Monthly Billing For Daily Services

[10RUPTiV]

Hey folks..

 

We are trying to find a way to bill a "daily" services on a monthly basis.

 

For a real example, we are billing clients for a monitoring service using a daily pricing.  And each 2nd day of the month we are billing for the current month using the right amount of days for that month.

 

Before Blesta, we are doing manual invoices for this kind of billing, but it will be nice to automatically create an invoice for that, like a "service".

 

[Paul]

I'm not sure there's a way to do exactly what you're asking as the monthly amount would be variable. You could adjust the package price ahead of each month to accommodate this, or you could set the package price to "30 days". The renew date would not be the same each month depending on the # of days in the month, but then you'll be billing on a 30 day cycle rather than a monthly cycle. (Or 28 days, or whatever you want to do).

 

If you bill on a 1 day basis, it will invoice daily.

[10RUPTiV]

Paul,

 

I understand your point, but we can't do that.  Our business model is like that since a while for this kind of service.    So the other option is to develop a plugin for that?

[Paul]

Paul,

 

I understand your point, but we can't do that.  Our business model is like that since a while for this kind of service.    So the other option is to develop a plugin for that?

 

Yes, the simplest thing would be to develop a plugin that calculates the price each month based on the # of days, and updates the package price prior to renewals. It can do so via an automation task it registers.

 

Soon it will be possible to have packages defer their pricing to a plugin, in which case your plugin would be able to control the price directly vs updating the package.

[Michael]

Would a merge invoice option be good for this? if you invoiced daily? so you get a invoice daily and then tick the boxes and merge them? (Which isn't in Blesta at the moment, I don't think).

[AllToolKits.com]

So you want to define package price as per day price?

 

and and then on each 2nd of month, you want to calculate price as, number of days customer made use of package * price per day?

[10RUPTiV]

So you want to define package price as per day price?

 

and and then on each 2nd of month, you want to calculate price as, number of days customer made use of package * price per day?

 

Yes. I need on the 2nd of month, calculate the price for the "current" month.  Our service is a "paid-before-use" service.  So, for example, on the 2nd of january, I'm billing for 31 days of january.

[Cody]

Yes. I need on the 2nd of month, calculate the price for the "current" month.  Our service is a "paid-before-use" service.  So, for example, on the 2nd of january, I'm billing for 31 days of january.

 

Sounds like you'd want a plugin that listens for the Invoices.add event, then looks up the invoice to check if any of the line items use the package that should be billed for daily usage, then append a line item to the invoice for the daily usage.

 

The way I would make it work is create a base package for the base price (if there is no base price the price would be 0). Then create a restricted package that contains the daily price. No client would be subscribed to this package, it would simply be used to calculate the daily usage amount.

Next, when the base service is invoiced your plugin would be notified and have the option to append a line item to the invoice for the daily usage.

 

 

To recap:

1. Plugin "listens" for Invoices.add event
2. Plugin looks up invoice and checks line items for services that use the base package
3. For all base package services, look up related daily usage package to obtain pricing
4. Append line item to the invoice by setting qty to the number of days invoice covers, set amount to daily usage price

[10RUPTiV]

 

Sounds like you'd want a plugin that listens for the Invoices.add event, then looks up the invoice to check if any of the line items use the package that should be billed for daily usage, then append a line item to the invoice for the daily usage.

 

The way I would make it work is create a base package for the base price (if there is no base price the price would be 0). Then create a restricted package that contains the daily price. No client would be subscribed to this package, it would simply be used to calculate the daily usage amount.

Next, when the base service is invoiced your plugin would be notified and have the option to append a line item to the invoice for the daily usage.

 

 

To recap:

1. Plugin "listens" for Invoices.add event
2. Plugin looks up invoice and checks line items for services that use the base package
3. For all base package services, look up related daily usage package to obtain pricing
4. Append line item to the invoice by setting qty to the number of days invoice covers, set amount to daily usage price

 

 

Cody,

 

Just to make sure.   We charge for example 50.00$ PER DAY.   I need at each 2nd of the month, to create a new invoice for this month using a quantity of the number of days in the current month X 50.00$ + taxes

 

The invoice for Jan 2nd should be 31x 50$  and the one for February, will be 28x 50$