29 Jul 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

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28 Jul 10 Modifying / Deleting / Cancelling a Pending Invoice / Debit Note

If your Customer has placed an Order for a Product/Service and he wants to Cancel the Order, then you would have to Cancel the Invoice associated with the Order. Also, if any modification in the Invoice such as changing the period of Service is required, then you would have to Cancel the Invoice and place a fresh Order for the Service. Similarly, if you want to modify the details of a Debit Note, you would have to Cancel the existing one and then choose to raise a fresh Debit Note with the modified details. Please be aware that you can Cancel only Pending Invoices and Debit Notes.

Follow the procedure mentioned below to Cancel Pending Invoice and Debit Note:-

1. Login to your Reseller Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/reseller.

2. Go to Customers -> Billing -> Pending Invoices & Debit Notes for Customers or go to Sub Resellers -> Billing -> Pending Invoices & Debit Notes for Sub Resellers.

3. There you would see a list of pending Invoices & Debit Notes for all your Customers / Sub Resellers.

There are two types of Invoices which can be Cancelled:

Action and Payment Pending – Such Invoices are yet to be paid/balanced and also have an action/request associated with them. Cancellation of such an Invoice will also Cancel the action/request associated with it. Hence, the Order associated with the Invoice will also get Cancelled.
Payment Pending – Such Invoices may be partially or fully unpaid. Cancellation of such an Invoice will only Cancel the Invoice. The Order associated with the Invoice would not be affected since it is already executed.

Cancelling a Pending Debit Note: Select the Debit Note and click on the Cancel button. On the next page you can verify the details of the Debit Note you are Canceling and confirm your action.

IMPORTANT

If you have not received full payment towards a Debit Note, then you may also cancel the pending amount as Bad Debts. This can be accomplished by selecting the said Debit Note and clicking on the Cancel as Bad Debt button and confirming the action. This option is also available by clicking the Debit Note. A Credit Note with a suitable description would be raised automatically and settled against the Pending Debit Note.

: There are several circumstances in which you would want to Cancel an Invoice. Let’s discuss a few…

i) you may wish to give a partial or full discount to your Customer or Sub-Reseller against a Pending invoice, then you may add a Discount to that effect. Click here to know what is a Discount >>

A Discount can be applied by clicking on the Pending Invoice and then clicking on the Discount button. Here you would be informed about the maximum discount that can be applied to this Pending Invoice (in the Discountable Amount field). Depending upon this amount, you may either fully or partially add a Discount to this Invoice. A Credit Note with a suitable description would be raised when you confirm your action and settled against the Pending Invoice.

ii) you may not have received payment towards a Pending Invoice for some time using the system’s Payment Collection feature and would now like to cancel it as Bad Debts. Click here to know what is the Billing affect when you Cancel an Invoice as Bad Debts >>

You need to select the Pending Invoice that you would like to write off as Bad Debts and click on the Cancel as Bad Debt button. On the next page you can verify the details of the Invoice you are Canceling and confirm your action. A Credit Note with a suitable description would be raised and settled against the Pending Invoice.

Tags: Action Request, Amp, Bad Debts, Billing, Cancel Button, Cancellation, Invoice, Invoices, Reseller Control Panel, Resellers

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28 Jul 10 Search / Approve / Decline Payment Gateway Transactions

When your Customers / Sub-Resellers perform a financial transaction through any online Payment Gateway, that you have enabled for them (Reference: Payment Gateway Integration Guide >>), there may be cases where you would have to manually decide, whether you want to receive these funds or not.

(i) You have chosen to receive funds automatically only from Verified Users through the Paypal Standard Checkout Payment Gateway. Transaction from Unverified Paypal users will have the Status as AuthPending. Click here to read more >>

(ii) If the Customer/Sub-Reseller modifies the Payee email address when transacting through the Paypal Standard Checkout Payment Gateway, then the system sets such transactions on AuthPending Status. Click here to read more >>

Your Customer / Sub-Reseller leaves our System for your Payment gateway, but does not return back to our System. In this case the Status is shown as AuthStarted. Click here to read more >>

Steps to Approve/Decline such Transactions –

Go to Customers -> Billing -> PaymentGateway Transactions in case of your Customers’ Transactions or Sub-Resellers -> Billing -> PaymentGateway Transactions in case of your Sub-Resellers’ Transactions.

There select the appropriate Payment Gateway, and the Transaction Type as either Invoice / Debit Note Payment or Add Funds Transactions.

This would take you to the List of Transactions. On clicking the Transaction Id link, you would be taken to the Transaction Details view.

IMPORTANT

Before proceeding further, you need to make sure that you have carefully read the information provided under points A and B above and performed the necessary actions.

In case the Status is AuthStarted or AuthPending, you would have the option to Approve / Decline the Transaction.

If you choose to Approve the Transaction, you would be prompted to confirm the action and then taken to the Transaction Details page. Here you would be presented two editable fields, one having the Transaction Amount in your Selling Currency and the other in your Accounting Currency. In case you have decided to pass on the Payment Gateway Transaction fees to your Customers/Sub-Resellers in case of Add Funds Transactions, you need to replace these values with the Net amount you wish to Credit the Customer/Sub-Reseller. The Accounting Currency amount can be calculated by multiplying the Selling Currency amount you have chosen to Credit your Customer/Sub-Reseller with the Currency Conversion Rate displayed.

Click on Submit to approve the Transaction. This Transaction will now be marked as Settled.

IMPORTANT

If your Accounting and Selling Currencies are the same, you will presented the Transaction amount only in your Selling Currency.

The Currency Conversion Rate displayed will be the conversion rate on the day the Transaction was performed.

If you choose to Decline the Transaction, you would be prompted to confirm the action post which the Transaction will be marked AuthFailed.

Tags: Billing, Checkout, Control Panel, Decline, Financial Transaction, Integration Guide, Invoice, Necessary Actions, Online Payment, Payment Gateway, Payment Transactions, Paypal Payment, Paypal Users, Reference, Resellers, Transaction Details, Transaction Id, Transaction Type

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27 Jul 10 How can I change the Other Payment Options on the final check out page of the SuperSite?

When your Customers visit your SuperSite and order various products, they are presented with the different options by which they can pay you for these products on the final page after purchase. These include online payment via any Payment Gateways you may have setup, or paying from their debit accounts. Additionally, you can also specify other payment options that your Customers can avail, such as Wire/Bank Transfers, Check Payment Details, etc..

paymentoptions1 How can I change the Other Payment Options on the final check out page of the SuperSite?

To specify and/or update these options in SuperSite, you need to modify the text template for the Other Payment Optionspage. Follow the process outlined below to do so:

In the Admin area, click on the Add/Modify Content and Themes link.

Click on the Browse link next to the Website Content directory

Click on Browse link next to the language for which you wish to make the modification.

Click on Browse adjacent to the Shopping_process directory and then, click on Browse adjacent to the Checkout_step2 directory.

Click on Browse adjacent to the Includes directory, look for the file named payment_other_option.html, and click on Edit adjacent to the page name.

Here, you can modify the basic text content available in one or more textboxes and click on the Save Changes button beneath after completing the modification.

The changes you have made will immediately reflect on your SuperSite, and the additional payment options you have specified will be presented to your Customers when the Invoice is generated for the products they purchase.

IMPORTANT

a. You will have to repeat the above process if you have configured multiple languages for your SuperSite.

b. If you are not satisfied with the modifications and wish to revert to the text displayed earlier, simply follow steps 4 to 6 above. There you will have to copy the text from the left hand side to the textbox and click on Save Changes.

c. Apart from modifying the text of the Other Payment Options page, you may also modify the presentation of the displayed text. For example, you may want to display this information in a different Font Face or you may want to modify the Size of the Font or display your text in a Table, etc.. Click here to learn how to modify the HTML Structure of a page >>

Tags: Bank Transfers, Checkout, Content Directory, Debit Accounts, HTML, Html Edit, Invoice, Languages, Left Hand Side, Link Directory, Online Payment, Payment Details, Payment Gateways, Payment Options, Shopping Directory, Supersite, Text Content, Text Template, Textboxes, Themes Link, Website Content, Website Directory

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26 Jul 10 Renewing / Upgrading / Downgrading / Deleting your Live Chat Service package

You can perform any modifications, such as Renewing, Upgrading/Downgrading or Deleting your Live Chat Service package from your Control Panel itself. Follow the steps outlined below to make the modifications you desire –

Login to your Control Panel, search for the Domain Name for which you have purchased the Live Chat Service package and proceed to the Order Details view page. Click here to know how >>

Renew your Live Chat Service

You can Renew your Live Chat Service package at anytime, for a duration ranging from 6 months to 5 years.

In the Order Details view, click Renew Service button.

On the next page, select the duration for which you wish to Renew this package, and click Renew Service.

Then proceed to make the payment and the Renewal would be effected immediately.

Upgrade/Downgrade your Service

At any point in time, you can Upgrade or *Downgrade to any of the other Live Chat Service packages offered by Gossimer, to suit your requirements.

In the Order details view, click Upgrade/Downgrade button.

Here, in the Package Details section, select the package to which you wish to Upgrade/Downgrade. Simultaneously, you may choose to extend the duration of your package by selecting a duration from the Renew Service drop-down.

When you select the new specifications for your Order, you would see the cost of the modification. This is calculated as

([n x Monthly cost of the new package] + Pro-rated cost for the current month) – Credits remaining from the existing package

where, n = duration of the new package in months

Then proceed to pay for the Invoice, if any payment is applicable. The modification would be effected immediately.

IMPORTANT

^*On downgrading a package, the surplus funds are not credited to your account – however, they can be immediately utilized to extend the duration of your package.

Delete your Service

If for some reason, you do not wish to continue with the Live Chat Service provided by Gossimer, then you may Delete your Live Chat Service package.

In the Order Details view, click the Delete Service button.
Confirm the Deletion of this package.
On confirming, Deletion would be effective immediately.

Tags: Chat Service, Control, Control Panel, Delete, Delete Service, Desire, Details Section, Domain Name, Duration, Gossimer, Invoice, Live Chat, Live Chat Service, Package Details, Point In Time, Renew Service, Search Domain, Service Button, Service Package, Surplus Funds, Upgrade Downgrade

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26 Jul 10 General Overview of Transactions

The transactions of your customers and Sub-Resellers are maintained in separate tables as separate views. There are four different types of transactions. Namely Invoices, Receipts, Credit Notes and Debit Notes.

Invoices and Debit Notes each depict the amount of money your Customer/Sub-Reseller owes you

Receipts and Credit Notes each depict money your customer has paid you, or you have credited to his account

Each of these are discussed in far more detail separately. In this section we deal with a general overview of Transactions

In your Control Panel you will be able to access various different list views for viewing Transactions of your Customers and Sub-Resellers. Here are some of the ways you can see transactions of your Customers and Sub-Resellers

To view Pending Invoices and Debit Notes of your Customers or Sub-Resellers you can click on the Billing Sub-Menu in the respective Menus for Customers and Sub-Resellers and then choose “List Pending Invoices and Debit Notes”
Alternatively under this Billing tab you can choose “List Transactions” to list all types of transactions, or “Search Transactions” in order to narrow down to a specific one
Transactions of a Specific Customer or Sub-Reseller are also accessible from the Customer or Sub-Reseller detailed view
If there are any Pending unpaid Invoices for an Order, those are visible in that Orders detailed view too

All transaction list views contain the list of transactions as well as search through transactions

In any List view you can click on the Description of the transaction to check the detailed view of that transaction. The Detailed View of the transaction allows you to perform actions specific to the transaction type. For instance the detailed view of an Invoice allows you to pay for the Invoice, cancel it, Execute any associated Requests etc.

The most important type of Transaction of all the transactions are Invoices. Make sure you check out the detailed sections on all aspects related to Invoices in order to make full use of all the features available to you.

Tags: Amount Of Money, Control, Control Panel, Invoice, Menus, Receipts, Resellers, Separate Tables, Transaction List, Transaction Type, Unpaid Invoices

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23 Jul 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 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.

Click here to know how to raise a Debit Note to subtract funds from your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account >>

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

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22 Jul 10 Renewing / Upgrading / Downgrading / Deleting your Web Hosting package

You can perform any modifications such as Renewing, Upgrading/Downgrading or Deleting your Web Hosting package from your Control Panel itself. Follow the steps outlined below to make the modifications you desire -

Login to your Control Panel, search for the Domain Name for which you have purchased the Web Hosting package and proceed to the Order Details view page. Click here to know how >>

Renewing your package

You can extend the tenure of your Web Hosting package from anywhere between 6 months to 5 years.

In the Order Details view, click the Renew Service button on the lower toolbar.
Here, select the duration for which you wish to Renew the Web Hosting package, and click Renew Service.
Proceed to pay for the Invoice generated for the Renewal.

Upgrading/Downgrading your package

Gossimer allows you complete flexibility with the terms of your Web Hosting package. At any point in time, you can Upgrade or even *Downgrade the parameters of your package to better suit your requirements. To do so,

In the Order details view, click Upgrade/Downgrade.
Here, you can modify all the parameters of your Web Hosting package. Simultaneously, you may choose to extend the duration of your package by selecting a duration from the Renew Service drop-down.
When you select the new specifications for your package, you would see the cost of the modification. This is calculated as

([n x Monthly cost of the new package] + Pro-rated cost for the current month) – Credits remaining from the existing package

where, n = duration of the new package in months
Then proceed to pay for the Invoice, if any payment is applicable.

IMPORTANT

*On Downgrading a package, the surplus funds are not credited to your account – however, they can be utilized to immediately extend the duration of your package.

Deleting your package

If for some reason, you do not wish to continue with the Web Hosting services provided by Gossimer, then you may Delete your package. Note that, Deletion of this package within 30 days of purchase, entitles you to a full refund of your Cost Price. However, you would not get a refund if you Deleted the package after this period.

In the Order Details view, click the Delete Service button.

Here, you would see details of the refund applicable on Deletion, if any. The refund would be given to you in the form of a Credit Note. You would further have to Confirm the Deletion of this package.

IMPORTANT

If you re-order Web Hosting Service for the same domain name or any of its domain aliases, the 30 day refund guarantee will not be applicable to any such new Order.

On confirming, Deletion would be effective immediately.

IMPORTANT

In order to complete the action in case of Linux Hosting, the Web Server needs to be restarted. Random restarts affect other services running on the Server. In order to avoid this, the Server has been scheduled to restart at intervals of 20 minutes. Hence, each one of the above mentioned actions might take upto 20 minutes for completion.

Tags: Better Suit, Control, Control Panel, Delete Service, Desire, Domain Name, Duration, Flexibility, Gossimer, Hosting Package, Invoice, Linux, Parameters, Point In Time, re-order Web, Renew Service, Service Button, Surplus Funds, Tenure, Upgrade Downgrade, Web Control, Web Hosting, Web Hosting Services, Web Server, Web Services

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21 Jul 10 Renewing / Upgrading / Downgrading / Deleting your Email Hosting package

You can perform any modifications such as Renewing, Upgrading/Downgrading or Deleting your Email Hosting package from your Control Panel itself. Follow the steps outlined below to make the modifications you desire -

Login to your Control Panel, search for the Domain Name for which you have purchased the Email Hosting package and proceed to the Order Details view page. Click here to know how >>

Renewing your package

You can extend the tenure of your Email Hosting package from anywhere between 6 months to 5 years.

In the Order details view, click the Renew Service button on the lower toolbar.

Here, select the duration for which you wish to Renew the Email Hosting package, and click Renew Service.

Proceed to pay for the Invoice generated for the Renewal.

Upgrading/Downgrading your package

Gossimer allows you complete flexibility with the terms of your Email Hosting package. At any point in time, you can Upgrade or even *Downgrade the parameters of your package to better suit your requirements. To do so,

In the Order details view, click Upgrade/Downgrade.

Here, you can modify all the parameters of your Email Hosting package. Simultaneously, you may choose to extend the duration of your package by selecting a duration from the Renew Service drop-down.

When you select the new specifications for your package, you would see the cost of the modification. This is calculated as

([n x Monthly cost of the new package] + Pro-rated cost for the current month) – Credits remaining from the existing package

where, n = duration of the new package in months

Then proceed to pay for the Invoice, if any payment is applicable. The modification would be effected immediately.

IMPORTANT

*On Downgrading a package, the surplus funds are not credited to your account – however, they can be immediately utilized to extend the duration of your package.

Deleting your package

If for some reason, you do not wish to continue with the Email Hosting services provided by Gossimer, then you may Delete your package. Note that, Deletion of this package within 30 days of purchase, entitles you to a full refund of your Cost Price. However, you would not get a refund if you Deleted the package after this period.

In the Order Details view, click the Delete Service button.
Here, you would see details of the refund applicable on Deletion, if any. The refund would be given to you in the form of a Credit Note. You would further have to Confirm the Deletion of this package.

IMPORTANT

If you re-order Email Hosting Service for the same domain name or any of its domain aliases, the 30 day refund guarantee will not be applicable to any such new Order.
On confirming, Deletion would be effective immediately.

Tags: Better Suit, Conti, Control Panel, Delete Service, Domain Name, Duration, Email Hosting, Flexibility, Gossimer, Hosting Package, Invoice, Parameters, Point In Time, Renew Service, Service Button, Surplus Funds, Tenure, Upgrade Downgrade

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21 Jul 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

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20 Jul 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.

Receipts & Credit Notes >>

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

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19 Jul 10 Balancing a Pending Invoice or Debit Note

If Gossimer has raised a Invoice or Debit Note for you, you would have to pay for it in order to settle it. Please follow the procedure mentioned below to achieve the same -

Login to your Reseller Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/reseller
In your Control Panel go to My Billing -> Pending Invoices & Debit Notes.
From the list of pending Invoices & Debit Notes, select the ones that you wish to execute / pay.
Click on the Pay Button and there you can see your Debit Account Balance.
a. If sufficient funds are available you can click on Continue to Balance the Invoice.
b. If you do not have sufficient funds in your account you can click on Add Funds, where you would be presented with various methods available to add funds to your account. Once the Funds have been added to your Account, you would have to pay for the Invoice by following instructions from step 2 above.

Tags: Account Balance, Amp, Billing, Biz, Control, Debit Account, Gossimer, Invoice, Invoices, Reseller Control Panel, Step 2

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12 Jul 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

Filed in Read this First: Understanding the Billing System with 0 Comments

10 Jul 10 Cancelling your Digital Certificate Order

If you have made a mistake while submitting your Digital Certificate request, then you may Cancel your Order before the certificate is actually issued to you. Follow the below mentioned process to cancel your Digital Certificate:

1. Login into your Control Panel, search for the Digital Certificate and click on the same. Click here to find instructions to accomplish this >>

2. Click on the Cancel Order button.

3. If you are sure that you wish to abort your ordering process, you may click on the Confirm Cancellation button. In the popup window, you need to type YES (in capital letters) and click on OK to complete this process.

IMPORTANT

1. The Cancel Order button will only appear for a Digital Certificate order which is in the Active status. An Active Digital Certificate is one which has been paid for. To cancel an InActive Order, you need to cancel the Pending Invoice associated with the order, from the Billing interface.

2. Once you Enroll for a Digital Certificate, you can not Cancel your Digital Certificate order.

3. Cancellation of a Digital Certificate order results in a refund of the Invoiced amount in your Debit Account.

Tags: Abort, Billing Interface, Cancel, Cancellation, Capital Letters, Certificate Request, Control Panel, Debit Account, Digital Certificate, Invoice, Mistake, Popup Window

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09 Jul 10 Bulk Renewal

Apart from individually renewing a Website Builder Package, you can have a glimpse of all expiring Website Builder Packages, and Renew the same in bulk from the Renewal Management Interface of your Control Panel. Click here to know how to Renew a Website Builder package individually >>

The Renewal Management interface can be used as follows -

For Customers:

Go to WebSite Builder -> Renewal Management

Select WebSite Builder or any other Product whose Orders you wish to renew from the drop down and enter the number of days, to obtain a list of all expiring domain names within this period, and click on Go.For example, if you want to obtain the list of WebSite Builder Orders expiring in the next 30 days, select it from the drop-down and then enter 30 to obtain this list.

Select one or more Orders that you wish to Renew. To select all Orders, select the check box on the top of the form.

Click on the Renew Selected Orders button, to select the Number of years for which you wish to Renew each Order.

Upon selecting the number of years you want to renew each order for, you would be displayed your Current Debit Account Balance with Gossimer and the Total Amount for renewing the selected orders, at the bottom of the page.

If you have selected less than 25 orders to be renewed, then upon clicking on the Continue button, you would be prompted to Pay for the Renewal of these orders. Click here to read how to settle a pending Invoice/Debit Note >>

If you have selected more than 25 orders to be renewed, then

if you have sufficient funds in your Current Debit Account Balance, then upon clicking on the Continue button, your Bulk Renewal request will be added to the queue and it will be automatically processed shortly.

if you do not have sufficient funds in your Current Debit Account Balance, then you would need to first click on the Add Funds link.This will pop-up a new window, where you need to select one of the payment methods and add sufficient funds to cover the cost of renewing these domain names (ie. Total Amount – Current Debit Account Balance).Upon completion of the Add Funds process, close this window and refresh the Set Years for Renewal page. Now upon clicking on the Continue button, your Bulk Renewal request will be added to the queue and it will be automatically processed shortly.

IMPORTANT

At any point of time, you can only add two Bulk orders. This implies that you would not be able to add another Bulk Registration / Renewal / Modification request, if two Bulk Actions are already running. You will be able to add another Bulk request once the earlier request has been processed completely.

For Resellers:

Go to Products -> Renewal Management

Before clicking on the Go button, select/mention the following details

Product – Select WebSite Builder or any other Product whose Orders you wish to renew from the drop down

Number of Days – Enter the number of days to obtain a list of all Expiring orders of (all) your Customers within this period

Customer (optional) – If you wish to renew only orders belonging to a particular Customer, you may do so by mentioning the Customer Username (email address) or Customer ID (number) in the appropriate field. If you leave this field blank, the search will result in orders belonging to all your Customers.

For example,

Case 1 – if you want to renew Orders belonging to All Products, expiring in the next 30 days, then you would need to select the Product as All Products, mention 30 days and not fill the Customer field.

Case 2 – if you want to renew only Customer Username a@somedomain.com all orders belonging to All Products, expiring in the next 30 days, then you would need to select the Product as All Products, mention 30 days and fill the Customer field with a@somedomain.com.

Select one or more Orders that you wish to Renew. To select all Orders, select the check box on the top of the form.

Click on Renew Selected Orders, to select the Number of years for which you wish to Renew each Order.

Decide how you wish to Pay for the Renewal of the Orders by selecting one of the Payment Options mentioned below and then click on the Continue button to execute the Renewal

Option 1 – Renew the Orders and the Invoices will be kept Pending for the Customer. This way, he can pay for the Invoices later.

Option 2 – Renew the domain names using the Current Debit Account Balance of the Customer. This option would immediately debit your Customer’s Debit Account for the Cost of the Renewals. If there are insufficient funds in the Customer’s Debit Account balance, then the system would renew as many Orders as possible.

Option 3 – Renew the Orders without raising any Invoices for the Customer.

IMPORTANT

At any point of time, you can only add two Bulk orders for any Customer. This implies that you would not be able to add another Bulk Registration / Renewal / Modification request for a Customer if two Bulk Actions are already running for this Customer. You will be able to add another Bulk request once the earlier request has been processed completely.

Tags: Account Balance, Customer, Customer Control Panel, Debit Account, Expiring Domain Names, Glimpse, Gossimer, Invoice, Management Interface, Queue, Renewal Management, Renewal Request, Website Builder, Website Management

Filed in Renewing / Upgrading / Deleting Website Builder packages with 0 Comments

07 Jul 10 How to configure a Tax Rule to collect Indirect Tax from your Customers and Sub-Resellers?

Once you have understood what Indirect Tax is and how our Tax Engine can be used to collect the same from your Customers and Sub-Resellers, you can proceed adding a Tax Rule for any Products/Services to which Tax is applicable. Click here to understand what Taxes are and how the Gossimer Tax Engine works >>

1. Login to your Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/reseller

2. Click on Settings -> Finance & Billing -> Configure Taxes

3. Review any existing Tax Rule that you may have created before and then click on the button Add New Rule to create a unique Tax Rule.

4. Fill in the following details and click on the Add Rule button:

Product Category – For each Product that you wish to Tax your Customers/Sub-Resellers, you need to create a separate Tax Rule. In case you wish to charge the same Tax for all Products, you would need to repeat these steps.
Tax Percentage – This is amount in percentage that you wish to be charged over the Invoice amount to your Customers/Sub-Resellers.
Tax Label – This is the name of the Tax that will be shown to your Customers/Sub-Resellers in their Invoices e.g. Sales Tax, VAT, Service Tax, etc.
Country – Select the Country here for which this Tax Rule needs to be applied. Select Any Country to apply this Rule to all Customers/Sub-Resellers irrespective of their Country.
State – Select the State from the selected Country here. Select Any State to apply this Rule to all Customers/Sub-Resellers irrespective of their State.
Time Zone – The Time Zone works in conjunction with your Tax Rule’s Start and End Date. That is, a particular Tax Rule starts and end as per the Time Zone you have selected.
Tax Start Date – This indicates the day when a particular Tax Rule would start from. Any Invoice prior to the Start Date would not be Taxable. You may set the Start Date as either today or any day after that.
Tax End Date – This indicates the day when a particular Tax Rule would end. Any Invoice after the End Date wouldn’t be Taxed. You may set the End Date as same as the Start Date or any day after that.
Invoice Footer – Here you should mention your Tax Registration Number or any other detail regarding this particular Tax label, to be displayed within Invoices to your Customers/Sub-Resellers to whom this Tax applies. The Invoice Footer is only displayed to your Customer/Sub-Reseller when he clicks on the Print button in the Invoice Details view.
Exempted Reseller Ids – Here you may mention any Reseller Ids to whom you do not want this Tax to be applied. Typically, you may want to do this for any Sub-Reseller account that you may have created for yourself.
Exempted Customer Ids – Here you may mention any Customer Ids to whom you do not want this Tax to be applied. Typically, you may want to do this for any Customer account that you may have created for yourself.

5. Confirm that you have set the Tax Rule appropriately and then click on the Confirm button. If you wish to tweak the Rule further, you may click on the Edit button and then proceed further. Clicking on the Cancel button will abort this Rule’s creation.

Upon confirming a particular Tax Rule, Tax would begin displaying to your Customers/Sub-Resellers for the selected Product from the Start Date.

How does a Tax Rule affect transactions?

While Adding an Invoice

Each time an Invoice is raised, the system will check if there is a matching active Tax Rule. If there is a matching Tax Rule, then the Tax amount is calculated and stored alongwith the Invoice amount.
The Invoice payable by your Customers/Sub-Resellers would be inclusive of the Tax amount.

While Balancing/Paying an Invoice Click here to understand how to Balance/Pay a Pending Invoice >>

When an Invoice is to be balanced against a Credit Note/Receipt, then the entire Invoice amount including the Tax amount needs to be balanced/paid.
In case any Invoice is partially balanced/paid then the Tax amount can be considered to be balanced/paid proportionately.

Tags: Amp, Billing, Conjunction, Control Panel, Finance, G Sales, Indirect Tax, Invoice, Invoices, Product Category, Resellers, Rule Button, Sales Tax, State Time, Tax Percentage, Taxes, Time Zone

Filed in Understanding and Configuring Indirect Taxation Rules with 0 Comments

06 Jul 10 Executing an Order / Balancing an Invoice or Debit Note

Once you have placed the Order for a Service, you would have to Execute the Invoice associated with it. In effect you are paying for the Service bought by you. Please follow the procedure mentioned below to achieve the same.

1. Login to your Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/customer

2. In your Control Panel go to My Billing -> Pending Invoices & Debit Notes.

3. From the list of pending Invoices & Debit Notes, select the ones that you wish to execute / pay.

4. Click on the Pay Button and there you can see your Debit Account Balance.

a. If sufficient funds are available you can click on Continue to Execute the Order.

b. If you do not have sufficient funds in your account you can click on Add Funds, where you would be presented with various methods available to add funds to your account. Once the Funds have been added to your Account, you would have to pay for the Invoice by following instructions from step 2 above.

Tags: Account Balance, Amp, Control Panel, Debit Account, Invoice, Invoices, Step 2

Filed in Manage Billing with 0 Comments

05 Jul 10 Adding Funds in your Debit Account

You can Add Funds to your Account from the Control Panel. You need to follow the steps mentioned below -

1. Login to your Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/customer

2. In your Control Panel go to My Billing -> Add Funds.

3. There you would be presented with various methods available to Add Funds to your Account with Gossimer. You can choose one of the options and Add Funds to your Account.

IMPORTANT

Adding Funds to your account does not automatically settle any Invoice/Debit Note pending against your Account. You will have to manually pay for it. Click here to read about balancing a pending Invoice or Debit Note >>

Tags: Billing, Biz, Choose One, Control, Control Panel, Debit Account, Gossimer, Invoice, Options

Filed in Manage Billing with 0 Comments

05 Jul 10 Modifying Total Receipts

Every time your Customers/Sub-Resellers add funds to their debit account with you, the amount gets added to their Total Receipts. The Total Receipts figure is significant because it allows you to set graded pricing for your Customers/Sub-Resellers based on the amount of business they have done with you. This can be done by setting slabs for pricing, based on the Total Receipts.

For example, suppose you have slabs set at USD 50, 100 and 500 for your Sub-Resellers, with pricing for say, a .COM domain name set at USD 10, USD 9 and USD 8 respectively for these slabs. Thus, when a Sub-Reseller’s Total Receipts cross the particular level, say USD 100 he can avail of .COM domain names for a lower price than before, i.e. USD 9.

You can Modify the Total Receipts of your Customers / Sub-Resellers, this would be specially useful in the following cases -a. If you have your Pricing for Customers / Sub-Resellers, based on Slabs and you would like to give a special discount to one of your Customers / Sub-Resellers, you can do so by modifying his Total Receipts. This would only Modify his Receipts and thus lower his pricing slab accordingly, this will not give any Credit to his Account.

b. If you have raised an Invoice / Debit Note or given some Receipt / Credit Note, however you made some mistake in deciding whether you wish this to reflect in his Total Receipts, then you can rectify your mistake by appropriately modifying his Total Receipts.

Follow the below mentioned steps to modify the Total Receipts -

1. Login to your Reseller Control Panel from –

Tags: Debit Account, Domain Name, Domain Names, Invoice, Mistake, Receipt, Receipts, Reseller Control Panel, Resellers, Slab, Slabs, USD

Filed in Manage Billing with your Customers / Sub-Resellers with 0 Comments

02 Jul 10 Payment Gateway Report

The Gossimer Payment Gateway Report indicates all funds added by your Sub-Reseller/Customer himself via any Payment Gateway configured by you.

1. Login into your Reseller Admin Control Panel from http://manage.gossimer.biz/reseller

2. Click on Tools -> Reports -> Payment Gateway Report

3. Generate a Payment Gateway Report based on one or more of the parameters explained below:

Select Type – You can generate a Payment Gateway Report for either your Sub-Reseller or Customer
Select Country – You can generate a report for a particular Country, by selecting the same. You may also select only your Country or all countries except your Country.
Choose Type of Report – Through this option, you can select the Total Receipt to be either Sub-Reseller/Customer-wise or Country-wise.
Transaction Type – You may either generate a report for Invoice/Debit Note Payment or Add Funds Transactions at a time.
Customer Ids/Sub-Reseller Ids – If you wish to generate the report for particular Customers or Sub-Resellers, you can put them here separated by commas.
Select Month And Year – The report can be generated for any previous month. This month’s report would be available the next month.
Select Payment Gateway – Through this option you can select any one Payment Gateway, through which you had received Funds from your Sub-Reseller/Customer.

Tags: Admin Control Panel, Configured, Debit Note, Gateway Payment, Invoice, Parameters, Payment Gateway, Receipt, Resellers, Time Customer, Transaction Type

Filed in Reports with 0 Comments

29 Jul 10 Invoices

28 Jul 10 Modifying / Deleting / Cancelling a Pending Invoice / Debit Note

28 Jul 10 Search / Approve / Decline Payment Gateway Transactions

27 Jul 10 How can I change the Other Payment Options on the final check out page of the SuperSite?

26 Jul 10 Renewing / Upgrading / Downgrading / Deleting your Live Chat Service package

26 Jul 10 General Overview of Transactions

23 Jul 10 Debit Notes

22 Jul 10 Renewing / Upgrading / Downgrading / Deleting your Web Hosting package

21 Jul 10 Renewing / Upgrading / Downgrading / Deleting your Email Hosting package

21 Jul 10 Payment Collection System and Parameters explained

20 Jul 10 Add Funds to your Customers/Sub-Resellers Account

19 Jul 10 Balancing a Pending Invoice or Debit Note

12 Jul 10 Balancing (Payment) of a Pending Invoice/Debit Note explained in Detail

09 Jul 10 Bulk Renewal

07 Jul 10 How to configure a Tax Rule to collect Indirect Tax from your Customers and Sub-Resellers?

06 Jul 10 Executing an Order / Balancing an Invoice or Debit Note

05 Jul 10 Adding Funds in your Debit Account

05 Jul 10 Modifying Total Receipts

02 Jul 10 Payment Gateway Report

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