Termination Date useless!?

[Strolch]

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in my opinion the cancellation date under Clients-> Products / Services is useless / pointless! if a product receives the status canceled / terminated, the customer can no longer access it in the frontend. In my opinion, a status >> in termination << would be very helpful here.

Product in termination, customer can continue to access it, termination date arrived -> product status change to terminated.

[yggdrasil]

2 hours ago, Strolch said:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but in my opinion the cancellation date under Clients-> Products / Services is useless / pointless! if a product receives the status canceled / terminated, the customer can no longer access it in the frontend. In my opinion, a status >> in termination << would be very helpful here.

Product in termination, customer can continue to access it, termination date arrived -> product status change to terminated.

I'm not sure what do you mean. If the status is cancelled/terminated, then service should be disabled, and the status would be correct.

If you mean when someone cancels a service and it will be terminated at the end of the billing cycle, the account does not change the status until that date when its terminated.

[brian!]

I think he wants to use a custom product status so that when a cancellation is scheduled, e.g between cancellation being scheduled and before the actual termination date, it shows an "In Termination" status....

there have been plenty of feature requests for custom service statuses over the years - they're all "Under Consideration" (and have been for years) AFAIK.

[steven99]

If that is the case, then an client area output hook could be used with some javascript to change the status .   It is only cosmetic at that point but still gets the point across.  Or Adding to the status like "Active - Pending Termination"  .   Hooks for the details page and products list would be needed and perhaps email hooks to change those.

[yggdrasil]

3 hours ago, steven99 said:

If that is the case, then an client area output hook could be used with some javascript to change the status .   It is only cosmetic at that point but still gets the point across.  Or Adding to the status like "Active - Pending Termination"  .   Hooks for the details page and products list would be needed and perhaps email hooks to change those.

I remember correctly if the user then goes to the cancellation form and one was already placed the system is aware of that. So technically it would be possible to have a temporary status (even one that is only visual like you said) that changes it to Pending Cancellation or similar. I guess you will have to have this coded with a hook or similar or request it as a feature to WHMCS. Currently WHMCS does not have this.

[steven99]

That is for cancels that are at the billing period or like at the next cron job.   I would not muck about in the actual status as that could throw the whole system off .   Rather, the hook should check the termination date and/or pending cancel requests and go from there for displaying the termination pending status.

[Strolch]

The point is, you often have contracts that run for a fixed period,eg. 1 year, but billed monthly. if a customer cancels this contract 3 months in advance, you have to set the end of the contract manually in the last month of billing. that is extremely cumbersome.

[yggdrasil]

2 hours ago, Strolch said:

The point is, you often have contracts that run for a fixed period,eg. 1 year, but billed monthly. if a customer cancels this contract 3 months in advance, you have to set the end of the contract manually in the last month of billing. that is extremely cumbersome.

You can set the termination and cancellation date in advanced at anytime. Just go to the product and change the date.

[Strolch]

1 hour ago, yggdrasil said:

You can set the termination and cancellation date in advanced at anytime. Just go to the product and change the date.

nope - the termination date presupposes product status canceled or terminated -> Error Message -> Termination date ignored as it can only be set for products in Cancelled or Terminated status.

[yggdrasil]

22 minutes ago, Strolch said:

nope - the termination date presupposes product status canceled or terminated -> Error Message -> Termination date ignored as it can only be set for products in Cancelled or Terminated status.

There is a field called "Auto-Terminate End of Cycle"

It will then automatically terminate the product on the date shown in "Next Due Date"

Edited November 20, 2020 by yggdrasil

[Strolch]

yes you are right - but, what, if the cacelation is for 3 months in advance und the customer pays his invoices monthly....

[yggdrasil]

4 minutes ago, Strolch said:

yes you are right - but, what, if the cacelation is for 3 months in advance und the customer pays his invoices monthly....

How does the customer pay 3 months in advance if he only receives one invoice every month?

Edited November 20, 2020 by yggdrasil

[Strolch]

can you imagine that you can conclude contracts for 12 or 24 months that are billed monthly?

[yggdrasil]

7 minutes ago, Strolch said:

can you imagine that you can conclude contracts for 12 or 24 months that are billed monthly?

Yes but if the contract is 12 or 24 months, then he has to keep paying for another 12 months right? Even if its monthly.

If you are billing monthly, WHMCS assumes the contract is monthly. Usually companies have a cancellation policy in place. It's your customers job to then set a reminder on his own when he wants to cancel. Of course if he requests cancellation 3 months ahead and the product is monthly, then it will be cancelled at the end of that monthly date.

If you want the contract to be monthly but only bill for example for 12 months you can do the following.

On the product setting set the Recurring Cycles Limit to 12 and then set the Auto Terminate/Fixed term. That way the contract will be billed only 12 times. Only set the pricing on monthly assuming you want only monthly payments. He will be billed 12 times, one for each month and no cancellation is required as the product will be terminated automatically.

I think that is what  you want, to terminate the contract on a specific length. By default, that setting is blank, and WHMCS will keep billing the product unlimited, every month until cancelled. But you can change that per product.

Edited November 20, 2020 by yggdrasil

[steven99]

3 hours ago, Strolch said:

can you imagine that you can conclude contracts for 12 or 24 months that are billed monthly?

I'd agree with @yggdrasil .  Unless you are saying you need like a 3 month advance notice of cancel.   I suppose a CancellationRequest hook could be made to adjust dates and such but changing the next due date would affect invoicing. 

One method I could think of is a cron hook with a service custom field that has the "date to start termination" plus other hooks for client area product details page to show that date.  Then when that date approaches, the cron hook starts the cancel processing.   For example, if the next due date month is the same as the terminate date month, then do end of cycle termination request via api.   The CancellationRequest hook would "cancel" the original request and fill out the service custom field date to terminate with the calculated date or perhaps one the client sets.   Or use a custom page to handle that process to stop whmcs cancel process altogether .

With that said, it would be nice if the termination date did work like the above and not require a cancel state.  I think your goal could be done but would require a developer to do the hooks. 

[yggdrasil]

Another option you could use, is set the billing for that product as 0 or free for that customer. And bill that customers using the Billable Items instead. That will create an invoice every month not related to the product. Then just change the product to the termination date (in 3 months). The product will not bill the user monthly anymore, he will receive a separate invoice created by your Billable Recurring Item instead. Take into account that WHMCS with products tries to bill the product. The sort of agreement you have is a bit more complex and probably is customized or enterprise type which probably is better off not using a product but a customized way to bill that person based on the agreement.

[Barry M Wiggins]

Are there any developers available willing to look into this please?

Our scenario is we sell Office365 licences on an annual commitment / pay monthly basis and if the customer "cancels" mid term they should still be on the hook for the remainder of the contract term for payments, plus we need to invoke the 365 api call to terminate the subscription at the end of the annual period on the correct date.

Happy to discuss requirements one to one if anyone is interested.