There are two main types of invoices in the system – standard and advanced.
Standard invoices are issued at the end of the billing cycle and include charges for a past period while advance invoices are issued at the beginning of the billing cycle and include charges for a future period.
The cycle for generation of the invoices is set in the subscription plan of the account – please refer to “How to Create Subscription Plans” for full detail about his topic.
Standard Invoices
In order to have standard invoices the account plan should be set to generate invoices at the end of the billing cycle. Standard subscription plans can be assigned to both – prepaid and postpaid accounts.
Standard invoices are used when there is usage (calls) and fixed charges that have to be billed after the period is over.
For example, if the standard subscription plan is with billing Cycle “Weekly on Monday”, then every Monday an invoice will be issued for the previous week.
If you need to add custom charges or make adjustments to an account that is using a standard subscription plan, these transactions reflected in the next standard invoice when it is issued at the end of the period.
Accounts » Account Name » Billing » Unbilled Charges
Unbilled Charges can be applied only to prepaid accounts. As prepaid account balance cannot go to negative, if there is no sufficient account balance to cover a charge, the system does not generate transaction for the whole charge amount and the remaining part f the charge appears in “unbilled charges” menu. For example if the account balance is $5 and there is a charge for $20, then the system will generate transaction only for $5 and an unbilled charge for $15 will appear. When a payment is made the system automatically settles all unbilled charges.
Accounts » Account Name » Billing » Transactions
The partial charge is added to transactions menu of the account, when there is no sufficient balance to cover the charge. For example if there is a charge of $10, but account balance is only $5, then charge transaction of $5 only will be made.
Advanced Invoices
In order to have advance invoices the account plan should be set to generate invoices at the beginning of the billing cycle. Keep in mind that advanced subscription plans can be assigned only to postpaid accounts.
Advanced invoices are used when there is no usage (calls), but only fixed charges like monthly subscription fees, minimum commitment fees, yearly support fees, etc.
For example if the advanced subscription plan is with billing Cycle “1st day of the month”, then on April 1st an invoice will be issued for the period April 1 – April 30.
If you need to add custom charges or make adjustments to an account that is using an advanced subscription plan, these transactions cannot be added immediately as the current period has already been invoiced.
The charges/adjustments added during the period will be reflected in the next advance invoice for the following period when it is issued – you can see all these charges as scheduled transactions in the account.
Accounts » Account Name » Billing » Scheduled Transactions
Here you can see all scheduled transactions that will be applied in the next advance invoice.
Please note that you are allowed to change an Advanced Subscription Plan only if there are NO issued invoices for this plan.
Please refer to “How to Create Customer Account” for more details about changing the account subscription plan.