Why it matters:

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

What we built:

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.

There is a now a setting in Finance > General Settings called “Invoice before Autopayment”

Settings and Expectations

Part of this is work is about risk management. We want all customers to start using this feature. Currently there are four possible configuration to understand.

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 generate that many days prior to the Next Bill Date of the scheduled billing item which becomes the Invoice Date for the newly 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 and does not allow for invoices to be sent ahead of the payment date.

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 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

Why would I use this setup?

This setup allows all invoices to be generated according to your lead days. Customer can send invoices with advanced notice of the scheduled payment and members can review their upcoming payment in the info hub.

Use Automated Billing - Off ; Invoice before Autopayment - On

• When will scheduled billing items generate invoices?

  • Invoices with or without payment associated payment profiles be generated when you run upcoming billing.

  • 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 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

Why would I use this setup?

This is a setup that is beneficial if you need the control running upcoming billing yourself but still want to provide your autopay members with an invoice before the payment date.

FAQs

What happens if I don’t use auto billing but I do use autopayment… but the scheduled payment date is in the past?

If this is a situation you’re running into often, I’d recommend turning off both features. If there are scheduled payment dates in the past or today it will charge those profiles when the invoices are run

My customers who have autopay setup aren’t used to getting an invoice in advance, do I have to send them if I want to use these feature?

The Pending Delivery tab and Sales and Invoice tab both have a filter if you’d like to exclude those invoice when you print or email.

What if a member need to cancel or change their scheduled payment date?

Staff are able to control the scheduled payment date from the invoice. They can move it forward or back. Members can cancel an autopayment from the Info Hub but can’t change the actual date.

What if a payment profile fails or is declined.

Just like before, the customer will get a notice of this. The card will not be run again so how to handle those cases will be up to the business. There are several reports that can be reviewed to monitor if that is an issue.

How is the Scheduled Payment Date determined for the invoices? Can I change the date to charge the profiles?

The Scheduled Payment will be the same as the Next Bill Date. An individual invoice can have the date Scheduled Payment dated edited by a staff member but there is not currently a way to make that change for all the invoices.

Why does the “Lead Time Days” setting have to be greater than 0?

This is a bit of an technical order of operations thing. From a user perspective it doesn’t make sense to have lead days be 0 and the new feature turn on since that setup is negating the usefulness of the Invoice Before Autopayment features.