Half now, half later

[oneawesomeguy]

Is there any way I can have clients pay half the price now and half the price when I finish a project? Does any one have any ideas of how to accomplish this? May two separate invoices? But then the price listed on the site would only be half of what it really is. Maybe just have them not pay the whole invoice amount? Every way I think of seems too complicating.

[ur]

You can only do this by making a manual invoice, or by using the API to create an invoice to your needs

[Zorro67]

@OAG

 

This is similar to the below threads

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=10186

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=9625

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=9457

 

Also, you will find some commonalities with

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=11006

 

Review these and see if you can add some perspective

 

cheers

[oneawesomeguy]

@OAG

 

This is similar to the below threads

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=10186

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=9625

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=9457

 

Also, you will find some commonalities with

http://forum.whmcs.com/showthread.php?t=11006

 

Review these and see if you can add some perspective

 

cheers

 

Thanks Zorro67. I really learned a lot from those posts. I think I will just go ahead and force the clients to deposit at least half of the invoice before work can begin. I will try to figure out what to do about the invoice saying that the payment was late though... Any suggestions on that?

[Zorro67]

Only way to really make that work is if you have a short construction period, then push the invoice reminders out past your due dates.

 

Its a dirty solution though, and will mean that other non-deposit clients will get their reminders at the same time gap.

[oneawesomeguy]

Only way to really make that work is if you have a short construction period, then push the invoice reminders out past your due dates.

 

Its a dirty solution though, and will mean that other non-deposit clients will get their reminders at the same time gap.

 

Thanks!

Too bad my construction period is about four weeks.

 

Any more ideas?

[Zorro67]

Have thought about this a bit myself, and can describe the oversteps as below.

 

Halve the construction cost, insert an (if group = design projects, then display 'Deposit') statement into the products page, place the full cost into the text of the product into the product description and place a note into the bottom of the invoice on a simlar if statement to above..

 

Oh yes, remeber to raise an invoice manually for the remainder, when you've done the job.

 

Now I haven't done any of these yet on my site, so have not detailed the steps more fully.

[Zorro67]

If you want to do this the mod required to products. tpl is

{if $gid eq "006"}<b>Deposit </b><br/>{/if}

which is placed just above the following line

{if $product.paytype eq "free"}

 

Replace 006 with the gid of the your particular product group.

 

next i have to figure out how to add a note to the bottom of the invoice (both pdf & donloadable) for that product group.

 

It would probably be prudent to add the "deposit" note on a couple of screens

[oneawesomeguy]

Would the idea behind the following work:

 

{if $gid eq "006" OR $itemid eq "012"}<b>Deposit </b><br/>{/if}

 

I am not sure about the string for the item id numbers.

 

 

I have been thinking of sending an email with specific products letting the customer know that he or she needs to deposit at least half the money into his or her account. After a customer deposits money, there is no way they can remove it, right?

[ChrisGooding]

Permit me if I'm thinking off track here...

 

But, couldn't you get a client to purcahse a product at full price, where the price is zero, but that has a setup cost (Which is half your cost), but making sure there is something in the description that explains things.

 

Then once you have finished your build, you upgrade them to an invisible package, which is has the cost balanced out so the client now has paid in full.

[oneawesomeguy]

Permit me if I'm thinking off track here...

 

But, couldn't you get a client to purcahse a product at full price, where the price is zero, but that has a setup cost (Which is half your cost), but making sure there is something in the description that explains things.

 

Then once you have finished your build, you upgrade them to an invisible package, which is has the cost balanced out so the client now has paid in full.

 

I like your thinking. Outside the box. Would be better if it was integrated somehow into WHMCS though, because of invoicing issues. The client may download the half payment invoice and then later the full payment invoice and the government thinks I am making 150% of what I am really making. No? Is there a way around this issue?

[Zorro67]

It would both me a bit, becasue if I forgot/made amistake it would require 3 times more work to fix, not to mention the tax issues - an auditors nightmare (we have a really onerous tax department)

 

There is another way, (just thought of it) but only really useful if the client order from a direct link.

 

Create a promo code (say 'deposit') with a 50% discount, and then integrate that into a direct link.

 

Add a notation to their welcome email to say that you will bill them for the remainder upon completion.

 

You should also add it to the terms & conditions that if they are using that specific promo code, it's not a discount, but simply for the purposes of allowing a deposit for that product/serice through your auto billing system.

 

the balance would then be on a manual invoice on completion.

 

However, this would be a pain if they were ordering from the store

[luckdragon]

well.. he's got a point about the $0 product with the 1 time setup fee of $x

 

then, you upgrade the client to their monthly hosting package, and generate a manual invoice for the balance

 

if not hosting it, then you just generate the manual invoice