Why

GrowthZone customers and their members want insight and simpler control of the autopay process. The new feature creates a user experience aligned with our members are used to seeing on their credit card or utility autopayment - the details of the upcoming payment before it happens.

What

At it’s core, the Invoice Before Autopayment is about separating the processes that generate invoices from the process that charges payment profiles for those invoices.

Settings and Expectations

Use Automated Billing - Off ❌ ; Invoice before Autopayment - Off ❌

When will scheduled billing items generate invoices?
- Invoices will be generated with you run upcoming billing.
When will scheduled billing items with a payment profile be paid?
- Any invoices that are created when you run upcoming billing that have an associated payment profile will be charged at that time.

Why would I use this setup? The pros and the cons for this setup are the same, the process is entirely manual.

Having the invoices and the auto payment (or scheduled payment) generated by manually running upcoming billing gives the GrowthZone customer a lot of control over the date things happens and comfort that nothing will happen without their intervention.

The downside is that the customer is losing out on all the efficiencies and benefits of having an AMS that, once setup, can handle these recurring and time consuming processes for them.

Use Automated Billing - On ; Invoice before Autopayment - Off ❌

When will scheduled billing items generate invoices?
- Invoices without payment associated payment profiles be generated based on the “Lead Time Days” setting. The invoices will show up that many days prior to the Next Bill Date of the scheduled billing item which becomes the Invoice Date for the created invoices
When will scheduled billing items with a payment profile be paid?
- Any invoices that have a payment profile associated will be created and the payment profile charged the day of Next Bill Date of the scheduled billing item which becomes the Invoice Date.

Why would I use this setup?

Before the release of the Invoice before Autopayment feature, this was the most hands-off approach that could be taken to billing and autopayment.

We would not recommend this setup for new customer, but existing customer may want to leave things as they are rather than review or implant changes to current setup.

This setup also leaves invoice generation and autopayment linked. Decoupling these setting mitigates risk associated with autopayment processing.

Use Automated Billing - On ; Invoice before Autopayment - On

When will scheduled billing items generate invoices?
- Invoices with or without payment associated payment profiles be generated based on the “Lead Time Days” setting. The invoices will show up that many days prior to the Next Bill Date of the scheduled billing item which becomes the Invoice Date for the created invoices.
- Invoices that are linked with a payment profile will be generated and will have a “Scheduled Payment Date”. These invoices have a clock 🕑 next to their balance. The Invoice Date is the Scheduled Payment date.
When will ~~scheduled billing items~~ invoices with a payment profile be paid?
- Any invoices that have a payment profile associated will be created and the payment profile charged the day of Next Bill Date of the scheduled billing item which becomes the Invoice Date and the Scheduled Payment Date