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Managing and Creating Billing Periods

Corey Syrnyk
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Modify Billing Periods

Each subscription that a customer has is contained in a single billing period. Conversely, a billing period can contain many subscriptions if they are set up to charge on the same day and at the same frequency.

  1. On the Customer Overview page, in the Invoice section, click Billing Periods.Customer_Properties_Billing_Periods_1.pngThis page allows you to manipulate the Billing Periods for a customer, which can be useful, for example, when:
    • A customer has one or more subscriptions billed on the 9th of every month, and they would like to change them so they are billed on the 15th of the month instead.
    • A customer has two subscriptions, both billing on the 9th, but they would prefer to have one billing on the 9th and the other on the 15th.
  2. On the Billing Period Definition page, click Details on the row with the definition to modify.
  3. On the Details Definition page, modify any details of the billing period, including collections and associate subscriptions. For example, click Modify Invoice Date to change the billing date.

Create a New Billing Period

You can create a new billing period and move some of the customer's subscriptions into it. You can use this, for example, to move one of the customer's subscriptions from billing on the 20th of the month to the 1st of the month without impacting the other subscriptions.

  1. On the Customer Overview page, in the Invoice section, click Billing Periods.
  2. On the Billing Period Definition page, click Create Billing Period.
  3. Enter the billing period information, including the number of periods and the frequency (monthly or yearly) you would like to use. If it's a monthly frequency, you can choose an Invoice Day; if it's a yearly frequency, you can choose an Invoice Day and Month. Stax Bill will show you the date on which this billing period will next recharge.
  4. Enter any collection preferences in the Collection Preferences section.Customer_Properties_Billing_Periods_2.png
  5. Click Save to create the billing period.

Note: Nothing will happen with this billing period until you place a subscription into it.

Updating a Billing Period

Click the Details button on any existing Billing Period to bring up its properties.

Customer_Properties_Billing_Periods_3.png

The header shows you which type of Billing Period and its Invoice Day (or Day and Month, if yearly).

You will also see a list of Subscriptions that belong to this period. You can move a subscription to a different Billing Period by clicking the Move button. You will get a pop-up like the one below, allowing you to either create a new Billing Period for this subscription or attach it to an existing Billing Period.

Note: The frequency of a subscription cannot be changed.

Customer_Properties_Billing_Periods_4.png

Managing an Empty Billing Period

If you remove all subscriptions from a billing period, you can delete the empty billing period by clicking the Delete button, which will appear with the Details button on the right-hand side of the Billing Period grid.

Customer_Properties_Billing_Periods_5.png

Note: A deleted Billing Period cannot be restored.

Billing periods can also be managed from the Subscriptions overview page; see Subscribing a Customer to a Plan.

Financial Impact of Changing Billing Periods

There are financial impacts to changing a subscription's billing period. Here are some scenarios to consider.

  • A monthly billing period has a billing date of the 1st. On the 15th of the month, a charge is added to a subscription, and the charge is set to pro-rate, a bill at the end of the period. Sometime after the 15th, the billing date is changed to the 6th of the (next) month. The end-of-period charge will be pro-rated to the old billing date (the 1st), not the new billing date (the 6th).
  • If the current billing date is the 1st and you change it to the 6th, the customer will get 6 extra days of service "for free" in the next month; or, you can consider that the current billing period has been extended to 36 days (assuming a 30-day month). There is no pro-ration of charges to account for the change in billing date.
  • Conversely, if the current billing date is the 30th, and on the 20th of the month, you change it to the 22nd, you are "shortening" the current billing cycle by 8 days. Again, charges are not pro-rated to account for this change.
  • Pro-rated charges added after the date change will be pro-rated based on the new billing date, not the previous one.

All of these scenarios work similarly with annual plans.

Tip: You should try any billing date changes in a test environment first, allow billing to run, and examine the results before implementing the change in your production account.

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