Billing Term Change

What it does

A client with an active service sees a Billing Term section on the service page. It lists the other billing cycles the product is sold on, each with its price and what it comes to a month. The client picks one and confirms.

The change does not touch the service today. It is saved, and it starts with the next renewal invoice:

• The renewal invoice is created on the new cycle, at the price the client was shown. This is true whether the daily automation creates it or the client presses Renew now.
• Paying that invoice moves the next due date on by the new cycle.
• Nothing is charged and nothing is credited when the client asks. There is no refund to work out, because the term they already paid for runs to its end.

The client can cancel the change from the same section until it starts. If a renewal invoice is already waiting for payment, it stays on the current term and the new term starts with the one after it. The section shows the date.

Turn it on

Go to Settings > General Settings > Ordering > Billing Term Change and switch it on. It is off until you do, and an update never turns it on by itself.

Which services and cycles are offered

A service is offered a change when all of this is true:

• It is active, repeats, costs something and has a next due date.
• No cancellation has been requested for it.
• Its price is the standard price of its product and chosen configurable options for its current cycle. A service with a custom price, a location price or a price that changed since the order is not offered a change, because no rule can carry that price to another cycle. The client is told to contact support, and you change those services by hand.

A cycle is offered when the product has a price for it (and for every option the service uses), it is switched on under Settings > Billing Cycles, and Allow in signup is ticked for it on the product's Pricing tab. To stop clients moving to a cycle on one product, untick Allow in signup for that cycle on that product.

What staff see

• The service page shows a Billing Term Change box with the old and new cycle, the new price and a Cancel change button.
• A To-Do is raised, due on the date the new term starts, and the admin email gets a Billing Term Change Requested email.
• The client gets a Billing Term Change Confirmation email. Both templates can be edited under Settings > Email Templates.
• The activity log records when it was asked, cancelled and applied.

Changing the billing cycle or the amount of the service by hand drops a pending change, because the price the client agreed to no longer matches the service.

Not included

There is no immediate switch with proration. Moving at once would need a credit for the unused part of the term already paid, which this feature leaves out on purpose.