jwogrady Posted February 13, 2015 Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 The dream scenario.... We set up a monthly invoice called "utilities" which is basically a bucket of services. Throughout the month we add or cancels services to the "utilities" bucket. At the end of the month they get a single "utilities" bill with all the appropriate pro-rates and credits for the subscribed to services. We assign auto-pay and payment type to cover that bucket specifically I get pretty close to the above with reoccurring invoices.. The problem is I can't assign a payment type and auto-bill setting for the reoccurring invoice. That alone would solve a lot of the problem in the short term. Longer Term, I want to define rules for how to handle items in the bucket. - we don't want to extend credit for services in a bucket. collect payment for the pro-rated amount towards the end of the month and add the reoccurring item to the bucket. - we have extended net 30 terms... so we don't expect the customer to pay when they add a service. we simply add the prorated amount and full amount for the item to the next month's bill. - customer calls and wants to put a billable item on pause.... (for example, monthly marketing services, web hosting why a project still in development, etc.) -- no credit is give scenario..... The item is simply not billed the next month. -- credit given scenario.... Credit issued for unused service. Item is not billed on next cycle. Credit can be used towards any invoice. So, in short... I call this Bucket Billing. You should trademark that because I don't believe your competitors offer it. :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted February 13, 2015 Report Share Posted February 13, 2015 So technically you mean like people order what they want and at the end of the month you bill them for it? +1 for that. Also maybe they have to top up first just to secure it so people don't just order until a certain time (5 days before) just cancel everything so they don't owe you anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blesta Addons Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 The addons is not a solution for you? You can group packages in addons as a bucket with prorata . What i'm not sure in it is the client can remove addons and assign a credit note for it w Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
serge Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 Sorry to hack , but part of topic was to only associate a given payment method to a package, it's a really good feature to have. example, when : - monthly service terms, we could associate "subscription" only VS having both "buy now" & "subscription". - one time terms: only associate onetime payment VS display both. - etc jwogrady 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 The addons is not a solution for you? You can group packages in addons as a bucket with prorata . What i'm not sure in it is the client can remove addons and assign a credit note for it w Nope because they'd have to be 0.00 which means nothing will be totaled up. It's like some vendors, they allow us to order as many services as we need, and then they bill us at the end of the month. Blesta does it too some how, but SolusVM use (WHM**) and have to mark them as free, and then they have a plugin which totals it up and invoices us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blesta Addons Posted February 14, 2015 Report Share Posted February 14, 2015 Nope because they'd have to be 0.00 which means nothing will be totaled up. It's like some vendors, they allow us to order as many services as we need, and then they bill us at the end of the month. Blesta does it too some how, but SolusVM use (WHM**) and have to mark them as free, and then they have a plugin which totals it up and invoices us. For exemple they bill you for what is activated in the moment of generating invoice . The same as cpanel licences with cpanel . Nice feature . serge and Michael 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwogrady Posted March 4, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 4, 2015 The scenario I run into all the time... The $2500 monthly marketing services -- I'll send you a check. Please don't hit my credit card.... The $20 hosting account..... absolutely... charge my credit card so it never goes down. Had a situation where a lady went into the portal and selected auto debit to make sure her site NEVER went offline. Then the reoccurring marketing service hit.... she wasn't happy... ;-) So yeah, it would be huge help if I could control payment method, auto-debit, and perhaps even auto-suspend down at the product or perhaps invoice (i.e. bucket) level... I must admit that doesn't sound easy... :-) Darin 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Posted March 4, 2015 Report Share Posted March 4, 2015 The scenario I run into all the time... The $2500 monthly marketing services -- I'll send you a check. Please don't hit my credit card.... The $20 hosting account..... absolutely... charge my credit card so it never goes down. Had a situation where a lady went into the portal and selected auto debit to make sure her site NEVER went offline. Then the reoccurring marketing service hit.... she wasn't happy... ;-) So yeah, it would be huge help if I could control payment method, auto-debit, and perhaps even auto-suspend down at the product or perhaps invoice (i.e. bucket) level... I must admit that doesn't sound easy... :-) Your example highlights a problem I have seen myself. The "solution" thus far has been to create a separate account for the client that does not have auto debit set up for manual invoices they wish to pay by check. So, a way to tag or categorize services and manual invoices to omit them from auto debit would be very nice. Perhaps an option that can be enabled on an invoice to omit it from auto-debit. A similar option could be added to a service or recurring invoice to set this flag on invoice creation. Then, at anytime the option could be added or removed from any specific invoice. Paul..., Michael and jwogrady 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwogrady Posted March 10, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2015 @paul, I agree with your immediate solution. That would solve at least 90% of the problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyson Posted March 11, 2015 Report Share Posted March 11, 2015 What would the other 10% of the problem be? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwogrady Posted March 14, 2015 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2015 Paul's solution provides enough of the workaround to solve the most pressing need. My actual needs are actually much greater. Here are my actual use cases with business justification. Scenario #1 Acme Inc. has two subsidiary companies (Alpha Co. and Beta Co.) who need to be billed separately. Each subsidiary company wants to pay for "IT Services" (i.e. hosting) by credit card to reduce the chance of service interruption.... They want to pay marketing service by check. The Ideal Scenario one account for Acme Inc. sub accounts for Alpha Co. and Beta Co. Inside the sub-accounts there are two buckets.... Marketing and IT Services Marketing Services Bucket Paid monthly by check... We can add or delete SEO, PPC, etc. service bundles throughout the month. The bucket figures it out and submits the consolidated invoice. IT Services Bucket Paid by card - We can add hosting accounts, vps servers, etc. throughout the month and the invoice shows all the credits and debits to that bucket. Keep in mind the each sub-account has it's own billing contact, checking and credit card. Scenario #2 Primco Inc. is a nationwide company with 30 locations. Each location has a point of contact for IT Services. Primeco Inc. pays the bill, but they need to itemize for each location. Ideal Scenario. sub-account for each location. bucket for IT services within sub account. Roll up bill for Primeco Inc. to pay. When Primco Inc. Pays the bill each of the sub accounts is credited. Business Justification I understand these are true enterprise billing scenarios. However, these billing practices are rather common for marketing agencies who do a lot of ad hoc work in addition to subscription services (i.e. retainer services) for both national and local level accounts. If Blesta were to position themselves as an agency billing system I think they fill a gap marketing companies desperately need. All of them have reseller accounts, but they can't really use Blesta because it's not a total solution for them. If you can position yourself as an agency platform for technology and marketing services you expand the market by filling a gap. Ultimately I think the host billing market is mature. Agency billing is a progressive step and ultimately a larger market with few competitors. PM me if this is something you want to consider further. I'm happy to help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jluis Posted September 28, 2015 Report Share Posted September 28, 2015 +1 for me. I could also use this feature Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwogrady Posted October 6, 2015 Author Report Share Posted October 6, 2015 My original thinking was somewhat flawed. Here is perhaps a more elegant approach. First, Payments methods are unique to users.... not companies... Right now they are managed at the account level which is not PCI best practice. Changing this set the stage for making a more flexible billing system. Now we can accurately model the real world relationships. --- users belong to one or more company accounts --- users signup for products and services for one or more companies. --- user have varying roles in companies. --- Depending on their role, users can manage their service configuration and payment accounts at the universal, company, and service levels. This elegantly solves my scenarios. Senario 1 --------- IT manager pays for hosting, ssl. Marketing manager pays for PPC marketing services Scenario 2 ----------- dallas.website.com - dallas franchise owner la.webstie.com - la franchise owner ny.webstie.com -- ny franchise owner Scenario 3 ------------ - Company admin can see all company manager activity within their account. - Company managers only see the services and billing activity on the services they provision and/or assigned to manage. - Company admin can add and resign services to company managers as they enter and exit the company thereby improving service continuity. - Company admin can disable manager payment accounts altogether. They are then responsible for paying for all services as they become due. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wouter Posted March 8, 2016 Report Share Posted March 8, 2016 Sorry for the bump, but this would really help me. This is something I'm currently really missing in another billing system I'm using, when I move to Blesta this would be a major bonus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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