Search Again: Re: Billing conversion/capabilities From: Shawn Hogan Date: Monday, December 14, 1998 Time: 10:11:38 am Mike Oas wrote: >Great product Shawn. I have a few questions regarding how Optigold >ISP handles billing and whether our current billing practices could be >duplicated there. Please bear with me, it's kinda weird but our >customers are using this now and it works. We bill our customers >upfront for the remainder of the month they are in. Then, customers >surf for a month and are billed 5 days after (to calculate overage >charges etc.) that month. e.g. Customer signs up today, we prorate >tomorrow to the end of the month and they pay up front. Customer then >surfs and is billed by cheque or cc 5 days later (e.g. 5th of Feb for >Jan). It may seem screwy but our customers think it is really fair. In >addition, it could be next to impossible to convert billing for over 300 >customers if Optigold can't duplicate that. Customers that cancel pay >until the end of the month they are in and all is well. Optigold can >probably handle pro-rating from the day they cancel so I'm looking >forward to implementing that too. > >To complicate things :-( we often run a "31 days free" scheme and need >to credit their account for that time, prorate the remainder of the next >month and bill that upfront. Then the customer doesn't get billed until >5 days after the following month. We do this to get all our customers >on the same billing cycle. Some of our partner companies pay a partial >payment for that free period (e.g. 50%) as they consider Internet access >as a value added service to the product(s) they really sell. The >commission system looks interesting but I don't think it's the same >thing... From what I gather, it looks like everything in there is doable... but maybe I misunderstood something... {shrug} Let's see here... >To summarize: > >* Can someone make a prorated payment on signup (I think this is >doable based on the manual)? You don't prorate a payment. You prorate an invoice and then apply the payment to that invoice. So yes. >* Can products be configured for post-payment (e.g. Invoiced after >the month on the 1st with payment due 5 days after via debit or cc)? Yep, Accounts Preferences allows you to specify the threshhold for actions. (number of days +/- expiration date to invoice, bill credit cards, send past due notice, place on hold and cancel). >* Can free months (or days) be added a a promo product that >credits the account, or could a product be configured for this purpose. >Perhaps a setup fee (one time) could actually be a credit item of 1 >month (or 30 days for example)? Yep. You can make any product worth any number of months/days time credit. And if needed you can make a zero dollar product that is nothing more than a time/month credit. >* Can free months (or days) be filtered on a report by customer so >we can bill our partner companies a partial payment? Even if the >billing is done manually here, a report would help <grin>. I'm not sure I follow ya on that one... - Shawn ------------------------------- Shawn D. Hogan President, Data Point Solutions http://www.data-point.com (619) 452-3696 ICQ: 8319647

Messages In This Thread: Billing conversion/capabilities by Mike Oas on Dec 14, 1998 at 9:27:12 am Re: Billing conversion/capabilities by Shawn Hogan on Dec 14, 1998 at 10:11:38 am