How to Manage your Active Client Count

[WHMCS Kim]

When running a business we all experience abandoned orders or accounts that are overdue. By default WHMCS will automatically manage these services and clients so that you're always getting paid for services provided, and your licence is within the correct tier.

These features can be switched off by a privileged administrator user, so in this guide we will look at how to re-enable automated management of overdue services and inactive clients. When enabled, these features ensure the Active Client Count within a WHMCS installation reflect the actual number of current paying clients. We recommend using the following configurations within your installation to suspend and terminate any unwanted products, services, addons or domains.

To automatically suspend products and services within your system:

1. Navigate to Setup > Automation Settings > Automatic Module Functions:
   
2. Tick the "Enable Suspension" checkbox
3.  In the "Suspend Days" field, enter the number of days after the Next Due Date you wish a service to be suspended.
4. You also have the following options: Send Suspension Emails when the product is suspended, Enable Unsuspension when a client makes a payment and send a confirmation unsuspend email.
5.  Click Save Changes

Once you have saved the above changes you should have something like this:

Having this setup within your installation will ensure that when the daily automation tasks are performed by the cron, services with a Next Due Date more than x days in the past, will be suspended.

The last 2 options under Automatic Module Functions are options to have the products Terminated.  To automatically terminate products within your system:

1. Navigate to Setup > Automation Settings > Automatic Module Functions
2. Tick the "Enable Termination" checkbox
3. In the "Terminate Days" field, enter the number of days after the Next Due Date you wish a service to be terminated (usually this is a higher number than the Suspend Days value to allow late payers time to reactivate their service with you)
4. Under the Miscellaneous option further down the page, adjust the "Client Status Update" setting to: 'Change client status based on active/inactive products' or 'Change client status based on active/inactive products and not logged in for longer than 3 months'
5. Click Save Changes

Once you have saved these changes your Automatic Module Functions and Miscellaneous options should look like this:

When the daily automation tasks are performed by the Cron, services with a Next Due Date more than y days in the past, will be terminated and the clients set to Inactive status. Thereby reducing the active client count used to calculate your licence tier.

Once these settings are configured you shouldn't need to do this again in the future.

We would recommend ensuring that the Cron is running and completing on a daily basis to ensure the above pruning tasks are being completed. You can view a guide on how to do this here: http://help.whmcs.com/m/automation/l/678170-verify-your-system-cron-is-completing-successfully

When your system is configured this way then only the customers in your installation that are currently paying for services or who has recently logged into the client area will be considered Active. Inactive clients in your system will be automatically set to Inactive Status and therefore excluded from the monthly license tier calculations. Should you have any further questions about WHMCS licenses, please do not  hesitate to get in touch with our friendly licensing team at https://www.whmcs.com/submit-a-ticket/