Credit terms configurations define provider's billing management strategy, including the conditions in which the provisioned services may be suspended or discontinued. A credit terms configuration is assigned to a customer class. Changing the credit terms configuration for a customer class automatically affects all the customers that belong to that class.
To add a credit terms configuration:
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Go to System > Settings. Click Terms in the Finance list. The Credit Terms tab opens with the list of currently available credit terms.
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Click Add New Credit Terms. The adding new credit term dialog window is displayed. Fill out the form:
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Name: Enter a name for the credit terms option. The credit terms will be referred by this name in lists and objects where credit terms are used (for example, customer classes).
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Due Period: Enter the time period (in days) within which the invoice must be paid. The due period starts on the invoice issue date. The invoice due date is calculated as follows: invoice due date = invoice creation date + invoice due period - 1.
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Automatic Charges: Choose one of the options to configure when the invoices issued for every customer of this customer class will be paid automatically.
Note:
1) The automatic charges configuration will apply to all invoices subject to the rules listed in Configuring Delayed Payment Schedules for Customers.
2) Automatic charges will apply to the payment method used during the order placement. If the order is placed without any payment information, or the customer deletes that payment method from the system before the scheduled invoice payment date, the system will charge the default payment method of the customer. For more information about how to set payment methods for a customer, see Managing Customer Payment Methods.-
On invoice issue date: The customer will be charged automatically on the invoice issue date.
Note: This behavior is different for the first order that is a part of the a consolidated invoice. For such orders, the customers are charged on order placement. To charge for such orders the same way as for others, enable the FEA_ForceFirstOrderConsolidation billing feature. For the instructions how to do this, refer to this section.
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Between invoice issue and due dates: An additional field will appear on the screen to configure the interval of delay. Charges will be postponed until the specified number of days before the invoice due date.
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On invoice due date: The customer will be charged automatically as late as the invoice due date.
For more information on how to configure delayed automatic charges and how they apply, see Configuring Delayed Payment Schedules for Customers.
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Grace Period: Enter the time period (in days) which will be given to customer on top of the due period to settle the outstanding invoice. The grace period starts the next day after the due period ends.
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Hold Period: Enter the time period (in days) that will start if an account balance is below zero.
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Put Account on Credit Hold: Select one of these options:
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Automatically: A customer account will be put on credit hold automatically by the Daily Billing Process if these two conditions are met for the account:
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there is an overdue invoice and its grace period has ended;
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the customer account balance is negative and the Hold Period has ended.
When you select Automatically, these additional options will appear on the screen:
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Put on credit hold only unpaid subscriptions: This option allows to suspend only unpaid subscriptions (in case a customer has both paid and unpaid ones). For example, if a customer has 3 subscriptions and only misses payments for one of them, only that unpaid subscription will be suspended.
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Underpayment limit This option sets the limit of allowed underpayment (debt) for a customer. A customer's current underpayment is calculated as
<account balance> / <sum of totals of unpaid invoices with grace period over>, in percent. This option allows to suspend an account's subscriptions only if the account's debt is greater than the underpayment limit. Otherwise, the subscriptions will not be suspended, while the account will still be put on credit hold if the above conditions are met.
Note:
1. The automatic mode of putting an account on credit hold does not restrict the provider's capability to activate such accounts manually. However, once activated manually, such accounts will be put on credit hold automatically by the nearest launch of the Daily Billing Process procedure.
2. Credit terms can also be applied to an account in the Administrative Hold status. In such a case, the account's status becomes Credit+Administrative Hold. -
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Manually: In this case, an account can be put on credit hold only manually by the provider. For more information see Managing Customer Accounts.
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Credit Limit: Enter the maximum amount of debt a customer is allowed to owe to the provider before the account will be put on Credit Hold. Until this limit is reached for an account, orders will be provisioned for the account even if the account has an outstanding balance, as long as it stays within the specified limit.
Note: These values are used in the calculation of the placeholder @@Cust_Account_SuspendDate@, which appears in the overdue notification template (the default template name is Overdue Balance).
Note:
- A credit limit is inherited from credit terms when credit terms are assigned to a customer class. Finally, a customer account inherits the credit limit from the customer class this account belongs to. The credit limit can be adjusted per account (in the account profile, on the General tab, under Financial Information, select Customized for Account for the Credit Limit Source option, and specify the Customized Credit Limit parameter).
- A credit limit is used as is for VAR resellers. For customers and resellers acting as customers, please refer to Notes on Credit Limit. -
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(Optional) Configure threshold-related parameters for postpaid services:
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Send Low-Balance Notifications. The box defines whether "low balance" notification is sent to a customer.
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Threshold to Send Low-Balance Notifications. The option sets the value on exceeding which a "low balance" notification is sent to a customer. The threshold is exceeded when an available account balance becomes less than N. Value is configured as absolute amount in the system currency.
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Balance Shift to Resend Low-Balance Notifications. The option sets the minimal balance shift value. It is configured to eliminate possible recurrent sending of "low-balance" notifications to a customer when approaching to the threshold. Value is configured as absolute amount in the system currency.
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Automatically put Subscriptions on Credit Hold. The box defines whether a postpaid service subscription is put on hold automatically when exceeding the threshold (for example, its service status becomes Stopped). Note that described option only affects postpaid services.
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Threshold to Put Subscriptions on Credit Hold. The option sets the value on exceeding which a subscription is put on credit hold. The threshold is exceeded when an available account balance becomes less than N. Value is configured as absolute amount in the system currency.
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Low Balance Suspension Delay. When a customer orders a new service or additional resources and sees available credit on the account, he or she may use it entirely to pay even though a part of it may be already "reserved" for the PAYG service. In such a case, with the next daily billing that PAYG subscription would be put on hold due to insufficient balance. Delaying subscription suspension allows the customer to top-up balance before the subscription is actually suspended.
Note: This option can be used to switch-off sending messages to customers not using postpaid services. For new installations, this option is unchecked by default; for upgraded systems, it is selected by default.
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Click Save to finish creating a credit terms configuration.