Domain auto renew question...

[Chris74]

Hi, I've enabled auto renew on domains for the first time and just need to ask a couple of simple questions...

 

If I have invoices set to generate 21 days prior to a domain or service being due - and the client enables the auto renew option on their domain after this date, lets say 7 days prior to their domain being due for renewal, what will happen?

 

I'm hoping that the invoice will get generated the next day and the domain will auto renew on the renewal date.

 

Next question...

 

What happens if the client sets auto renew on their domain after the domain has expired?

 

Final question...

 

What happens if the client has an invoice due for a domain renewal already, after manually renewing it - but has not yet paid the invoice - then they set auto renew on? Will this pay the already open invoice?

 

Thanks for your help.

Edited April 29, 2016 by Chris74

[brian!]

Chris,

 

Hi, I've enabled auto renew on domains for the first time and just need to ask a couple of simple questions...

they can be the most dangerous ones to answer!

 

when you say that you've "enabled auto renew on domains", do you mean that you've enabled Automatic Renewal so that when the client has paid, WHMCS will automatically attempt to renew the domain if it's assigned to a registrar ?

 

http://docs.whmcs.com/Domains_Configuration#Automatic_Renewal

http://docs.whmcs.com/Domains_Tab#Auto_Renew_on_Payment

 

the confusing part in all this is that auto-renew means two different things... in WHMCS. it means the option to generate an invoice for the renewal of a domain - that's enabled by default, though an admin could disable the option generally or for an individual domain... the client has the option to disable these renewal invoice too - both in bulk and per domain.

 

whereas, you and I probably think auto-renew refers to the domain renewing at the registry level.

 

to do what I think you want to do, both the auto-renew AND Automatic Renewal would need to be enabled.

 

If I have invoices set to generate 21 days prior to a domain or service being due - and the client enables the auto renew option on their domain after this date, lets say 7 days prior to their domain being due for renewal, what will happen?

 

I'm hoping that the invoice will get generated the next day and the domain will auto renew on the renewal date.

i'm not sure - but that would be my interpretation too... the cron will query all domains within the billing period that have not been generated previously... once the invoice is generated, and assuming you have Automatic Renewal enabled, WHMCS should attempt to renew the domain if it's assigned to a registrar WHEN payment has been received - it won't auto-renew the domain WITHOUT payment.

 

Next question...

What happens if the client sets auto renew on their domain after the domain has expired?

this is where I think you're getting confused... on the client side, the enable/disable of the domain auto-renew feature is purely about automatically generating an invoice for the domain renewal when it is due - e.g does the client want to receive a renewal invoice (enable) or let the domain expire (disable) - it's not a trigger, at the registry, to auto-renew the domain there.

 

though as you're using credit card, then it might effectively be the same thing - if enabled, the invoice will generate; WHMCS will attempt to take payment from the CC; if successful, and if Automatic Renewal is also enabled, it will attempt to renew the domain with the registrar.

 

if the domain has expired and they haven't previously received a renewal invoice for it (perhaps auto-renew was disabled at that point), then I suspect they would need to manually renew... I don't think enabling it after expiry would generate a renewal invoice (if one didn't exist previously).

 

however, I can't recall that situation occurring with us previously, so I could well be wrong... WHMCS John would be far more of an authority on this situation than I - hopefully, he'll come across the thread at some point.

 

Final question...

What happens if the client has an invoice due for a domain renewal already, after manually renewing it - but has not yet paid the invoice - then they set auto renew on? Will this pay the already open invoice?

as per above - if the invoice has already been generated (automatically or manually), then they can toggle the auto-renew feature as much as they like - they won't be receiving (or not) another renewal invoice for at least twelve months!.. and the domain won't be renewed without payment.

 

renewing without payment would only occur if you enabled auto-renew at the registry level - and if you're using WHMCS, you shouldn't do that.

 

just spotted in another thread that you say you're using a mod that allows the client to disable auto-renew - so that might mean you can ignore some of what I wrote above if it's not applicable because of your mod... but i'll leave it in for others not using your mod!

[Chris74]

Sorry, I should have clarified the situation at the start.

 

We have previously not given the client any ability to auto renew their domains and in fact I renamed "Auto Renew" to a more appropriate "Auto Invoice" in the language file to reflect that.

 

This last couple of weeks we switched to Stripe and therefore opened up a whole can of worms relating to the auto renewal of domains and services.

 

So my questions above make the assumption that the client has the billing method "credit card" enabled and that under normal circumstances, with a card on file, any domain set to auto renew will auto generate the invoices 21 days prior to renewal and will auto pay those invoices on the due date.

 

So my first question is really asking... "I have invoices set to generate 21 days prior to renewal - what happens if a client sets the auto renew option on their domain after that point. Will an invoice be generated anyway?"

 

Then that leads on to thinking "hmm, ok so what if the domain expires, but is still within the grace period, what if they enable auto renew then, will the invoice be created?"

 

The mod I'm using is just for hosting renewals, so this question is only concerned with domains.

[WHMCS John]

Hi,

Thanks for clarifying, I have answered in-line:

 

So my first question is really asking... "I have invoices set to generate 21 days prior to renewal - what happens if a client sets the auto renew option on their domain after that point. Will an invoice be generated anyway?"

Yes, provided the domain is still active, the renewal invoice will be generated when the cron next runs after enabling Auto Renewal.

 

Then that leads on to thinking "hmm, ok so what if the domain expires, but is still within the grace period, what if they enable auto renew then, will the invoice be created?"

If the domain has passed the expiry date thereby changing the status to Expired; no renewal invoice would be generated by WHMCS if auto-renewal was enabled at that point.

 

Hope that helps!