Recurring Billing

Recurring Billing

Recurring Billing (or Payment Plans) can be implemented in 3 ways:

Subscription

With Subscription Billing, your customer signs up using a credit card for an agreed payment based on a schedule or infinite recurrence until canceled manually.  
Subscription Billing is unique in the fact that it does not recur based upon a balance due, but rather builds recurring bills in the future until the schedule ends or the subscription is canceled by an administrator.

Fields:
Recurring Amount: How much each recurring charge should be.  This is different from the original product price.
Payment Frequency Type: Custom Schedule allows you to charge based upon a schedule created in Settings > Schedules. From the Date of Purchase charges are based upon the date of the customer's purchase. You can also add an Offset when calculating From the Date of Purchase to the delay when the initial billing will occur.
Example: If you wanted to charge a subscription that charged the customer on the 12th of every month, you would use Custom Schedule. If you wanted to charge a monthly subscription that charges the same day as the customer making the initial order (ordered membership on the 3rd of the month, they are charged the 3rd of each month from there on), you would use From Date of Purchase.
Payment Frequency:  A drop-down of schedules is created in Setup > Company > Schedules if Custom Schedule type is selected; a list of From Date of Purchase schedules is presented if From Date of Purchase is selected.
Duration in Days: How long the recurrence should run.  Leaving this field blank or entering 0 marks it as an infinite recurrence.
Payment cycles to charge upfront: This will allow you to charge the customer their first x number of cycles at the time of ordering (pay the first three months in advance, then charge monthly, enter 3).
Charge Prorate Amount: If your event has multiple sessions per billing period, you can prorate the initial charge to include partial month sessions.
Prorate price per session: This is the amount the customer must pay per session if prorating.
Max sessions to prorate: This is the maximum number of sessions to prorate in a given billing period.
Max prorate amount: This is the maximum dollar amount to add as a prorated charge.

Example Goal: You have a weekly event that happens every Friday. You charge $50 per month, to be collected on the first of each month. The only charge you would like to collect upfront is the prorated cost of $50 divided by 4, depending on the week the participant chooses to enroll in the program. 

 
The setup would be the following: 
  • Set your product price to zero on the Product Main tab
  • Enter the start date and end date of your event on the Product Main tab
  • Create a schedule on the Product Calendar tab that represents Fridays (this should create a schedule for each Friday that falls in between the Start and End date you defined in Step 2.
  • On the product's Advanced tab, in the billing section check the box for Enable Recurring billing.
See the image below for configuration:
 
2019-12-30_1037.png
 
Configuration explained: The recurring amount is set to $50.  This is the amount the system will auto-collect on the 1st of each month. The Prorate Price Per Session represents 1/4 the Recurring amount, with a Max Prorate of $50 per month. Max session to prorate should be set to 5 to include any month that has 5 sessions. The Prorate Frequency is used to tell the system when to begin counting the sessions before the next full billing date.
 
Using the above configuration: If a customer registered for this program on 12/10/2019 and chose a start date of 1/3/2020 the system would calculate $12.5 X 5, but only charge a Max of $50.  Using a different scenario: If a customer chose the starting date of 1/15/2020 the system would calculate 3 Fridays for the prorate and charge $12.5 X 3 upfront.
 
Billing would be: Prorate charged at checkout, $50 due on the following 1st of the month.
 

Pricing Variations for subscription billing

Using the previously outlined scenario, frequently asked questions:
 
Q.) What would happen if I entered $50 for the product price on the Main Tab?
A.) On checkout the customer would be responsible for paying $50 + Prorate, the next billing date would be the following 1st of the Month.  Example - If the customer chose a start date of 1/15/2020, they would be responsible for three sessions left in January 2020 = $37.50 (this is the Prorated amount) + $50 for the price of entry (Price entered on the Main Tab), making the next billing-date on 2/1/2020.
 
Q.) What would happen if I entered zero for the product price on the main tab, but $50 for the Payment Cycles to Charge Upfront?
A.) On checkout, the customer would be responsible for paying $50 + Prorate and the next billing date would be two months out.  Example - If the customer chose a start date of 1/15/2020, they would be responsible for three sessions left in January 2020 = $37.50 (this is the Prorated amount) + $50 for February 1 payment (Payment cycle charged upfront), making the next billing-date on 3/1/2020.
 

Pay to Balance Owed

Pay to Balanced Owed allows control over things like one-time deposits, when deposits are visible, and controls in line with a set amount of days when the customer can pay the remainder of the balance due before auto charges occur. For more information see the article "Pay to Balance Owed"
 
Fields:  

Date to Compare to
-This allows you to set what type of PTBO you want to use.
Purchase Date-
-How many days after the purchase of the product that the customer's balance is due by before auto charge occurs.

Start Date-
-How many days before or after the Event Start Date that the deposit tab is NOT Available.
-How many days before or after the Event Start Date of a product that the customer's balance is due by before auto charge occurs.
End Date-
-How many days before or after the Event End Date of a product that the deposit is NOT Available.
-How many days before or after the Event End Date of a product that the customer's balance is due by before auto charge occurs.

Days Before Reminder-
-This allows you to set one or more email reminders to your customers to inform them that they will be billed and when. Input how many days prior to the billing day that the email will be sent. (Click the "plus" icon to add more reminders)

Legal text-
-This is the legal binding agreement for the recurrence to take place. There is a global legal recurring text in the configuration that is automatically added to each recurring product; however, if a particular product needs unique legal text, the global text can be overwritten here.
 

Layaway

Layaway charges a set amount for a given schedule and pays against a balance owed (if any) through an auto draft.  If the final charge is less than the charge amount, it will only charge the remaining balance.
Fields:
 
Recurring Amount: How much each recurring charge should be.  This is less than the original product price.
 
Payment Frequency Type: Custom Schedule allows you to charge based upon a schedule created in Settings > Schedules. From Date of Purchase charges based upon the date of the customer's purchase.
 
Payment Frequency:  A drop-down of schedules created in Setup > Company > Schedules if Custom Schedule type is selected; a list of From Date of Purchase schedules is presented if From Date of Purchase is selected.
 
Date to Compare:  Allows you to set the date that controls the deposit option on the product and how recurring charges occur.
 
Purchase Date:  How many days after the purchase of the product that the customer's recurrence payment auto charges.
         
          Start Date: How many days before or after the Event Start Date that the deposit tab is NOT Available?
                            How many days before or after the Event Start Date of a product that the customer's recurring charge occurs?
                
End Date:  How many days before or after the Event End Date of a product that the deposit is NOT Available.
                  How many days before or after the Event End Date of a product that the customer's recurring charge occurs.
 
Enable Final Payment Due Date:  Enables the ability to enter a date to charge the remaining balance due on a product. The charge can be set to occur before or after a product's start date. For example: if the final payment due date is set to charge 2 days before the product's start date, any remaining balance owed on the product will be charged to the customer's card on file, two days prior to the product's start date.
 
Legal text: This is the legally binding agreement for the recurrence to take place.  There is a global legal recurring text in the configuration that is automatically added to each recurring product; however, if a particular product needs unique legal text, the global text can be overwritten here.

Example: You have a $500 total event that you want to charge $150 upfront and $50 a month thereafter until paid off. Set the Product Price at $500, check Allow Deposit and enter $150 as the deposit amount. Check Enable Recurring Billing and choose Lay-Away. Enter $50 as the Recurring Amount. You're going to charge customers monthly based on when they make their initial purchase, so choose From Date of Purchase in Frequency Type, and Monthly for Payment Frequency. This will allow customers to either pay $500 all at once, or $150 with subsequent monthly payments until paid off.

Suspending, Reactivating, and Canceling Recurring Payments - Recurring payments can be suspended, reactivated, and canceled in the Accounts Screen. 

If you suspend, reactivate, or cancel a recurring payment, you'll see a pop-up explaining what will happen. Each type of recurring billing (Subscription, Pay to Balance Owed, and Layaway) has different things that happen on this screen.
 

This knowledge article provides information on specific Configio features. To ensure continuity with documentation and product functionality, Configio reserves the right to amend or update this knowledge article as needed. For more information, reach out to Configio Support.

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