway if you already have a system to manage this aspect maybe it could be way more easier.

 

Then there are clients who have no monthly services, just voip calls. We need an invoice to be generated so that it is not forgotten about (or some other prompt that will force the invoice to be created), but the amount still needs to be slotted in.

Red warning on this. WHMCS is a great software but it doesn't allow you to create unpaid invoices. All the unpaid invoices are in reality proformas. I know that for lot of people this sounds irrelevant but phone bills like in your case must be exactly unpaid invoices and not proformas. An unpaid invoice is something that you must pay meanwhile a proforma is not a commercial invoice, it's just wastepaper. Clients are not forced to pay them. I don't think that you want to base your phone bills on proformas so think about it. Anyway at least there are modules that allow you to generate unpaid invoices.

 

We would do a lot of manual invoices throughout the month as well by the way, you are suggesting a solution that would allow that? But WHMCS does allow that? - clients who are on prepaid for example would top up their accounts with X, we will manually generate an invoice for this and it tops up the account on the voip billing side.

Sadly for WHMCS this aspect is black or white (invoice on or off) but there are modules that allow you to invoice manually your clients based on the automatically generated invoices.

Edited September 28, 2015 by Kian