Depending on the billing model you chose, orders can be paid:
- Before the ordered services can be provisioned (the Charge Before Billing Period or the Charge Before Subscription Period billing model)
- After the ordered services are provisioned (the Charge After Billing Period or the Pay As You Go billing model, as well as the consolidated invoicing model)
You can configure and your customers can choose to pay orders with these payment methods:
- Online payments with a credit card or via direct debit. In this case, CloudBlue Commerce applies payments to placed orders automatically. Applicable to: "Online" type of business, where customers pay online.
- Manual payments. In this case, payments happen outside CloudBlue Commerce. Since CloudBlue Commerce does not receive payment information automatically, you have to apply payments manually to orders paid with Check/Cash (see below). Applicable to: "Traditional" type of business, where a customer contacts your sales agent, who places an order in the system and attaches a scanned payment document to the order.
Online payment of orders
When a customer places an order and pays it online, or when CloudBlue Commerce charges a customer recurring payments for subsequent billing periods, the system applies payments automatically to such orders. After a payment is applied, the order processing continues according to the configured order flow. Manual actions to apply a payment to an order in such cases are not necessary.
When a customer pays an order outside CloudBlue Commerce, you have to create a payment in the system and apply it to the order manually.
To apply a payment manually to an order:
- Open Operation > Orders. Select an order by clicking on the respective link in the Order Type or in the Order Number column.
- On the General tab, click Open Order. Switch to the Documents tab. If the customer has a payment method configured for automatic payments, you will see a payment automatically added by the system and put on hold. Otherwise, you'll need to add a payment manually to the system.
- To do this, click Add New Payment. Complete the form:
- Total – the field contains the full order sum. You can change it to a lower amount (to pay the order with several payments) or leave as is. The fractional part format is "10.00".
- Description – a description of the order. You can accept the default description of the payment “Payment for the Order ###” or change it as needed (for example, you can enter a check number).
- Document Date – the date of the document creation.
- Reference Number – the reference number of the payment.
- Payment Method – the customer's payment method. Click
and, in the window that opens, select the customer's payment method to use. - Document # – the payment document ID that will be assigned automatically when you save the payment. For information about how to configure document numbering, go to Configuring Document Numbering.
- Click Add. A new payment document is added to the list in the Hold status. Now you can use it to pay the order.
- To apply the payment to the order, select the payment and click Release on top.
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