What's the correct procedure to cancel an invoice??

[bluesteam]

Hi,

I seem to have run in to an issue where if a client's service has already been invoiced, and they decide that they want to downgrade/upgrade their service.

What's happening is the following:

SCENARIO:

1. Service is up for renewal at the end of November(30 November) and the system generates an invoice setting the due date to 30 November.
2. This invoice generation now naturally sets the nextinvoicedate in the database to the next iteration of the clients billing cycle (31 December).
3. At this point in time, the nextinvoicedate is set and the service has been invoiced awaiting payment.
4. I receive a phone call requesting that I either upgrade/downgrade the service before the client makes payment.
5. So I proceed to cancel the invoice by clicking on the "Cancel Invoice" button.
6. I then proceed to issue an upgrade/downgrade order for the client.  If there is credit applied or owed, it is handled before this order is activated and then marked as paid and the upgrade/downgrade is activated.
7. Now I proceed to invoice the service once again for the coming billing cycle but remember, the nextinvoicedate in the database is already set to 31 December.
8. What I notice now is that the DUE date on the new invoice is set to 31 Dember and not 30 November after issuing this new invoice.  Checking in the database, the system has set the nextinvoicedate to 31 January.

This ultimately gives my client a free month.  If this was an annual service, the same happens and gives the client a free year.

What should I be doing differently to avoid this?

Edited November 5, 2019 by bluesteam

[zitu4life]

On 11/5/2019 at 5:14 AM, bluesteam said:

Service is up for renewal at the end of November(30 November) and the system generates an invoice setting the due date to 30 November.

✅ ok, so , automation   will auto create   invoice   let's   6 days   before due date.

On 11/5/2019 at 5:14 AM, bluesteam said:

This invoice generation now naturally sets the nextinvoicedate in the database to the next iteration of the clients billing cycle (31 December).

if Billing Cycle in monthly   that invoice   should go  from  (30-11-2019 -  29-12-2019)

On 11/5/2019 at 5:14 AM, bluesteam said:

At this point in time, the nextinvoicedate is set and the service has been invoiced awaiting payment.

✅  client   have received   by email  invoice  

On 11/5/2019 at 5:14 AM, bluesteam said:

I receive a phone call requesting that I either upgrade/downgrade the service before the client makes payment.

✅at this  stage   yes   you  have canceled   the invoice as client  request.

On 11/5/2019 at 5:14 AM, bluesteam said:

I then proceed to issue an upgrade/downgrade order for the client.  If there is credit applied or owed, it is handled before this order is activated and then marked as paid and the upgrade/downgrade is activated.

✅checked

On 11/5/2019 at 5:14 AM, bluesteam said:

Now I proceed to invoice the service once again for the coming billing cycle but remember, the nextinvoicedate in the database is already set to 31 December.

❌⛔I have reproduced   all the steps,  and looks   here we should   firstly   manual  set  due date   to   November   30 before   we invoice   selected items.

 

Perhaps  I would   follow   all steps   like you   pointed, but   looks   like when we  upgrade\downgrade   those popups   will ask to choose   again  billing   cycle,   so when we choose in this case   monthly it automatically    set   (+30 days or   +6 month, or +annually as new order)   according to what we choose, so as we   know  we  need   to invoice  this client immediately    we    must   manually   made that correction   removing  those  future billing   cycle   we have add.  And after   invoice   that order   will cause that   issue.

Thanks   for sharing   this,   Certainly   will  help me you future   ⚠️

[bluesteam]

Yh, so I'm not crazy. I have been giving clients free service whenever I have been asked to upgrade or downgrade their service after it had already been invoiced.

In my opinion, the system should have a popup when you cancel the invoice asking you if you are cancelling the service entirely or when the next invoice due date should be so that this is avoided.

For a widely used system like WHMCS, this should be more intelligent and the system should handle it properly.