Cancelled Domain Renewal Invoice

[Bertie]

Back onto the original topic of this as it seems it's still cancelling the domain renewal invoices. What's the best way to stop invoices being cancelled for domain names that have "Expired" but can still be renewed? 

I have the following setup at this moment in time:

General Settings > Domains 

Domain Grace and Redemption Fees: Enabled
Domain Grace and Redemption Fee Billing: Add Grace and Redemption Fees to existing invoice  

Product/Services > Domain Pricing 

Grace Period: Empty Box
Fee: Empty Box

Redemption Period
Duration: Empty Box
Fee: Empty Box
 

@ScottN Did you manage to get domain renewal invoices from being cancelled when they have expired? 

 

Edited June 21, 2018 by Bertie

[ditto]

On 6/18/2018 at 10:33 AM, Bertie said:

Also,

As anyone noticed when a domain name's status is changed to: Grace Period (Expired) it actually removes the domain name from the "Domains" section on the client's summary page. Surely it should stay there?

Another user at webhostingtalk posted about that happening to him: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1716462

[brian!]

it's becoming a farce the lengths that users are having to go to to get around the quirks of this feature....

2 hours ago, Bertie said:

What's the best way to stop invoices being cancelled for domain names that have "Expired" but can still be renewed? 

i'm tempted to suggest disabling domain sync (or using notify only), as that process changes the statuses of domains... and so if their status isn't changed by the cron, then they won't be marked as expired... of course, then the grace/redemption periods probably don't kick in either and that defeats the principle of having the G/R feature enabled in the first place.

46 minutes ago, ditto said:

Another user at webhostingtalk posted about that happening to him...

 

Quote

After upgrading to WHMCS 7.5.1, I noticed that a invoice that was overdue today suddenly was in the amount of 0. Looking closer WHMCS automatically removed all domains from that invoice because they reached expired date. Please note this is not "Proforma invoice", it is a regular invoice, and the domains is removed from the PDF invoice, which is left in the system as unpaid with 0 amount to pay. I had to restore from backup to get the invoice back with correct content.

So a heads-up to everyone who use WHMCS, if a domain reach expire date, WHMCS will automatically remove it from the PDF invoice without a notice. I reported this to WHMCS as a bug, but got a answer back that they would not fix it, because they feel that is the correct behaviour! I am posting this here so that everyone that is using WHMCS wont be surprised by this bug, and hopefully other people can contact WHMCS and make them change their mind.

When looking closer at solutions, it seems that if you have set a grace period for each domain extension, then WHMCS will not remove the domain until the grace period is reached. At my installation it was already set a default grace period for some extensions, but not for the .no extension, and the domains that was removed from the invoice was .no domains. So I would advice everyone to double check every extension in WHMCS, that there is set a grace period. Either way WHMCS should not remove domains from unpaid invoices, not ever, not even after a grace period.

 

[Bertie]

36 minutes ago, brian! said:

it's becoming a farce the lengths that users are having to go to to get around the quirks of this feature....

i'm tempted to suggest disabling domain sync (or using notify only), as that process changes the statuses of domains... and so if their status isn't changed by the cron, then they won't be marked as expired... of course, then the grace/redemption periods probably don't kick in either and that defeats the principle of having the G/R feature enabled in the first place.

 

 

If I remember rightly, having "Domain Grace and Redemption Fees" set to Disabled or Enabled still makes the invoices get cancelled. It really is a daft feature that clearly needs improving or something at least. I will most likely have to go down to he notify only route and then manually edit the domain names when we are notified of changes ourselves. But that's going to be a ballache considering the amount of domain names on the system. But what are we supposed to do eh?  

[dahamsta]

I'm having this issue too, it's very frustrating and is causing confusion with my customers.

I thought from comments earlier in the thread that enabling grace/redemption without configuring and prices would stop the invoices from being cancelled, but later comments seem to refute this. Has anyone actually stopped it from happening?

Any comment from WHMCS on how it will be addressed? The default behaviour for all new features like this should be "the same". New features that affect data should be disabled by default, and notified if necessary.

[Bertie]

On 7/3/2018 at 11:04 PM, dahamsta said:

I'm having this issue too, it's very frustrating and is causing confusion with my customers.

I thought from comments earlier in the thread that enabling grace/redemption without configuring and prices would stop the invoices from being cancelled, but later comments seem to refute this. Has anyone actually stopped it from happening?

Any comment from WHMCS on how it will be addressed? The default behaviour for all new features like this should be "the same". New features that affect data should be disabled by default, and notified if necessary.

Not yet, still trying to find the best solution to this really. 

[Vox]

Hi Bertie,

On 6/21/2018 at 12:02 PM, Bertie said:

Product/Services > Domain Pricing 

Grace Period: Empty Box
Fee: Empty Box

Redemption Period
Duration: Empty Box
Fee: Empty Box

Those settings for the individual domain mean that there is no Grace Period, therefore the domain is going straight to "Expired".

That's a whole other conversation now about cancelling invoiced line items.............

So to provide a Grace Period you have to input 30 days into that box (or whatever the Grace Period is for the TLD). See attached screenshot.

 

[aegisdesign]

The problem with this feature is that it sets domains to Expired and cancels invoices/removes items even if you have the Grace Period handling disabled.

 

[brian!]

4 minutes ago, aegisdesign said:

even if you have the Grace Period handling disabled

you mean even if the whole functionality is disabled in general settings -> domains ?

[aegisdesign]

4 hours ago, brian! said:

you mean even if the whole functionality is disabled in general settings -> domains ?

Yes. Disabled in general settings.

Set an expired domain to active.

Generate an invoice for it.

Wait a day for the Cron to run.

The invoice will be cancelled, the domain line removed from the invoice and it set to 0.00.

The grace period is set to 0 and no fee.

I'm going to try setting it to 30 days and sees what happens but with 100s of TLDs each with differing settings it'll be a nightmare.

[dahamsta]

I disabled it in settings and the behaviour appears to have stopped.

[Vox]

Hi aegisdesign,

58 minutes ago, aegisdesign said:

The grace period is set to 0 and no fee.

This means that as the domain reaches the expiry date it will expire and the domain (service) will be removed from the invoice and cannot be renewed via the previous invoices that were sent to the client.

Please see my post here:

7 hours ago, Vox said:

Hi Bertie,

Those settings for the individual domain mean that there is no Grace Period, therefore the domain is going straight to "Expired".

That's a whole other conversation now about cancelling invoiced line items.............

So to provide a Grace Period you have to input 30 days into that box (or whatever the Grace Period is for the TLD). See attached screenshot.

 

Or read through the the documentation here:

https://docs.whmcs.com/Domain_Grace_and_Redemption_Grace_Periods#Domain_Grace_and_Redemption_Period_Defaults

[aegisdesign]

47 minutes ago, Vox said:

Hi aegisdesign,

This means that as the domain reaches the expiry date it will expire and the domain (service) will be removed from the invoice and cannot be renewed via the previous invoices that were sent to the client.

Please see my post here:

Or read through the the documentation here:

https://docs.whmcs.com/Domain_Grace_and_Redemption_Grace_Periods#Domain_Grace_and_Redemption_Period_Defaults

I understand that, BUT, I have the feature disabled and it still does this. It is a change in behaviour from what happened before. Previously it did not remove lines from invoices if the grace period was zero. Now it does regardless of the setting.

This is clearly a bug.

Edit: Also I'm not sure removing the line item from the invoice is the best way to go either. I'd much rather the invoice detailed items that had been removed.

Edited July 26, 2018 by aegisdesign

[Vox]

Hi aegisdesign,

8 hours ago, aegisdesign said:

This is clearly a bug.

If you have this disabled in Setup > General Settings > Domains. I totally agree so report it as such:

https://www.whmcs.com/members/bugreport.php

8 hours ago, aegisdesign said:

Also I'm not sure removing the line item from the invoice is the best way to go either. I'd much rather the invoice detailed items that had been removed.

I totally agree with that also. Nothing worse than a confused customer who gets an invoice with several items on it including a domain renewal only at a later date to have that removed and the balance altered on the WHMCS version of the invoice with exactly the same invoice number.............

[Mark]

WHMCS support told us to set the domain grace period (and I believe also the domain redemption period) to 9999 for all TLD's in order for domains to no be set to expired which in turn also no longer removes these invoice line items from invoices.

I'm kinda reluctant to enable the feature (settings -> domains) and set the grace/redemption period to 9999 (update tbldomainpricing SET grace_period = "9999" WHERE extension LIKE "%").

I'll do some more pondering..

[Mark]

After some more consultation with WHMCS support we have decided to do the following to make sure that the new 'feature' 'Domain Grace and Redemption fee' does not remove any more line items from invoices:

- UPDATE tbldomainpricing SET grace_period = 9999;

- UPDATE redemption_grace_period SET grace_period = 9999;

- Enable 'Domain Grace and Redemption Fee' in Setup -> General Settings -> Domains

I advise anyone from the EU and anyone else that does not like it when existing invoices are being altered to do the above.

 

Quote

 

Could you let me know why WHMCS is trying to remove the renewal line item from the invoice and let me know how I can make WHMCS NOT do this?

This is happening due a new feature that was added to WHMCS recently, i.e. Domain Grace and Redemption fee. Typically, when a domain has passed its expiry date, it enters into a grace period where it can still be renewed (usually for no or a very small additional fee). Once the grace period (which is defined by the registry/registrar for that particular TLD) has passed, it goes to the redemption period where it can still be renewed but after paying a hefty redemption fee (in most cases). This is all explained here: https://docs.whmcs.com/Domain_Grace_and_Redemption_Grace_Periods

This feature was added in v7.5, so once a domain passes it expiry date, the original renewal invoice is cancelled by default as it is no longer valid for domains in grace periods. However, you can change this setting from Setup -> General Settings -> Domains tab. Make sure "Domain Grace and Redemption Fees" is enabled and "Domain Grace and Redemption Fee Billing" is set to "Add Grace and Redemption Fees to existing invoice". Then you can add the grace/redemption period and their respective fees from the Domain Pricing page.

 

[Dmitry Kostiuk]

Some TLD's domains have negative value before next due day.

For example, .CH has deleted 10 before expiring date, or .DE has deleted 1 day before expiring. So what GracePeriod I should use? 

Regards

 

[brian!]

On 03/08/2018 at 10:04, Dmitry Kostiuk said:

For example, .CH has deleted 10 before expiring date, or .DE has deleted 1 day before expiring. So what GracePeriod I should use? 

might be worth a ticket to Support as I don't know if it supports negative values... another option might be to move the expiry dates back in WHMCS accordingly for these TLDs (and that's assumes domain sync is disabled).

[dahamsta]

Did anyone every resolve this problem satisfactorily? I had Grace enabled but found it caused confusions and problems, so I disabled it again and now the invoices are being deleted again. It's totally counter-intuitive and counterproductive to delete a line item / invoice for a domain that is still billable.

[Strolch]

is there an log entry wich invoice are modified?

Quote

 

 

[MikePitta]

On 8/3/2018 at 11:04 AM, Dmitry Kostiuk said:

Some TLD's domains have negative value before next due day.

For example, .CH has deleted 10 before expiring date, or .DE has deleted 1 day before expiring. So what GracePeriod I should use? 

Regards

 

Hi. There a number of domains with no grace period and deletion before the expiry date.

https://internetbs.net/en/additional-tld-terms-and-conditions.html

It would be great to be able to set a negative value under the redemption period, but whmcs does not like it.

Any workaround? I'm in trouble with .es and .nl domains (not many fortunately). 

Would it be possible to disable domain sync only for selected domains?

[MikePitta]

I see right now that the redemption fee has been applied automatically before the expiry date for a nl domain.

it's probably triggered by the sync with the registry (as soon as the domain is flagged as redemption period via the sinc, the fee applies)