Discounts and Pricing Changes

[TDub]

I'm a little disappointed with the lack of discounting support in WHMCS. Maybe it's just me, but shouldn't discounts be something you can see on an invoice? For example, I'd like to add a discount to an invoice after the invoice has been created. How do I do this?

 

And how do I add recurring discounts to a customer's account? From what I understand, I have to change the monthly recurring price in the customers products area, but then how do I track that the customer has received a discount? Personally, I think there should be a way to apply and remove discounts on an account and on individual invoices.

 

Also, what if I have a price increase. Can I just change a price somewhere to apply the price increase across the board, or do I have to go in and adjust each account manually?

[TDub]

Anyone? Beuller.

[chickendippers]

Also, what if I have a price increase. Can I just change a price somewhere to apply the price increase across the board, or do I have to go in and adjust each account manually?

You could easily change all the prices by running a find replace command on the database. But I agree, a "update all prices" button would be useful.

[TDub]

That and a copy plan or update configurable items to plan feature. I found with multiple plans when you want to add the same features to each plan, or have a lot of configurable options you want to duplicate on other plans, it's a tedious operation to copy paste. I end up having to print out the current plan's configurable options, then manually typing them in the same way for the other plans :-S

[ask21900]

What's wrong with using a promotion/coupon to give the customer a discount, re-occurring or otherwise?

[othellotech]

Also, what if I have a price increase. Can I just change a price somewhere to apply the price increase across the board, or do I have to go in and adjust each account manually?

 

You contact all the customers a month before hand advising them oif the increase, reefrring them to your t&c's and offering them a chance to leave if they dont like it

 

Then you edit the product so new signups get the new price

 

Then you do a simple sql query to change old-price to new-price on tblhosting for that product

[TDub]

What's wrong with using a promotion/coupon to give the customer a discount, re-occurring or otherwise?

 

Doesn't this require creating a unique product for the customer to apply the promotion/coupon to for just that customer? Also, the manual states this doesn't apply to addons or domains.

[JasonO]

To take money off an invoice thats already been created, just use a negative value and use a suitable description.

[TDub]

Thanks, but how would you handle a recurring discount for a specific customer? Say I want to give someone a continual 10% discount on a the same plan everyone else pays full price for?

[Willx]

First off correct me if im wrong.. If your changen a price after some one signs up for that price its breach of contract.. Meaning they signed up for say $14 a month and you up it to $20 a month. I would leave your host faster then you could change the price. That's like signing up for a car loan at 300$ a month payments and they said oh next month we are upping your price to 400$ a month.. Its just not done, if you do do this make sure its in the terms of use, other wise you could have major legal issues.

 

I've yet to have a coupon use where some one sends me there invoice so I can't speak about that. I do however think it would be nice for there to be a FAQ on all the commands for invoices and pages so the user can make there own invoices and add a coupon to be shown!

[chickendippers]

It depends what the contract says. Contracts reserve the right to change the price, but allow you to cancel your service without penalty if you're within the minimum term...at least that's how it works in the UK.

 

We don't impose a minimum term on our customers, on the one occasion we increased the price of one of our plans we gave 30 days notice as our terms and conditions state, and noone complained.

 

@infuseweb: You could just adjust the product's recurring price to be 10% less.

[Willx]

Yes, that is what I was getting at chickendippers... I was just making a point that it must state in the terms of use before doing so other wise you may get sued of breach of contract

[PPH]

Telephone companies, cable companies etc will go up in price also. It would be up to you but most expect to have their hosting plans not go up. There should be an easy way for those that need it to change the price. Unfortunately those with auto payments would usually need to reagree to an automatic or subscription change.

[TDub]

chickendippers, if I reduced the monthly recurring price on a product to 10% less I'd have to do it on each individual customer using that product, right? Changing it at a global level will not change it at the customer leve, unless I'm mistaken. What I'm looking for is a way to apply individual discounts without affecting the global price. This way I know who a discount has been applied to and for how much, and so does the customer (i.e. invoice says 10% discount off retail price, for example). It would also be nice to be able to change the global price for everyone under a plan easily.

 

If someone signed up on a monthly basis, then there are never any guarantees their monthly price will not go up. They essentially signed a "monthly" contract. Now, if someone paid 1 year in advance and suddenly in the middle of the year you say "you owe me more money because the price went up" then sure, it's a breach of contract. And yes, you should obviously give fair notice that prices will be going up.

 

I think these days for someone to assume their hosting prices will never go up is pretty presumptuous. A lot of factors could influence hosting prices that are beyond the hosts control, including increased electricity bills due to rising fuel costs, data center price increases, inflation, competition, whatever. Plus, customers always have the option to go elsewhere if they feel they're being unfairly charged. It's a blessing and a curse for a host, so most hosts don't "like" to increase prices for that reason, but one can never assume it won't happen.

[TDub]

By the way, I just thought of something else. Say I want to give a customer a 10% discount overall. So I manually adjust the product pricing accordingly. Now the user adds an addon through the customer portal. What happens? They'd pay full price for the addon on top of the adjusted product pricing, right? So I have to go back and readjust the pricing, but now they've already paid full price so a credit has to be issued I don't know the right answer. Maybe someone has some better ideas.