02 Sep 10 Cancellation of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail
In this answer we have provided an in-depth explanation of how the system works internally when an Invoice or Debit note is cancelled. You can cancel a pending Debit Note from the List View or Detailed View of an Invoice or Debit Note.
Reference:
Discounting an Invoice explained in detail >>
Modifying / Deleting / Cancelling a Pending Invoice / Debit Note >>
In a true sense there is really nothing like Cancellation of an Invoice or Debit Note. A transaction once entered cannot ever be deleted. The transaction can only be settled. Therefore even the Cancellation process in a nutshell simply creates a Credit Note of the same amount as the Invoice/Debit Note and settles it with the Invoice/Debit note in question. Lets understand this in greater detail.
Both an Invoice and a Debit Note consist of the following fields:
Invoice/Debit Note Amount: This is the amount of the Invoice or Debit Note
Pending Amount: This is the amount of payment pending on this Invoice or Debit Note
The above amounts will be stored in dual currency, incase your Selling Currency is different from your Accounting Currency
Reference: Currency issues, Conversion Rate, Selling currency and Accounting currency explained >>
Invoice/Debit Note Cancellation
Lets discuss in detail the process of cancellation of a single partly paid Invoice. Taking this example covers every aspect we need to discuss about Invoice Cancellation. Debit Note Cancellation works in the exact same fashion
Lets take a dummy Invoice for a Customer A with the following figures
Transaction ID: 1
Invoice Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amount: USD 25 (INR 1250)
Conversion Rate: 50
Note the following points about the above Invoice
-
As you can see the above Invoice is partly paid to the tune of USD 75 (since the Pending Amount is USD 25 while the Invoice Amount is USD 100).
-
Additionally the Selling Currency in this example is USD and the Accounting Currency is INR.
-
The conversion rate between both these currencies is taken as 50. This conversion rate is the conversion rate at which the Invoice was entered or created manually or by the System.
Now if you confirm the Cancellation of this Invoice the system will automatically create a Credit Note and balance it against the Invoice resulting in the below final status -
Transaction ID: 1
Invoice Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 50
Transaction ID: 2
Credit Note Description: Cancellation of Transaction ID 1
Credit Note Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Credit Note Pending Amount: USD 75 (INR 3750)
Conversion Rate: 50
There are a few important points to note in the above transaction
-
The Credit Note is added and balanced in a single step by the system. There is no way that the Credit note can be used by the Customer for balancing any other Invoice. The Credit Note is created with the purpose of cancelling the particular chosen Invoice.
-
When a partially paid Invoice is cancelled in this fashion, the amount of the invoice that is pending will be fully paid this way. And the System will return the amount originally available to the Customer’s Debit account.
-
The transaction would work in exactly the same fashion if you had a Debit Note instead of an Invoice, or a Credit note instead of the Receipt.
-
Customers can cancel an Invoice from their interface as long as it has an associated Request. In this case both the Invoice and the Associated Request will get cancelled.
-
A Cancelled Invoice will never show a Forex Gain/Loss since the Credit Note is raised at the exact same Conversion rate as the Invoice.
Cancelling an Invoice/Debit Note as Bad Debt
Let’s take another example here:
Suppose your Customer Roy has the following Pending Invoice
Transaction ID: 1
Invoice Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amount: USD 20 (INR 1000)
Conversion Rate: 50
In the above example, you will notice that
-
the above Invoice is partly paid (since the Pending Amount is USD 20 while the Invoice Amount is USD 100).
-
the Selling Currency in this example is USD and the Accounting Currency is INR.
-
the conversion rate between both these currencies is taken as 50. This conversion rate is the conversion rate at which the Invoice was entered or created manually or by the System.
If your Customer Roy refuses to pay the pending USD 20 to you, you may settle/balance this transaction as a bad debt,
Transaction ID: 2
Credit Note Description: Bad Debts Credit on Transaction ID 1
Credit Note Amount: USD 20 (INR 1000)
Credit Note Pending Amount: USD 20 (INR 1000)
Conversion Rate: 50
The system will now balance this Credit Note against the Invoice resulting in the below final status -
Transaction ID: 1
Invoice Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Transaction ID: 2
Credit Note Description: Bad Debts Credit on Transaction ID 1
Credit Note Amount: USD 20 (INR 1000)
Credit Note Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 50
Following are a few pointers
-
The process of cancelling an Invoice/Debit Note as Bad Debt is exactly the same as a normal cancellation.
-
The Credit Note is added and balanced in a single step by the system. There is no way that the Credit note can be used by the Customer for balancing any other Invoice/Debit Note. The Credit Note is created with the purpose of cancelling the particular chosen Invoice/Debit Note.
-
When a partially paid Invoice/Debit Note is cancelled in this fashion, the amount of the Invoice/Debit Note that is pending will be fully paid this way. You will have to manually create a Credit Note if you decide that the amount that was originally paid should be returned back to the Customer’s debit account.
If however, the entire Invoice was pending (ie. out of the Invoice amount of USD 100 if the complete USD 100 was pending), then the Credit Note that would be created would be of the entire USD 100.
-
The transaction would work in exactly the same fashion if you had a Debit Note instead of an Invoice, or a Credit note instead of the Receipt.
-
Customers can cancel an Invoice from their interface as long as it has an associated Request. In this case both the Invoice and the Associated Request will get cancelled.
-
A Cancelled Invoice will never show a Forex Gain/Loss since the Credit Note is raised at the exact same Conversion rate as the Invoice.
Tags: Accounting, Cancel, Cancellation, Conversion Rate, Currency Issues, Currency Reference, Depth Explanation, Dual Currency, Fashion, Inr, Invoice Discounting, Invoice Example, Note Reference, Nutshell, Transaction, Transaction Id, True Sense, USD
01 Sep 10 Subtract Funds from your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account
The system allows you to Subtract funds from your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account. You may wish to do this incase you want to reduce the available balance of your Customer/Sub-Reseller. There are two types of transactions you can use to Subtract funds from your Customers/Resellers Account – Invoices and Debit Notes. You are advised to read up the Invoices section and Debit Notes section before you read this section.
First you need to decide whether you are going to use an Invoice or Debit Note for this purpose. The decision making criteria is quite simple -
-
If you wish to subtract funds from your Customer/Sub-Reseller for a specific Order in the system then you have to use an Invoice.
-
If you wish to subtract Funds for any other reason other than an Order in the system you should use a Debit Note
Another important thing to note here is that by simply adding an Invoice or Debit Note the funds of your Customer/Sub-Reseller will not reduce. The Invoice or Debit Note will need to be balanced (paid for) in Order to reduce the Funds (unless it is a Greedy Invoice or Debit Note). This is explained below.
Follow the steps below to Subtract Funds from a Customers/Sub-Resellers Account:
1. Click on Customers -> Billing -> Add Debit Note/Add Invoice or Sub-Resellers -> Billing -> Add Debit Note/Add Invoice
2. For a Debit Note put in the Email Address of the Customer/Sub-Reseller, from whose Debit Account Balance you wish to subtract funds from. In case of an Invoice you will have to put in the Order Id of the Order for which you wish to add an Invoice.
3. The next page for verification purposes will show you the details of the Customer/Sub-Reseller for which you are Adding an Invoice/Debit Note. Incase of an Invoice you will also see the Order details.
4. Fill in the Amount you want to Debit to this Customer/Sub-Reseller. This is the main field that will be used to add funds to the Customer/Sub-Reseller. The remaining fields are chiefly information fields. Incase your Selling Currency and Accounting currency are different, you will have to enter both the values along with a Conversion rate. If you have chosen to allow the System to maintain your Conversion Rate, this box will be pre-filled for you. You can choose to modify the conversion rate incase you require it to be different. The important aspect to note is that we actually perform a calculation by multiplying the Selling Currency Amount with the Conversion rate and comparing with the Accounting Currency Amount to ensure that you make no mistakes in the entry. If these 3 values do not match we will not allow the transaction.
IMPORTANT
Up to 2 decimal places are permitted for any of these fields except the Currency Conversion field (this would appear only if your Selling Currency differs from your Accounting Currency), which can handle upto 5 decimal places.
5. A Debit Note can be raised for your Sub-Reseller or Customer for the following reasons
-
Miscellaneous Sale – To recover payment for any sales that you have made to a particular Sub-Reseller or Customer that does not have any associated Order in the system. If the Order exists in the system, then you could simply raise an Invoice for your Sub-Reseller or Customer. Click here to read how >>
For example, if you want to recover payment for Web Designing Services from a particular Customer for the domain name some-name.com, you could raise a Debit Note under type Miscellaneous Sale.
-
Miscellaneous Charges – To recover payment for any charge that you want to levy on a particular Sub-Reseller or Customer that does not constitute a Sale.
For example, if you want to charge your Customer Sales Tax for some sale, you could do this by raising a Debit Note for this Customer under the type Miscellaneous Charges.
-
Refund – To process a manual Refund for a Sub-Reseller or Customer, you could raise a Debit Note under this transaction type and settling the same against their Current Debit Account Balance. Once done, you will have to physically send across this Refunded amount to them.
However ideally, you should ask your Sub-Reseller or Customer to request for a refund from their own Control Panel from My Billing -> Request Refund.
-
Chargeback – To record a Chargeback that you may have received for any online or offline payment.
For example, if a particular Sub-Reseller’s Check bounced, you could add a Debit Note for the same with this type.
6. Mention an appropriate Description for the Invoice/Debit Note that will make identifying the reason for this charge ample clear to both yourself and your Sub-Reseller/Customer.
IMPORTANT
In case of a manually raised Invoice/Debit Note, the description of the Invoice/Debit Note can be modified at a later stage as mentioned below -
Login to your Reseller Admin Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/reseller
Go to Customers -> Billing -> List Transactions for Customers / go to Sub Resellers -> Billing -> List Transactions for Sub Resellers.
Click on the description link of the Invoice/Debit Note to view the Invoice/Debit Note Details page.
Click on Modify Description button.
Modify the content in the Description field and click on Modify to submit the change.
7. In case of an Invoice you can specify the following additional fields
Order Suspension Date: This signifies the Date on which the Order will be Suspended if the Invoice is not paid
Order Deletion Date: This signifies the Date on which the Order will be Deleted if the Invoice is not paid
More details about the above two fields can be found here >>
8. You can select the Date when this Invoice/Debit Note should be raised.
9. Mention appropriate Payment Reminder Days (after the Transaction Date) to let the system automatically send Payment Reminders to your Customers/Sub-Resellers for due payments. If you do not wish the system to remind your Customers/Sub-Resellers about pending payments, leave this box as blank.
10. A Transaction Key is a per transaction unique set of characters or numbers or any word that would easily allow you to differentiate every instance of a manually raised Invoice or Debit Note. This key ensures that you do not add the same transaction twice into the system.
IMPORTANT
If you enter the same Transaction Key in multiple transactions, then you will receive an error message. You need to do the following when you encounter this error:
1. Depending upon whether you are subtracting funds from your Customer or Sub-Reseller, you need to go to either Customers -> Search or Sub-Resellers -> Search.
2. Mention the Customer/Sub-Reseller’s Email Address (as the case maybe) and click on the Search button.
3. Click on the Customer/Sub-Reseller to view their details.
4. Click on the List Transactions button to review if these funds have already been debited to your Customer/Sub-Reseller. You may also perform an advanced search by clicking on the Advanced Search button on the top of this page.
Now,
if these funds have been already subtracted from your Customer/Sub-Reseller’s Debit Account Balance, then you should not proceed subtracting these funds again.
if you can not locate a transaction of the same amount and date as the one you are subtracting at present, then this Transaction must be unique but the Transaction Key you are mentioning has already been associated to a previous transaction.
In this case, you should press your Web Browser’s Back button and continue this transaction with another Transaction Key.
11. You can choose to make both Invoices as well as Debit Notes Greedy. A Greedy Invoice/Debit Note gets automatically settled.
- if there are Funds available in your Customer/Sub-Reseller’s Debit Account, or
- when your Customer/Sub-Reseller adds Funds in his Debit Account, or
- at the time your Customer/Sub-Reseller starts paying for another Invoice/Debit Note, he is prompted to also pay for any Greedy Invoice or Debit Note.
Any Invoice/Debit Note which has been raised as a Greedy one, would get displayed in the List of Transactions with “(Greedy)” being displayed in the Transaction Type.
12. In case of a Debit Note you can choose to deduct this amount from the Total Receipts figure for that Customer/Sub-Reseller. Click here to find out more about the calculation of Total Receipts for your Customers and Sub-Resellers >>
13. Once you finish filling the details and move onwards you will be displayed a Confirmation page with all Customer details and Transaction details for one final confirmation before adding the Invoice/Debit Note.
14. Clicking on Confirm Transaction will result in the addition of the Invoice/Debit Note.
IMPORTANT
1. If you chose to make an Invoice/Debit Note Greedy, then (as explained before) it would get settled depending upon whether the Customer/Sub-Reseller has funds in their Debit Account.
2. If you did not choose to make the Invoice/Debit Note Greedy, then you would need to settle the Invoice/Debit Note to deduct this amount from your Customer/Sub-Reseller’s account. This is done by Paying for the Invoice/Debit Note.
Once an Invoice/Debit Note is added our system will automatically take care of reminders and other Payment Collection features. Click here for more details on this >>
IMPORTANT
If you have received a Chargeback or wish to Refund a particular Receipt/Credit Note, then you may raise a Debit Note from this Receipt/Credit Note itself. This is how you can do this:
1. Search for the Receipt/Credit Note for which you have received a Chargeback or wish to Refund, from Customers -> Billing -> Search Transactions or Sub-Resellers -> Billing -> Search Transactions
2. Click on the Receipt/Credit Note to view its details.
3. Select either Chargeback or Refund in the dropdown on the top of the page and click on the Go button
4. You will be taken to the Subtract Funds page, where the system would prefill the Amount, Debit Note Type, Description from the the details available in the Receipt/Credit Note. We recommend that you modify the Description to indicate to your Customer/Sub-Reseller the purpose of subtracting Funds from his/her account.
5. Fill in all the relevant values as per the instructions provided above.
Tags: Account Balance, Billing, Debit Account, Incase, Invoice, Invoices, Reseller, Resellers, Verification Purposes, Web Browser, Web Designing Services
29 Aug 10 Invoices
Invoices are transactions signifying a payment that your Sub-Reseller or Customer owes you. Invoices are the MOST powerful transaction capability and by far the most powerful feature of the system. It is important to understand them carefully in order to benefit from them. Invoices provide inbuilt features such as payment protection, and extremely powerful Payment Collection. Let us understand how you can use Invoices to manage your business
First lets delve into the fields that make up an Invoice
Transaction ID: This is a numerical integer value which uniquely identifies every transaction. The system automatically generates serial numbers for you, separately for your Customers and your Sub-Resellers, starting from 1, incrementing upwards for each additional Invoice created.
Transaction Date: This is the date on which the Invoice was created
Description: This is the Description of the invoice, describing the purpose for which the Invoice was created
Order ID: All Invoices are related to ONE SINGLE Order. An Invoice is always dependant on an Order. An Invoice can only be created for a particular Order. The Invoice depicts a certain amount of money to be paid for an Order
Invoice Amount: This is the amount of the Invoice. This is the amount your Customer or Sub-Reseller needs to pay for that Order. Incase your Selling currency is different from your Accounting Currency, you will see the Invoice amount in both the currencies.
Pending Amount: This is the amount pending against this Invoice. To begin with this will be same as the Invoice Amount. For instance if the Invoice amount is USD 200, the pending amount will also be USD 200. If the Customer now chooses to make a payment of USD 100 against this Invoice, the Pending Amount will then be USD 100. Incase your Selling currency is different from your Accounting Currency, you will see the Pending amount in both the currencies.
Forex Gain/Loss: If your Accounting Currency is different from your Selling Currency then the System records your Forex Gain/Loss for every transaction. Each time an Invoice is paid, the appropriate Forex Gain/Loss for that Payment is calculated and maintained by the system. This has been explained in greater detail in FAQ: Balancing (Payment) of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail
Other Details: An Invoice contains several other details such as Contact Information, Tax information, etc..
It is important to note that All of the above fields CANNOT be modified once an Invoice is created. An Invoice can only be balanced. It can never be modified. The amounts, address information, everything remains as it is. Another important aspect to note is that an Invoice contains even your OWN contact details. If you click on the Print button in an Invoice detailed view, it will show your contact details too. These contact details are separately stored with each Invoice. These too cannot be modified. Even if you change your company name after 1 month, it will not affect the Invoices already raised under the previous company name. This change will only affect newer transactions. The same applies to applicable Taxes too.
Incase of an unpaid Invoice you may see any of the below additional fields:-
Request Cancellation Days: This signifies the number of days, post which a pending Request will be cancelled if the payment on the Invoice is not made. This will only be visible if a Request is not yet executed. For instance if a Customer requests for a Domain Name, but this Domain Name is not yet Registered, in this case the Invoice will display a Request Cancellation date. If the Invoice is not paid for by the Invoice Cancellation date the Request and the Invoice will be Cancelled. The Request Cancellation date can be set anywhere between 7 and 60 days, in accordance with standard business practices. For instance, a Domain Registration Request could be set to cancel after 7 days, because a service as basic as Domain Registration is unlikely to warrant a longer duration. However, for ancillary services such as Mail Forwarding, you would want to allow more time for a Customer to pay for it.
Order Suspension Date: This signifies the Date on which the Order will be Suspended if the balance payment in the Invoice is not made
Order Deletion Date: This signifies the Date on which the Order will be Deleted if the balance payment in the Invoice is not made
Reminder Days: This signifies the number of days after which a reminder for Payment of the Invoice is sent to your Customer/Sub-Reseller, by the system, automatically
The above four fields are the MOST powerful fields that are available to you with respect to an Invoice. These four fields are not modifiable once an Invoice has been raised. These are discussed in further detail in this FAQ: Payment Collection System and Parameters explained.
Now lets understand the different types of actions that can be performed on an Invoice. These actions are accessible from the toolbar in an Invoice detailed view.
Pay:
You can pay the Invoice using funds from your Customer’s or Sub-Reseller’s account. On clicking Pay, you will be able to directly use funds from your Customer’s or Sub-Reseller’s account to pay for the Invoice. The pay button assumes that your Customer or Sub-Reseller has funds in their account. If your customer or Sub-Reseller does not have funds to cover the Invoice, you can choose to first Add Funds in their account and then subsequently pay the Invoice.
To understand the calculations performed by the System during the process of balancing (paying) an Invoice/Debit Note, visit FAQ: Balancing (Payment) of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail.
Cancel as Bad Debt: Once you have executed the request associated with an Invoice and are not able to recover entire Invoice amount from your Customers/Sub-Resellers, you may choose to write off (cancel) the pending Invoice amount as Bad Debt. Clicking on this button, would raise a Credit Note of the pending amount.
Cancel: You can only cancel those Invoices that have a Request associated with them and are fully unpaid, using the cancel button. Additionally, if there was any request associated with that Invoice it will be cancelled too, unless the Request has already been separately executed. E.g. if a Request for Registration of a Domain Name was placed, an Invoice associated with it will be created. Upon clicking cancel for this Invoice the associated Request will be cancelled. This is discussed in more detail separately.
To understand the calculations performed by the System during the process of cancelling an Invoice/Debit Note, visit FAQ: Cancellation of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail.
IMPORTANT
If you wish to cancel an Invoice after the request associated with it has been Executed, you need to give a Discount to the tune of the Invoice (to balance the Invoice). Discount is discussed in detail below.
Discount: A Discount may be offered either prior to receiving payment for an Invoice or after you have received payment from your Customer/Sub-Reseller. You may Discount an Invoice until it has been completely reversed, through one or more combination of Discounts (including Sales Reversals) and/or Cancellation due to Bad Debts. Click here to understand the calculations performed by the System while giving Discounts >>
Print: You can use this button to obtain a Printable Copy of the Invoice for your reference.
Execute w/o Payment: This is a special action which can only be performed with Invoices of your Customers, which have a Request associated with them. This is explained in detail later in this answer.
Types of Invoices
There are two types of Invoices:
1. Invoices Associated with a Request
2. Invoices that do not have an Associated Request
Invoices associated with a Request
These refer to Invoices which have a Pending Request related to them. The Request is fulfilled after the payment of the Invoice. The Request is actually pending with respect to the Order for which the Invoice is raised. For example, if an Order Renewal is requested, an appropriate Invoice is created for that Order Renewal. This Invoice is associated with the request of renewal. The Renewal would be carried out once the Invoice is paid for.
You can perform the following special actions on any Invoice that has an associated Request with it
Execute w/o Payment: You can choose to execute the Request without using your Customer’s funds. To do this, click on the Execute w/o Payment button. The Execute without Payment button executes the underlying request. You have two choices when using the Execute w/o Payment button -
Choice 1: Execute the Request, and keep the Invoice as it is. That way your Customer can pay for this Invoice later
Choice 2: Execute the Request, but Cancel the Invoice. That way your Customer will not have to Pay for this Invoice at all
If you choose to keep the invoice as it is, the request will be executed but the invoice will still show up with the Status as Pending Amount against the underlying Order. Your Customers and you may continue to get Payment Reminders for this Invoice until they have paid for it, or you have cancelled it. It can also result in the Suspension or Deletion of the Order if the Invoice remains unpaid beyond your Payment collection settings for that Invoice. This is described in detail further.
If you execute the request, but cancel the Invoice, the request will be executed, but the Invoice will be cancelled, by creating a Discount Credit Note of the balance amount of the Invoice and balancing it against the Invoice. You will have to remember to recover the Payment from your Customer yourselves. The system will not assist you in the payment collection for this Request once the Invoice is cancelled by means of a discount. You may choose to do this incase you have already received a payment from the Customer. However in that case it is a better idea to feed the payment into the System and balance the Invoice against that. This allows you to maintain records of all your Customers and Sub-Resellers and use the advanced Payment Collection features provided by the system.
Some salient points to note about Invoices associated with a Request are as follows
-
Only the System can raise Invoices associated with a Request. This is because requests are automatically created in the System. In fact, you can think of an Invoice associated with a Request as an Order placed by your customer through the interface. The Invoice will be raised based on your Selling Price to the Customer, for whatever Services your Customer Requests.
-
The Request associated with the Invoice can be separately executed by using the Execute w/o Payment option.
-
If the Request is not executed, and the Invoice is cancelled, the Request automatically gets cancelled too.
-
If the Invoice is paid for fully, the Request is also executed.
Let us understand this and some other aspects by using an example. Lets assume a Customer of yours – Customer A, places a Request for Renewal of an Order. The Invoice created for this purpose is as follows
Transaction ID: 1
Invoice Description: Renewal of someorder.com for 1 year
Invoice Amount: USD 100
Pending Amount: USD 100
The above Invoice is automatically created by the System. This Invoice is associated with the Request for Renewal of someorder.com. We can now perform the following actions with the above Invoice
Pay: You or Customer A, can Pay for the Invoice. The Payment can be of the full USD 100 or a partial payment of say USD 50. If the payment made is of the full USD 100, the Renewal request will be executed immediately. If however a partial Payment is made on this Invoice, then the Request will continue to remain pending until the balance payment is made too
Cancel: If this Invoice is cancelled, the Renewal Request associated with the Invoice will be cancelled too, provided the Request has not already been executed.
Execute w/o Payment, and Cancel Invoice: If you choose to execute this Request without Payment, and Cancel the Invoice, the Renewal will get executed, but the Invoice will be cancelled. The Renewal then cannot be reversed. It would have been completed. You will have to remember to collect the Payment for this Renewal from Customer A yourself.
Execute w/o Payment, and Retain Invoice: If you choose to execute this Request without Payment, and retain the Invoice, the Renewal will get executed, and the Invoice will be retained. This way, your Customer’s Order is renewed immediately. The Invoice however remains pending in the System, and the System will continue to remind you that you have to Collect this Payment from your Customer. The reminders will continue for as long as you have either recovered the Payment and fed it in the system, or cancelled this Invoice. The Renewal action however is irreversible. If after a few days you choose to Cancel the Invoice, the renewal which was already done will not be affected.
An important point to understand out here is that if you choose to “Execute w/o Payment” and “Keep the Invoice” the Invoice now changes to an Invoice that is NOT associated with a Request. Let us understand this a little better. At this point in time, Customer A had an Invoice which had an associated action – Renewal of someorder.com for 1 year. If you however choose to execute the Renewal without paying for the Invoice, then the Request for renewal does not exist anymore. The Invoice therefore is no more associated with a Request. It continues to be associated with the Order. This Invoice now becomes of the second type – i.e. an Invoice that does not have an Associated Request.
Auto-Cancel: If you do not perform any of the above actions on the Invoice, the system will cancel the Invoice and the associated Renewal Request automatically in a predefined time period. This time period is set as the Request Cancellation Date as per your Payment Collection Settings.
Invoices that do not have an associated Request
Invoices that are associated with an Order, but do NOT have any PENDING Request dependant on their payment, are known as Invoices that do not have an associated Request. These are Invoices that are directly created by you, by using the Add Invoice function in your Control Panel from within the Billing section under Sub-Resellers and Customers in the menu bar. These Invoices are associated with an Order, but do not have an associated Request. This functionality is provided to allow you to create Miscellaneous Invoices related to an Order and use the Payment Collection systems provided by us to collect your Payments.
For instance if you have a Customer who buys a Domain Name – abcd.com. If you wish to now charge this Customer a separate charge for some web designing related to this domain name, you can simply raise an Invoice in the system, and the system will take care of the Payment collection on your behalf. This is an extremely powerful capability and you should take time in understanding the functionality available to you.
Each Invoice which does not have an associated Request has the following extra fields
Order Suspension Date: This signifies the Date on which the Order will be Suspended if the balance payment in the Invoice is not made
Order Deletion Date: This signifies the Date on which the Order will be Deleted if the balance payment in the Invoice is not made
These two fields are not available for an Invoice which is associated with a Pending Request. They are only available for Invoices which DO NOT have a Pending Request. These are extremely powerful fields which you can use for your Payment Collection. These are discussed in further detail in FAQ: Payment Collection System and Parameters explained
Important aspects to understand about Invoices which do not have an associated Request -
-
These are Invoices manually created by you in order to use our Payment Collection system to collect your Payments
-
These Invoices do not have any Action or Request associated with them. Paying for these Invoices will not execute any action. Canceling these Invoices will not cancel any action, since there is no action associated with these Invoices
Tags: Accounting, Amount Of Money, ancillary services, Currencies, Currency, Incrementing, Integer Value, Invoice, Invoices, Resellers, Serial Numbers, Transaction Capability, Transaction Id, USD, web designing
28 Aug 10 Refund Requests of your Customers and Resellers
Your Sub-Resellers and Customers can request a Refund from their Control Panel from within their billing section. For instance if one of your customers has a current available balance of USD 100, he can choose to request a refund of upto USD 100 from it. This will appropriately reduce his available balance and send you a notification to process that Refund.
When any of your Customer/Sub-Reseller requests for a Refund, the system automatically creates and Balances a Debit Note to signify the same. This Debit Note is calculated based on the Available Receipts/Credit Notes with that Customer. This Debit Note is sent to you via email and allows you to determine the amount of Refund you need to give to your Customer. Let us understand how this Debit Note is calculated
Lets say a Sub-Reseller of yours has the following Receipts (your Selling Currency is USD and Accounting Currency is INR)
Receipt ID: 1
Receipt Amount: USD 50 (INR 2450)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 49
Receipt ID: 2
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3675)
Pending Amount: USD 50 (INR 2450)
Conversion Rate: 49
Receipt ID: 3
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3600)
Pending Amount: USD 75 (INR 3600)
Conversion Rate: 48
Receipt ID: 4
Receipt Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Conversion Rate: 50
As you can see from the above list, the current balance of this Sub-Reseller is USD 225. This is spread across Receipts 2,3 and 4. Now let us suppose this Reseller requests for a refund of USD 200. The system will process this request as follows
1. Fetch all Receipts of the Sub-Reseller required to refund USD 200 (in this case Receipts 2,3 and 4)
2. Use the Pending Balance of these Receipts to refund USD 200 (in this case USD 50 from Receipt 2, USD 75 from Receipt 3, and USD 75 from Receipt ID 4)
3. Calculate the Accounting Currency Amount for the Debit Note by checking the utilisation of each Receipt (INR 2450 from Receipt 2, INR 3600 from Receipt 3, and INR 3750 from Receipt 4 => INR 9800)
4. Generate a Debit Note of the amount of refund – USD 200 (INR 9800)
5. Balance the Debit Note against the Receipts to give the following final status of the transactions
Receipt ID: 1
Receipt Amount: USD 50 (INR 2450)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 49
Receipt ID: 2
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3675)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 49
Receipt ID: 3
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3600)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 48
Receipt ID: 4
Receipt Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amount: USD 25 (INR 1250)
Conversion Rate: 50
Debit Note ID: 1
Debit Amount: USD 200 (INR 9800)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
6. The system sends an email to your billing Department to process the above refund
7. The System also deducts USD 200 (refund amount) from the Total Receipts figure for this Sub-Reseller. Click here to understand the concept of Total Receipts for your Sub-Resellers/Customers >>
Note: In the above example we have taken a set of Receipts. The process would be the same if the Sub-Reseller had a combination of Credit Notes or Receipts. In the end both Receipts and Credit Notes are exactly similar.
The above steps are taken by the system. Your Billing department now needs to process the refund and send it back to the Sub-Reseller. Your billing department must take the following aspects into account
-
The way the system creates the Debit Note ensures that you never lose money in a refund transaction. The Accounting currency amount (INR 9800 in the above case) is calculated exactly based on the Accounting currency amount that was received at the time of the Receipt. Therefore your billing department must refund the exact Accounting Amount to the Sub-Reseller
-
You may choose to further deduct charges for processing this refund before sending the same
Click here to understand how to process a Refund Request of your Customers and/or Sub-Resellers >>
Tags: Accounting, Billing Section, Control, Control Panel, Conversion Rate, Currency, Current, Debit Note, Email, Fetch, Fr, Inr, Note, Receipt, Receipts, Refund Requests, Reseller, Resellers, USD, Usd 200
24 Aug 10 Currency issues, Conversion Rate, Selling currency and Accounting currency explained
Managing multiple currencies is probably the most complicated portion of the Billing system provided to you, and at the same time, one of the most powerful and unparallelled features of our System. The System allows you to differentiate between the currency you want your Customers/Sub-Resellers to view, and your Accounting currency and seamlessly maintains conversion and Forex issues for these currencies without any manual processes from your side.
The basic theme stems from the fact that your sales and accounts may have to happen in different currencies. For instance if your Office is in India, while your sales are Global, you may wish to display all your Selling prices and Billing in an Internationally recognised currency such as US Dollar (USD) to your Customers/Sub-Resellers. Meanwhile however, you are legally required to maintain your books of accounts in Indian Rupees (INR). The System resolves this issue by showing USD values to your Customers/Sub-Resellers and maintaining dual currency values for you. At this stage it is important to clarify that if your market is restricted to India, then your Accounting and Selling currency will be the same. In this case you will not require to understand the implications of having multiple currencies.
As you now already know, the System has two Currencies that it maintains for you -
Selling currency: This is the currency in which all your selling prices will be specified and displayed. Your Customers and Sub-Resellers will only see this Currency with respect to their dealings with you.
Accounting currency: This represents the currency in which you maintain your books of accounts in your Country.
Initial Currency Selection
It is important to understand that you can select your Currency only ONCE at the time of initial signup. You cannot change your currency once you have signed up. In fact, the only way to modify your currency after sign up is to sign up once again, and then shift all your Orders from the previous account to the newer account. It is therefore important that you make the right choice of Currency during the Signup process.
Currency Conversion
When you choose a particular Selling currency, you will then specify all your selling prices to your Customers and Sub-Resellers in that Selling currency. All transactions will therefore be added with those amounts. In order to maintain along with the Selling currency amount, an Accounting Currency amount too, the amount needs to be converted from the Selling currency to the Accounting currency. This conversion is done by the system dynamically for every transaction that is automatically added, using a conversion rate specified by you, or the system conversion rate (which is updated daily from a reliable Forex resource). For every manually added transaction you have the ability to specify both the amounts. Lets understand this with examples
-
For every Invoice, Receipt, Debit Note and Credit Note that the System automatically generates, it converts the Selling currency Amount to the Accounting Currency Amount using a conversion rate. We will discuss how it obtains this Conversion rate later. For instance if the System raises an Invoice for an Order of USD 100 placed by your customer, and your accounting Currency is INR, and the conversion rate from USD to INR is 50, then the System will enter the Transaction with the USD value as USD 100 and the INR value as INR 5000
-
For every Invoice, Receipt, Debit Note and Credit Note that you enter manually for your Customer/Sub-Reseller, you have the ability to specify both the Selling currency amount and the Accounting currency Amount. Check FAQ: Subtract Funds from your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account and FAQ: Add Funds to your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account
Currency conversion Rate
At any point in time the System needs a Conversion rate between your Selling Currency and Accounting Currency. This rate can either be specified by you, or automatically maintained by the System itself. We download daily currency exchange rates between EVERY currency in the world. These rates are downloaded from a recognized Forex resource. If you choose to let the system maintain the Conversion rate it will automatically do so on your behalf and update this rate on a daily basis. If you choose to maintain the Conversion rate yourselves, you will need to update the Conversion rate yourself.
You can select your Conversion rate preference by clicking on Settings -> Finance and Billing -> General Settings. Ideally let the System maintain the Conversion rate on your behalf. Note that despite the fact that the System maintains an automated rate, you still have the flexibility of using a Custom rate for any transaction that you MANUALLY enter. E.g. if you set the Conversion rate to be automatically updated by the system, each time you Add an Invoice/Debit Note/Receipt/Credit Note MANUALLY, you will have the ability to specify your own Conversion rate for THAT transaction. The System will however use its own conversion rate for any transactions that are automatically added
Forex Difference
If you have a separate Accounting currency and Selling currency, it leads to Foreign exchange differences in the booking of an Invoice and Receipt. The System automatically calculates this difference on your behalf and records the same. Check FAQ: Balancing (Payment) of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail for more details on this
Tags: Accounting, Billing System, Change Currency, Conversion Currency, Conversion Rate, Currencies, Currency Conversion, Currency Issues, Currency Rate, Currency Values, Dollar, Dual Currency, Forex, India, India Currency, Indian Rupees, Initial Signup, Inr, Manual Processes, Resellers, Respect, Seamlessly, Time One, USD
23 Aug 10 Debit Notes
Debit Notes are Transactions signifying a payment that your Sub-Reseller or Customer Owes you, just like Invoices. In fact structurally they are very much like Invoices. Though they have a different meaning. Invoices always depict Sales, while Debit Notes on the other hand are used for deducting money from your Customer’s or Sub-Reseller’s Account without a sale being made. This is akin to the definition of a Debit Note in the pure accounting sense. Lets take a few examples to understand the difference between an Invoice and a Debit Note
-
When a Customer buys a service and you charge him USD 100 for that service you would raise an Invoice for the same
-
When a Customer pays you USD 100, and by mistake you credit the Customer USD 1000 in his account, in that case you now have to subtract USD 900 from his account in order to rectify your mistake. In order to subtract this USD 900 you will raise a Debit Note
In short a Debit Note is used to deduct funds from your Customer’s account when the deduction has no relationship to an Order or any Service rendered.
First lets delve into the fields that make up a Debit Note
Transaction ID: This is a numerical integer value which uniquely identifies every transaction. The system automatically generates serial numbers for you, separately for your Customers and your Sub-Resellers, starting from 1, incrementing upwards for each additional Debit Note created.
Transaction Date: This is the date on which the Debit Note was created
Description: This is the Description of the Debit Note, describing the purpose for which the Debit Note was created
Debit Note Amount: This is the amount of the Debit Note. This is the amount your Customer or Sub-Reseller needs to pay for that Debit Note. Incase your Selling currency is different from your Accounting Currency, you will see the Debit Note Amount in both the currencies.
Pending Amount: This is the amount pending against this Debit Note. To begin with this will be same as the Debit Note Amount. For instance if the Debit Note amount is USD 200, the pending amount will also be USD 200. If the Customer now chooses to make a payment of USD 100 against this Debit Note, the Pending Amount will then be USD 100. Incase your Selling currency is different from your Accounting Currency, you will see the Pending amount in both the currencies.
Forex Gain/Loss: If your Accounting Currency is different from your Selling Currency then the System records your Forex Gain/Loss for every transaction. Each time an Debit Note is paid, the appropriate Forex Gain/Loss for that Payment is calculated and maintained by the system. This has been explained in greater detail in FAQ: Balancing (Payment) of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail
Other Details: A Debit Note contains several other details such as Contact Information, Tax information, etc..
It is important to note that none of the above fields can be modified once a Debit Note is created. A Debit Note can only be balanced. It can never be modified. The amounts, address information, everything remains as it is. Another important aspect to note is that an Debit Note contains even your OWN contact details. If you click on the “Print” button in a Debit Note detailed view, it will show your contact details too. These contact details are separately stored with each Debit Note. These too cannot be modified. Even if you change your company name after 1 month, it will not affect the Debit Notes already raised under the previous company name. This change will only affect newer transactions.
Incase of an unpaid Debit Note you may see the below additional field
Reminder Days: This signifies the number of days after which a reminder for Payment of the Debit Note is sent to your Customer/Sub-Reseller, by the system, automatically. To understand Reminder days in greater detail visit – Payment Collection System and Parameters explained
Lets understand the different types of actions that can be performed on a Debit Note. These actions are accessible from the toolbar in a Debit Note detailed view.
Pay:
You can pay the Debit Note using funds from your Customer’s or Sub-Reseller’s account. On clicking Pay, you will be able to directly use funds from your Customer’s or Sub-Resellers account to pay for the Debit Note. The pay button assumes that your Customer or Sub-Reseller has funds in their account. If your customer or Sub-Reseller does not have funds to cover the Debit Note, you can choose to first Add Funds in their account and then subsequently pay the Debit Note.
To understand the calculations performed by the System during the process of balancing a Debit Note visit FAQ: Balancing (Payment) of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail.
Cancel: You can cancel the Debit Note using the cancel button. Your Customer/Sub-Reseller will no longer have to pay for this Debit Note.
Cancel as Bad Debt: In the event that you are not able to recover either the entire Debit Note amount or a part of the Debit Note amount, even after sending payment reminders to your Customer/Sub-Reseller, you may write off (cancel) the pending Debit Note as Bad Debt. Clicking on this button, would raise a Credit Note of the amount pending in the Debit Note (that is being cancelled).
To understand the calculations performed by the System during the process of cancellation of a Debit Note visit FAQ: Cancellation of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail.
Print: You can use this button to obtain a Printable Copy of the Debit Note for your reference
An additional concept which is important to note with respect to Debit Notes is the maintenance of the Total Receipts figure. A Total Receipts figure is maintained for every Customer/Sub-Reseller of yours, and appropriately modified for every Debit Note added for that Customer/Sub-Reseller. This Total Receipts figure is then used to offer discounts to Sub-Resellers and Customers doing higher volumes of business. Visit FAQ: Understanding Calculation of Total Receipts for your Customers/Sub-Resellers for more details on Total Receipts calculation.
Tags: Accounting, Currencies, Currency, Debit Note, Debit Note Transaction, Different Meaning, Incrementing, Integer Value, Invoice, Invoices, Mistake, Money, pure accounting sense, Relationship, Resellers, Serial Numbers, Transaction Id, USD
21 Aug 10 Process to follow in case a Customer / Sub-Reseller Payment Charges Back or Bounces back
If your Customer/Sub-Reseller made a Payment which bounced back, or Charged back, you may need to follow some steps to reflect this in their Account. These steps only need to be followed if you have Credited the Customer/Sub-Reseller with these funds.
On an immediate basis you will need to Add the following Debit Notes to their Account:
1. Add a Debit Note to their Account for the initial funds credited to their Account. For instance when the funds were received, a Receipt of the following type may have been created -
Receipt ID: 1
Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
The above example assumes that your Selling Currency is USD and your Accounting Currency is INR
In this case you would add the following Debit Note to the Customer/Sub-Reseller Account -
Debit Note ID: 1
Description: Debit Note raised to reflect Chargeback of PayPal Transaction (Ref: Receipt ID 1)
Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
In the above example we have maintained the same Amounts as in the Receipt. It is important that the Debit Note consist of the same amount in Selling Currency as the Original Receipt. This is because you have credited that much spending capacity to the Customer/Sub-Reseller which you need to revoke. For the sake of ensuring no Forex Gain/Loss in this transaction it is always better to ensure that both the Selling Currency Amount and the Accounting Currency Amount are the same. Of course if your Selling Currency is the same as your Accounting Currency you will not face this issue. Check Currency issues, Conversion Rate, Selling currency and Accounting currency for further details.
2. Add a Debit Note to their Account to reflect any charges that you wish to levy for the Chargeback/Bounceback processing. For instance you may wish to create the following Debit Note -
Debit Note ID: 2
Description: Debit Note raised to reflect Charges for Chargeback Processing of PayPal Transaction (Ref: Receipt ID 1)
Amount: USD 5 (INR 300)
In the above example you may note that a Debit Note has been raised to the tune of USD 5 (INR 300). There are a few important things to note out here -
-
Firstly, it is you who decides the amount of charges you wish to levy your Customer/Sub-Reseller for this particular Chargeback/Bounceback. You may choose to not levy the same at all.
-
Secondly, the rate at which you choose to levy the Debit Note for the charges may be the current rate. The earlier Debit Note may have been passed by you at the earlier rate in order to ensure that your Accounting is perfect, however the current charges related Debit Note could be passed at current or different rate from the previous Debit Note. Again this is your prerogative.
3. When you are raising the above Debit Notes, it will offer you the option to set these as Greedy. A Greedy Debit Note gets automatically settled
-
if there are Funds available in your Customer/Sub-Reseller’s Debit Account, or
-
when your Customer/Sub-Reseller adds Funds in his Debit Account, or
-
at the time your Customer/Sub-Reseller starts paying for another Invoice/Debit Note, he is prompted to also pay for any Greedy Invoice or Debit Note.
4. You may need to follow up with your Customer/Sub-Reseller in order to recover this Payment for these Debit Notes from them. It may be a good idea to Lock/Suspend their Orders or Suspend their access if required for collection
5. If eventually you realise that this amount is irrecoverable you may have to write it off to Bad Debts.
Tags: Account Debit, Accounting, Check Conversion, Check Currency, Conversion Currency, Conversion Rate, Currency Conversion, Currency Issues, Currency Rate, Debit Note, Face, Forex, Initial Funds, Inr, Note, Note Id, Payment Charges, Receipt, Reseller Account, Sake, USD
21 Aug 10 Payment Collection System and Parameters explained
The Reseller Control Panel comes built in with a customizable Payment Collection agent which you can use to ensure timely collection of Payments from your Customers and Sub-Resellers. It is important to understand the different financial instruments available within the Control Panel before we delve into a discussion of the Payment Collection module.
Your Customers and your Sub-Resellers in the course of their operations will owe you money for specific reasons. These reasons can be as follows
-
They place an Order
-
You enter a Debit Note in their account
-
A payment made by them in the past charges back
-
You add an Invoice in their account
There are two types of transactions which you can use to collect money from your customers and Sub-Resellers. These are Invoices and Debit Notes. You have the ability to raise Invoices and Debit Notes yourself, as well as the system will occasionally raise them for you in specific circumstances. For instance when your Customer places an Order an Invoice for that Order is automatically raised by the system.
An Invoice and Debit note are quite different transactions. An Invoice is always related to an underlying Order, and may actually have some action of the Order dependant on the Invoice. For instance an Invoice for Renewal of an Order, has the action of renewal dependant on the Invoice. A Debit Note on the other hand is not related directly to any Order. Both of them share some common characteristics with respect to Payment Collection. An Invoice however has extra and more powerful Payment collection parameters.
Reminder Days
Let us first examine the single shared Payment Collection parameter that an Invoice and Debit Note have. Both an Invoice and a Debit Note have one field in common, namely the Reminder Days. This is a simple Payment Collection parameter which allows you to send a Payment Reminder to your Customers and Sub-Resellers for their Pending Payments. Every Invoice and Debit Note has a Reminder Days value. This includes Invoices and Debit Notes that we automatically generate as well as Invoices and Debit Notes which you feed in.
Reminder Days is basically the number of days the System waits before sending the next Payment Reminder for a particular Invoice/Debit Note, to your Customers. If for instance the Reminder Days value is set to 5 days for a particular Invoice of a Customer, then the Customer will receive a reminder to pay for that Invoice EVERY 5 days, until the Invoice is FULLY Paid. The Reminder days value is irrelevant after an Invoice or Debit Note is fully paid
Default Reminder Days for Invoices
To begin with you can set a default Reminder Days value per Product, which will be used by the System when it automatically generates Invoices for that Product. This can be done from the Settings -> Finance & Billing -> Payment Collection Settings. If for instance you set the default Payment Reminder Days for Product A as 10 days, then for EVERY Invoice generated for an Order of Product A, will have a default Invoice Reminder days set to 10 days.
Default Reminder Days for Debit Notes
You cannot set a default Reminder days value for Debit Notes. This is a hard-coded value, set to 5 days, for ALL Debit Notes. Therefore any Debit Note that the system generates automatically will contain a Payment Reminder Days value of 5 days to begin with.
For any Invoice or Debit Note that you add manually you can specify the Reminder days during the creation of that Invoice or Debit Note. Simply click on Customers -> Billing -> Add Invoice / Add Debit Note or Sub-Resellers -> Billing -> Add Invoice / Add Debit Note and you can specify the Reminder days for that Invoice/Debit Note while adding it.
Reminder days can be an extremely powerful feature, and it ensures that your Customers/Sub-Resellers are constantly reminded about any pending payments until they are cleared.
IMPORTANT
The Payment Collection Reminder emails would be sent only after the request associated with the Invoice is completed while the payment is still pending. If both the payment as well as the request are pending then the Customer will not be intimated about the pending payment.
Reminder days are also the only Payment collection feature available for a Debit Note. Remaining features in the Payment Collection system are only available for Invoices. Read on to find out about these:-
Invoice Specific Payment Collection features
Apart from Reminder days there are three other fields that Invoices can have to facilitate Payment Collection. These fields are
1. Request Cancellation Date
2. Order Suspension Date
3. Order Deletion Date
Note that these fields are available only if the Invoice is unpaid. They are not available for Paid Invoices since there is no Payment Collection pending for paid Invoices.
Request Cancellation Date:
This field is available to any Fully unpaid Invoice which has a Pending Request associated with it. An Invoice associated with a Request can only be automatically generated. This field basically serves to cancel any Order or Request placed and then not paid for for several days. For instance if a dummy Customer comes to your website and Registers for a domain name. An Invoice is raised for this Domain Name. Now if the Customer does not pay for the domain name, within the Request Cancellation date then on the Request Cancellation date the Invoice and the Request for registration are both cancelled.
IMPORTANT
The Request Cancellation Date is relevant for only that Invoice which meets the following criteria:
-
it is system generated, and
-
it has a pending request, and
-
it is fully unpaid
If the Invoice does not have a Pending Request, OR if the Pending Request (of the Invoice) is executed without payment (Execute w/o Payment), OR if the Invoice is partly paid, then the Request Cancellation Date ceases to exist.
Lets take an example to understand this better. Lets assume a Customer of yours – Customer A, has the following Invoice
Invoice ID: 1
Invoice Description: Renewal of abcd.com for 1 years
Status of Renewal: Pending
Invoice Amount: USD 100
Pending Amount: USD 100
Invoice Date: 1st Jan, 2003
Request Cancellation Date: 10th Jan, 2003
The above Invoice would be created when Customer A requested for the renewal of abcd.com. After this the Customer would continue to get reminders to pay for this Invoice every “Reminder Days”. The following situations can now occur -
-
Customer pays for the Invoice. In this case the Request Cancellation Date would cease to exist. The payment does not have to be a full payment. Even if the Customer pays only USD 10, against the Invoice amount of USD 100, even then the Request Cancellation date would cease to exist.
-
You execute the Request without a payment. You can do this using the “Execute w/o Payment” button from your Control Panel. This would also cancel the Request Cancellation Date
-
In case neither of the above occurs, the Invoice and the associated Request would be automatically cancelled by the system on 10th Jan, 2003
The logic for the above is that if an Invoice is partly paid, or if you Execute the Request, then the Invoice should not be automatically cancelled by the system, because both these actions mean that the Invoice should be paid for completely. If however an Invoice is simply created and not paid for or its underlying Request not executed for a long duration, the System performs a cleanup based on the Request Cancellation Date.
Since a Request Cancellation Date appears only for those Invoices which are System generated and have an associated Request, the Request Cancellation Date is automatically set by the System, based on your default preferences. These default preferences are specified per Product under Settings -> Finance & Billing -> Payment Collection Settings.
Order Suspension Date/Order Deletion Date:
These two fields are the most powerful Payment Collection parameters allowing you to suspend or Delete an Order of your Customer or Sub-Reseller automatically within a predefined time period if they have not paid for a particular Invoice. These fields are available for System Generated (with the exception of Domain Registration Orders) as well as manually raised Invoices.
The purpose of these fields is quite explicit. Basically both these dates can be set to specific dates. When that date is reached and if the Invoice for which this date is set still continues to remain unpaid, the Order is then Suspended or Deleted as the case maybe. While these fields are powerful, use them with great care. A Suspended Order becomes immediately inactive. More importantly a Deleted Order cannot be recovered at all. Once an Order is deleted the process cannot be reversed. These fields are both optional, and their values depend on default settings you have made, as well as any specific modifications you make.
Lets take an example to understand these fields better. Lets assume a Customer of yours – Customer A, has the following Invoice
Invoice ID: 1
Invoice Description: Invoice for Web Design of abcd.com
Invoice Amount: USD 100
Pending Amount: USD 100
Invoice Date: 1st Jan, 2003
Order Suspension Date: 10th Jan, 2003
Order Deletion Date: 30th Jan, 2003
The above Invoice could have been manually created by you. At the time of creation of the Invoice you set the Order Suspension Date, and Order Deletion Date. The following situations can now occur -
-
Customer pays for the Invoice in full. In this case the Order Suspension and Order Deletion Dates would cease to exist. The payment however MUST be a FULL Payment. As long as the Invoice is not FULLY Paid the Order Suspension and Deletion dates will continue to exist.
-
In case if the above does not occur, the Order will be Suspended automatically on 10th Jan and subsequently Deleted on 30th Jan
-
If after the Order is suspended the Customer pays for the Invoice in full then the Order will be reactivated
-
You can always Unsuspend an Order which is suspended, you can however never undelete an Order. Once an Order is deleted it cannot be recovered again
As you can see these parameters take the Payment Collection load off your back. The System sends several reminders to your Customers/Sub-Resellers, clearly mentioning that the Order would be suspended/deleted if it is not paid for, and if they do not pay despite those Reminders then the System will automatically Suspend/Delete those orders. Similar mails are sent to yourself informing you about the pending payments of your Customers/Sub-Resellers.
For every Invoice you create you can specify an Order Suspension/Deletion Date at the time of creation of the Invoice. Additionally the system itself sets Order Suspension and Order Deletion dates on System Generated Invoices based on your default preferences per Product. These default preferences are specified per Product under Settings -> Finance & Billing -> Payment Collection Settings.
In Order to fully grasp the philosophy of these Payment collection parameters it is recommended that you read FAQ: Invoices.
Tags: Circumstances, Control, Customizable Payment, Debit Note, Dependant, Extra, Financial Instruments, Invoice, Invoices, Money, Order, Parameters, Payment Reminder, Reseller Control Panel, Resellers, Respect, Timely Collection, USD, Web Design
20 Aug 10 Add Funds to your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account
The system allows you to add funds to your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account. This is a very useful feature and you should take time to explore it and use it. Adding funds for a particular Customer/Sub-Reseller allows that Customer/Sub-Reseller to directly Execute Orders and Pay for Invoices from their Control Panel until the funds last in their Account. There are two types of Transactions you can use to Add Funds to your Customers/Sub-Resellers account – Receipts & Credit Notes. You are advised to read up Receipts & Credit Notes section before you read this section.
Typically it is good practice to feed in EVERY Payment Received from your Customer/Sub-Reseller using this Add Funds option. In order to Execute any Order placed by your Customers, it is good practice to first Add Funds to that Customer Account and then pay for the Invoice raised for that particular Order.
Follow the steps below to Add Funds to a Customers/Sub-Resellers Account:
1. Click on Customers -> Billing -> Add Funds or Sub-Resellers -> Billing -> Add Funds
2. Put in the Email Address of the Customer/Sub-Reseller you want to Add Funds for.
3. Verify on the Next page that you indeed are adding funds for the Correct Customer/Sub-Reseller. Additionally on this page we also display the last 3 Add Funds transactions you have done for this Customer/Sub-Reseller, in order for you to verify that you are not Adding Funds for the same transaction twice.
4. Fill in the Amount you want to Credit to this Customer. This is the main field that will be used to add funds to the Customer. The remaining fields are chiefly information fields. Incase your Selling Currency and Accounting currency are different, you will have to enter both the values along with a Conversion rate. If you have chosen to allow the System to maintain your Conversion Rate, this box will be pre-filled for you. You can choose to modify the conversion rate incase you require it to be different. The important aspect to note is that we actually perform a calculation by multiplying the Selling Currency Amount with the Conversion rate and comparing with the Accounting Currency Amount to ensure that you make no mistakes in the entry. If these 3 values do not match we will not allow the transaction.
IMPORTANT
Only upto 3 decimal places are permitted for any of these fields.
5. If you have received the money from your Customer/Sub-Reseller then you should choose to add this amount as a Receipt; otherwise choose Credit Note.
A Credit Note may be raised for any of the following reasons
-
Miscellaneous Credit
-
Chargeback Reversal – Raise a Credit Note under this type when you have received payments from your Customer/Sub-Reseller as a Reversal for any previous Chargeback (transaction dispute) done by him.
6. Mention an appropriate Description for the Receipt/Credit Note that will make identifying this fund’s source, amount, date, etc. clear to both yourself and your Customer/Sub-Reseller.
IMPORTANT
In case of a manually raised Receipt/Credit Note, the description of the Receipt/Credit Note can be modified at a later stage as mentioned below -
Login to your Reseller Admin Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/reseller
Go to Customers -> Billing -> List Transactions for Customers / go to Sub Resellers -> Billing -> List Transactions for Sub Resellers.
Click on the description link of the Receipt/Credit Note to view the Receipt/Credit Note Details page.
Click on Modify Description button.
Modify the content in the Description field and click on Modify to submit the change.
7. A Transaction Key is a per transaction unique set of characters or numbers or any word that would easily allow you to differentiate every instance of a manually raised Receipt or Credit Note. This key ensures that you do not add the same transaction twice into the system.
IMPORTANT
If you enter the same Transaction Key in multiple transactions, then you will receive an error message. You need to do the following when you encounter this error:
1. Depending upon whether you are adding funds for your Customer or Sub-Reseller, you need to go to either Customers -> Search or Sub-Resellers -> Search.
2. Mention the Customer/Sub-Reseller’s Email Address (as the case maybe) and click on the Search button.
3. Click on the Customer/Sub-Reseller to view their details.
4. Click on the List Transactions button to review if these funds have already been credited to your Customer/Sub-Reseller. You may also perform an advanced search by clicking on the Advanced Search button on the top of this page.
Now,
if these funds have been already added to your Customer/Sub-Reseller’s Debit Account Balance, then you should not proceed adding these funds again.
if you can not locate a transaction of the same amount and date as the one you are adding at present, then this Add Funds Transaction must be unique but the Transaction Key you are mentioning has already been associated to a previous transaction.
In this case, you should press your Web Browser’s Back button and continue this Add Funds transaction with another Transaction Key.
8. You can choose to Add this amount to the Total Receipts figure for that Customer/Sub-Reseller. Click here to find out more about the calculation of Total Receipts for your Customers and Sub-Resellers >>
9. Once you finish filling the details and move onwards you will be displayed a Confirmation page with all Customer details and Transaction details for one final confirmation before adding the Funds to the Customer/Sub-Reseller Account.
10. Clicking on Confirm Transaction will result in the Funds being added to the Customer/Sub-Reseller Account.
11. Upon finishing an Add Funds transaction, you will see a list of Pending Invoices/Debit Notes of your Customer/Sub-Reseller. You can pay off any Pending Invoices and Debit Notes from this list using the funds in that Customer/Sub-Reseller Account
Add Funds can be used to add a credit of advance funds in your Customers/Sub-Resellers account. It can additionally be used to execute any particular Order placed by your Customers. For any Order placed by your Customer an Invoice is generated in the System. You will have your own method of collecting Payment for this Invoice from your Customer. Typically the Customer may send you a cheque or some offline Payment. In Order to execute the Order it is good practice to feed in this Payment as a Receipt in the Customer account and then subsequently pay the Invoice. You can, of course, choose to Execute w/o Payment. Click here for more details about Invoices >>
Tags: Accounting, Adding Funds, Amp, Billing, Control Panel, Conversion Rate, Credit Notes, Currency, Customer Account, Information Fields, Invoice, Invoices, Receipts, Resellers, Web Browser
16 Aug 10 Receipts & Credit Notes
Receipts and Credit Notes depict the money credited to the account of your Customers/Sub-Resellers. There is not much difference between a Receipt and a Credit Note, except in a definition sense. From an accounting perspective, a Receipt signifies actual Receipt of money, while a Credit Note would be used to credit your Customer/Sub-Reseller with funds without actual Receipt of money. Lets take an example to understand this better
-
If your Customer sends you a cheque of USD 200, and you credit it to his account, you would do this as a Receipt
-
If you decide to offer your Customer a discount on his previous Registrations, you may choose to pass a Credit Note for that discount, by adding funds to the Customers account using a Credit Note. There is no actual receipt of money, but you still wish to Add Funds to that Customers Account
Both Receipts and Credit Notes are used to Add Funds to your Customer’s/Reseller’s account in that sense. Any Receipt added, immediately adds to the available balance of your customer or Sub-Reseller.
Lets delve into the fields that make up Receipts and Credit Notes
Transaction ID: This is a numerical integer value which uniquely identifies every transaction. The system automatically generates serial numbers for you, separately for your Customers and your Sub-Resellers, starting from 1, incrementing upwards for each additional Receipt and Credit Note created.
Transaction Date: This is the date on which the Receipt/Credit Note was created
Description: This is the Description of the Receipt/Credit Note
Receipt/Credit Note Amount: This is the amount of the Receipt/Credit Note. On adding the Receipt/Credit Note, this amount gets added to the total available balance of that Customer/Sub-Reseller. Incase your Selling currency is different from your Accounting Currency, you will see the Receipt/Credit Note Amount in both the currencies.
Pending Amount: This is the amount of unutilised funds of a particular Receipt/Credit Note. To begin with this will be same as the Receipt/Credit Note Amount. For instance if the Receipt amount is USD 200, the pending amount will also be USD 200. If the Customer now chooses to pay an Invoice of USD 100 using this Receipt, the Pending Amount in the Receipt now will be USD 100. Incase your Selling currency is different from your Accounting Currency, you will see the Pending amount in both the currencies.
Other Details: A Receipt contains several other details such as Contact Information, Tax information, etc..
It is important to note that none of the above fields can be modified once a Receipt/Credit Note is created. The amounts, address information, everything remains as it is. Another important aspect to note is that a Receipt/Credit Note contains even your OWN contact details. If you click on the “Print” button in a Receipt/Credit Note detailed view, it will show your contact details too. These contact details are separately stored with each Receipt/Credit Note. These too cannot be modified. Even if you change your company name after 1 month, it will not affect the Receipts/Credit Notes already raised under the previous company name. This change will only affect newer transactions.
Lets understand the different types of actions that can be performed on a Receipt/Credit Note. These actions are accessible from the toolbar in a Receipt/Credit Note detailed view.
Print: You can use this button to obtain a Printable Copy of the Receipt/Credit Note for your reference.
Chargeback/Refund: In the event that you receive a Chargeback (payment dispute) or wish to Refund a Receipt/Credit Note, you may do so from within the particular Receipt/Credit Note’s Detailed view itself, by selecting the appropriate option in the drop-down and clicking on the Go button. Click here to know what each of the fields on this page mean and what values to feed in >>
An additional concept which is important to note with respect to Receipts and Credit Notes is the maintenance of the Total Receipts figure. A Total Receipts figure is maintained for every Customer/Sub-Reseller of yours, and appropriately modified for every Receipt or Credit Note added for that Customer/Sub-Reseller. This Total Receipts figure is then used to offer discounts to Sub-Resellers and Customers doing higher volumes of business. Click here to read more about calculation of Total Receipts for your Customers/Sub-Resellers >>
Click here to understand how you may Add Funds to your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account >>
Tags: Accounting, Any Receipt, Cheque, Credit Note, Currencies, Currency, Funds Money, Incrementing, Integer Value, Perspective, Receipt, Receipts, Registrations, Resellers, Serial Numbers, Transaction Id, USD, Usd 200
12 Aug 10 Balancing (Payment) of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail
In this answer we have tackled a detailed indepth explanation of how the system works internally when an Invoice or Debit note is settled against a Receipt/Credit Note. Lets first understand the functionality provided by the Control Panel.
There are many places where you can choose to settle the Invoices/Debit notes of your Customers/Sub-Resellers -
-
From the List View or Detailed View of an Invoice or Debit Note
-
From the Detailed View of an Order for all Invoices associated with that Order
-
After performing an Add Funds transaction, the system gives you a list of Pending Invoices and Debit Notes
An Invoice and Debit note are quite different transactions. An Invoice is always related to an underlying Order, and may actually have some action of the Order dependant on the Invoice. For instance an Invoice for Renewal of an Order, has the action of renewal dependant on the Invoice. A Debit Note on the other hand is not related directly to any Order. The system itself does not recognise any link between a Debit Note and a specific Order. However with respect to accounting effect, both of them reduce the balance of your Customer/Sub-Reseller when they are paid for. With respect to the process of settling them, they function exactly the same way. Let us examine this process of balancing of an Invoice or Debit Note
It is important to understand that by simply having an Invoice or Debit Note, it does not reduce the balance or available funds of your Sub-Resellers or Customers. You or they have to actually balance that Invoice or Debit Note (settle it) against some Receipt(s)/Credit Note(s) in order for it to reduce the available balance of your Customers/Sub-Resellers
Balancing of an Invoice/Debit Note
When you or your Customer/Sub-Reseller chooses to pay for an Invoice or Debit Note, you/he/she are given the option use the existing Debit Account balance of the Customer or Sub/Reseller to pay for the Transaction. There is also an option to Add Funds to the Debit Account, or pay online depending on what options you have enabled for your Customers/Sub-Resellers. In effect however an Invoice or Debit note gets paid through some Receipt or Credit Note. The Receipt/Credit Note could have already been added from before, or added during the Invoice/Debit Note Payment process.
Both an Invoice and a Debit Note consist of the following fields
Invoice/Debit Note Amount: This is the amount of the Invoice or Debit Note
Pending Amount: This is the amount of payment pending on this Invoice or Debit Note
The above amounts will be stored in dual currency, incase your Selling Currency is different from your Accounting Currency.
Lets journey through the payment process of an Invoice to understand what actually goes on during the Payment process. Upon confirming the balancing process, the System will attempt to balance this Invoice against existing Receipt(s)/Credit Note(s) or a New Receipt, depending on where the payment is attempted from.
Lets take a dummy Invoice for a Customer A with the following figures
Invoice ID: 1
Invoice Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Conversion Rate: 50
Note the following points about the above Invoice
-
As you can see the above Invoice is fully unpaid (since the Pending Amount is equal to the Invoice Amount).
-
Additionally the Selling Currency in this example is USD and the Accounting Currency is INR.
-
The conversion rate between both is taken as 50. This conversion rate is the conversion rate at which the Invoice was entered or created manually or by the System.
Lets now Assume that the Customer A has the following Receipts in his account
Receipt ID: 1
Receipt Amount: USD 50 (INR 2450)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 49
Receipt ID: 2
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3675)
Pending Amount: USD 50 (INR 2450)
Conversion Rate: 49
Receipt ID: 3
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3600)
Pending Amount: USD 75 (INR 3600)
Conversion Rate: 48
As we can see above, there are 3 Receipts, each with a different pending amount. The important aspects to note are as follows
-
Receipt ID 1 has no pending amount remaining. This means that this Receipt of USD 50 has been fully utilised against other previous transactions. Receipt ID 2 and 3 have some pending amount which can be utilised to balance this Invoice
-
The conversion rate of the Receipts is different from the conversion Rate of the Invoice. This is obvious considering that the Receipts would have been fed in on a different day from the Invoice.
Now this is what the system will do. It will gather all Receipts which have some pending amount left in them. The system will then use these Receipts one after another to balance the Invoice until either the Invoice or the Receipts are completely balanced. The important aspect in this payment process is the forex difference calculation. Since the Invoice and Receipt are both fed in at different Conversion rates, it is obvious that there will be a Forex gain or loss with respect to this payment. The system automatically calculates this Forex Gain/Loss and stores it against the Invoice for you to account it appropriately. Here is how this works -
In the above case the system would first inspect Receipt ID 2. This Receipt has a pending amount of USD 50. Here we bring up an important point. When the system is balancing Invoices or Debit notes, it is actually balancing the Selling Currency Amount. What this basically means is if your Invoice is for USD 100, the system will attempt to balance Receipts worth USD 100 against this Invoice. By now you would have got a clue as to how the Forex diff would come into picture. In the process of balancing USD 100 from receipts, the INR amount used up from the Receipts would not be the same as the INR amount of the Invoice, since they are both fed in at different conversion rates. This leads to the Forex Diff. Lets see how this calculation works.
In the case above the System will use USD 50 from Receipt ID 2 and USD 50 from Receipt ID 3 in order to balance the USD 100 Invoice. In this process let us compute the INR amount of each Receipt that is used up
Receipt ID: 2
USD Amount utilised: USD 50
INR Amount utilised: USD 50 x 49 (Conversion rate) => INR 2450
Receipt ID: 3
USD Amount utilised: USD 50
INR Amount utilised: USD 50 x 48 (Conversion rate) => INR 2400
Total USD Amount Utilised: USD 100
Total INR Amount Utilised: INR 4850
The above calculation shows the amounts utilised in both currencies to fulfill an Invoice of USD 100. The Invoice amount in INR as we know was INR 5000. Against that we have Receipts of INR 4850. The difference between these is the Forex Loss of (INR 150). Below we have the final status after the payment is completed
Invoice ID: 1
Invoice Amount: USD 100 (INR 5000)
Pending Amout: USD 0 (INR 0)
Forex Loss: INR 150
Receipt ID: 2
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3675)
Pending Amount: USD 0 (INR 0)
Conversion Rate: 49
Receipt ID: 3
Receipt Amount: USD 75 (INR 3600)
Pending Amount: USD 25 (INR 1200)
Conversion Rate: 48
At the end of the transaction the Invoice is fully balanced, Receipt ID 2 is fully utilised, Receipt ID 3 is partly utilised and there is a Forex Loss of INR 150.
There are a few important points to note in the above transaction
-
The transaction would work in exactly the same fashion if you had a Debit Note instead of an Invoice, or a Credit note instead of the Receipt
-
The Invoice in this case was fully balanced, while the last Receipt (Receipt ID 3) was partly utilised. The reverse condition could also take place, wherein the Receipts were not sufficient to cover the Invoice Pending Amount, and therefore the Invoice would remain partly paid, and the Receipts would be fully utilised
Tags: Inr, Invoice, online depending, Receipt, USD
Gossimer Promotions and Announcements
- TechSupport Notifications February 28, 2010Technical support information and notifications […]
- PHP4 Discontinuation - 18th September September 7, 2009As announced earlier, PHP4 will not be supported on our Linux Hosting Servers from the 18th of September, 2009. Please pass on this information to your Customers and Resellers to ensure that they can update their websites to work with PHP5. […]
- .CN Launch - Coming Soon August 16, 2009We are glad to announce the launch of .CN - the most popular and fastest growing ccTLD worldwide. The .CN domain extension has seen an exemplary growth since its launch throughout the world. Earlier this year, .CN crossed over 13 million registrations to become the second most registered domain extension after .COM. Moreover, with China now representing the […]
- Live Chat Product Discontinuation - Moved to 18th August August 16, 2009Based on feedback that we received from several Resellers, we have decided to postpone the Live Chat discontinuation to the August of 18th, 2009 at 12:30 UTC. From the 18th of August, it will not be possible to purchase new Live Chat packages but exisiting packages will continue to function normally. […]