Account Pre Funding / Credits

[isdoo]

Credits or account pre-funding starting to annoy me

 

WHMCS has always been a very good product and in the whole works far better than MB, and the response from Matt and his staff is way above anything the MB every produce.

 

However credits / pre-funding (which is the same thing AFAIK) needs some work for it to be clear to both us and the client.

 

 

Account Pre-funding

 

The account pre-funding of credit allows your customers to add credit to their account in advance of payments being due ready to be automatically applied to invoices as they are generated. The idea of this is for situations where the client would otherwise be unable to pay, for example if they are going on holiday during the time when a payment will be due and so by adding credit can take care of it before they go. You can set a minimum and maximum deposit amount and then clients can add funds up to that limit without any manual intervention from you.

 

 

Issues Encountered

-------------------

 

1) The invoices totals are zeroed out - showing just the credit applied. This implies that the user has been given a credit and a free service, and gives a false invoice if printed out after the credit is made.

 

2) If a credit is applied to an invoice that is part paid, then the invoice remains as unpaid and not paid.

 

3) As this method is the only practical way to add a cheque or Bank giro to multiple invoices then it is most unsatisfactory.

 

4) No transaction is recorded showing that the 'credit' was in fact a payment.

 

Our only choice now is to split a cheque into multiple parts and apply each part in turn to an invoice. This increases the risk of mistakes and is not very practical.

 

What concerns me is that if a client is left with an amount left on his account then the invoices will go out to him showing them as being zero in total, which I would not think is very good for his reconciling of accounts.

 

We really need an extra field say 'Pre Payment' or similar on the invoices/receipts to show that these are in fact not credits and for these to also show up in the list of transactions.

[othellotech]

1) The invoices totals are zeroed out

 

Change the mail-merge field in your email templates.

 

2) If a credit is applied to an invoice that is part paid, then the invoice remains as unpaid and not paid.

If the credit makes the invoice amount o/s zero, then it seems to be marked as paid ok on ours.

 

3) As this method is the only practical way to add a cheque or Bank giro to multiple invoices then it is most unsatisfactory.

We've had clients happily send us paypal payments on-spec to create a credit balance with no problems.

 

4) No transaction is recorded showing that the 'credit' was in fact a payment.

The most problematic feature of it, I agree, and a definate "problem" in an accounting sense, made worse as we import all the transactions into quickbooks, so miss any prefunds

 

Our only choice now is to split a cheque into multiple parts and apply each part in turn to an invoice. This increases the risk of mistakes and is not very practical.

No, adding it as a credit and then spending it on each invoice from the credit balance is how you want to do it

 

 

invoices will go out to him showing them as being zero in total, which I would not think is very good for his reconciling of accounts.

See #1

 

Someone else posted quite a good replacement Invoice Paid email template within the last couple of days.

[isdoo]

Couldn't find the template, that you refer to - I will look at the other points that you raised - however I should not have to start altering templates, just to make the existing ones work with the system

 

BTW - still can't find a merge field for balance due (after payments have been applied)

[othellotech]

Later versions of WHMCS do not alter your email templates, so like with teh .tpl's you have to do that yourself.

 

Look at the "Invoice Payment Confirmation"

[isdoo]

Later versions of WHMCS do not alter your email templates, so like with teh .tpl's you have to do that yourself.

 

Maybe they should alter the templates to reflect the new features.

Look at the "Invoice Payment Confirmation"

 

Have made a search without joy - can you provide a link please.

[othellotech]

Maybe they should alter the templates to reflect the new features.

An automagic feature of the upgrade process to tell you which templates to change woudl be handy. It woudl have to compare the *original* email template in your current version to the *new* email template in the installing version, and then overwrite if you havent made any changes (i.e. havent got a custom version) or list (if you do have a custom version)

 

Have made a search without joy - can you provide a link please.

 

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=8764&highlight=subtotal - you posted it

[isdoo]

Oh my own one LOL (thought you meant something decent ) That has been further developed since then

[Dellow]

my problem with credits that when some client make invioce with $10 for example when he have $5 in his credits there will be $5 remaining to complete the invoice payment. but when this client deposit new credit via cheque or wire transfer i need to add credits to his invoice manuly , i think if there is option in the invoice to allow client to add credit from from his balance to the invoce with will be faster for client and us.

 

i am still like WHMCS and think it is the best.

 

 

Regards,

[vT16]

Hello,

 

I have had the same issues two times in a row now with new client signups! The might want to think a bit more before they pay or they change their mind! But, when the client have ordered and login to his WHMCS account because he decides to pay the invoice, then the biggest mistake most of them do is that they use the "Add Funds" instead of paying the invoice directly..

 

In WHMCS admin this make it look like someone who have ordered and then changed their mind and avoided to pay! Twice in a row now i have deleted the account without thinking that they might have added something to funds, because if they add funds after the invoice has been created, then the invoice wont be paid automaticly!

 

I think there should be a feature that pays all outstanding invoices automaticly as soon as they add funds, at least an option that let you chose

[artifacts]

I too have noticed in my testing that WHMCS handles prepayments in a counterintuitive manner.

 

When a user adds funds to his accounts, this should build up his credit balance. And the user should then be able to manually or automatically use the credit balance to pay off any invoices.

 

WHMCS doesn't give the user any mechanism of doing this. In fact, so far as I can tell, it doesn't give the admin user any direct mechanism of doing this either. I haven't found any simple way to tell WHMCS "use the user's prepayment to pay his invoices".

 

I think the underlying design decision that might be causing the problems is: treating recurring services as if they were products to be shipped. Recurring services lead themselves to being naturally treated the way phone companies and credit card companies treat them, i.e., you start with a beginning balance, apply debits and credits for services and payments received, then end with a balance due or credit balance. You don't need an invoice number to pay your phone or credit card bill -- all you need is your account number. The payment is simply applied to your total amount due.

 

Products that are shipped more naturally fit the mold if a definite invoice and invoice number for each item, with each payment being applied towards one or more specific invoices.

 

Unfortunately it looks like most of the billing systems out there for web hosting force the product model onto recurring services. This leads to all sorts of confusion, of which the prepayment confusion is one example.

 

Rahul