Before You Begin:
- You need staff permissions to access billing/finance settings.
- Decide whether you want invoices generated automatically or run manually, and how far in advance.
- Note that Invoice before Autopay and Automatic Invoice Emails are mutually exclusive — you can only choose one.
Microlearning Overview
In your General Billing Settings, you can set up the system to automatically generate invoices for scheduled billing. How to configure these settings is overviewed below.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Go to Finance, Billing section, click Settings and select General Billing Settings, then configure the following options:
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If you wish the system to automatically generate invoices for recurring billing, enable the Use Automated Billing option in your General Billing Settings.
You will then enter the Lead Time Days. Lead time days is the number of days ahead of the Next Bill Date that invoices are created when Use Automated Billing is enabled. You will either go to the Pending Delivery tab under Billing to actually send the invoices or configure your system to automatically deliver, via email, your renewal invoices. This lead time gives you time to review invoices, apply credits, and apply un-applied payments, etc. before sending out the invoices. NOTE: Billings that have stored payment profiles will be charged on the actual Next Bill Date.
- Months Back Allowed: This setting allows you to set the number of months back you will be able to look back for invoices that need to be created, when manually running upcoming billing from Upcoming Billing in the Billing section.
- Auto Apply Credits to Newly Created Invoices: this setting will automatically apply any overpayments or credits on a contact's profile to a new invoice. IMPORTANT: The credit will be applied regardless of the fee item associated to the credit. For example, you may have created a credit for an event registration but enabling this setting could apply it to membership dues.
- Invoice before Autopay: Enable this option to create invoices for contacts who have a payment profile attached to a scheduled billing in advance (either when invoices are automatically generated or when billing is manually run). Invoices will be created without charging the credit card. On the actual invoice Next Bill Date, the system will then automatically charge the profile. See Create Invoices prior to Charging Stored Payment Profiles for further details.
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Automatic Invoice Emails: Enable this option if you wish the system to automatically send out your invoices once they have been generated (either automatically or manually). If selected, you will then choose the Email Template that you wish to be used when the invoices are sent. IMPORTANT!! Invoice before Autopay and Automatic Invoice Emails are mutually exclusive. You can only choose one or the other.
- Split Payment Gateways allows associations to choose through which GrowthZone Payment gateway a fee item is processed when there is more than one gateway set up in the database. If you have not set up an initial payment gateway, see Setup GrowthZone Pay for more information. You can enable the split gateway feature in these settings when there is more than one GrowthZone Payment gateway set up in the database.
Common Pitfalls
- Enabling both Invoice before Autopay and Automatic Invoice Emails: These two settings are mutually exclusive. Choose only one, or the system will not behave as expected.
- Unexpected credit application: With Auto Apply Credits enabled, credits apply regardless of the original fee item — an event-registration credit could land on membership dues. Confirm this is the behavior you want before enabling.