Configuring billing options

Staff users can configure a wide range of membership billing options:

  • Billing intervals
  • Reverse payments
  • Record refunds
  • Record and edit sales transactions

To set up general membership billing options, do the following:

  1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Membership > General.
  2. Enter the Standard billing interval in months. The billing interval controls the frequency with which you will normally generate bills. You can override the billing interval at the individual customer level, at the product level, or at the individual subscription level.
  3. Select an Accounting method:

      4. Note: If this method is selected, additional options display in the Paid thru date update section.

      Under this method, transactions are counted when the order is made, the item is delivered, or the services occur, regardless of when the money for them is actually received or paid.

      Income is counted when the sale occurs, and expenses are counted when you receive the goods or services. You don't have to wait until you see the money, or actually pay money out of your checking account, to record a transaction.

      This method is the more commonly used method of accounting in small businesses. Under the cash method, income is not counted until cash (or check) is actually received, and expenses are not counted until they are actually paid.

  4. Selecting a Billing time allows you to control the start and end time of a customer term:

      5. Fixed annual customer term. All customers have the same billing term. The customer term coincides with the fiscal year (begin in any month). Annual fees are commonly prorated for new customers. Different prorating rules apply depending on when a customer joins. For example, if new customers join in July and you renew annually on the calendar year, you might want to prorate their fees by 50 percent.

      Note: If you select Annual as the Billing time, you will need to set up the first month of the fixed term or fiscal year in the First month of fiscal year (number) field. The value in this field auto-populates the Effective date. If this field does not have a value greater than zero, then the Effective date must be manually entered.

      Individual renewal date that fluctuates based on each customer's Join Date. For example, if a customer joins on July 1, his or her term would be from July 1-June 30 of the following year. If you select an Anniversary billing time, terms will initially default to a year (or other specified billing interval) from the Join Date, if it exists, or the Effective Date you specified during billing.

  5. The options set in the Paid thru date update section set the preference for when the Paid Thru (in the AAC, go to Membership > Payments) date information is to be updated. The Paid Thru date for the cash accounting method is updated with payment in full:

      6. Enable to specify that the Paid Thru date for complimentary items (no charge products) be updated at payment time instead of billing time.

      (This option displays when the Accrual accounting method is enabled) Enable to specify that the Paid Thru date be updated when full payment of the associated line item is received.

      (This option displays when the Accrual accounting method is enabled) Enable to specify that the Paid Thru date will be updated when the initial accrual fees billing is performed.

  6. Select the Start date control options to determine whether the Bill Begin date should be advanced by one month. Start date control can be used to advance the start date of newly billed items or to specify a grace period for delinquent customer products. If implemented, the Bill Begin date will be controlled according to the following options:

    Note: If there are no Start date control options implemented, the New Bill From field on the Dues/Subscription Payments window defaults to the first day of the current month. See Date Usage in iMIS.

      7. This option enables you to automatically advance the subscription begin date for new customers according to the parameter set in the Advance start month as of field.

      The Advance start month as of field is a user-defined parameter used with the Apply to new members option to allow you to set a specific day of the month on which to advance the begin date for new customers. Valid entries range from 0-28. If the value is 0 or 1, the Bill Begin date will always advance to the beginning of the next month.

      For example, if the Advance start month as of field is set to 15 and the Apply to new members option is enabled, all new customers joining on August 15 will have their billing Begin Date set to September 1.

      (Applies to Cash basis and Anniversary items only) This option allows for the calculation of a new billing term when payment is posted to an existing billing record after the Bill Begin date. The new term begin date is determined by the value of the Grace period in months field. If the value is 0 or 1, the new term will always advance to the beginning of the next month.

      For example, the Advance start month as of field is set to 15, the Apply to delinquent member option is enabled, and the Grace Period in Months is set to 3. A customer with a Paid Thru date of 12/31/2017 is billed for a renewal term of 01/01/2018 to 12/31/2018. The customer does not pay until 04/15/2018. The payment transaction date of 04/15/2018 exceeds the Bill Begin date of 01/01/18, and it also exceeds the three-month grace period from the Bill Begin date of 01/01/2018. Therefore, a new product term will be calculated by comparing the payment transaction date to the value of the Advance start month as of field. In this example, the payment transaction date of 15 is equal to the value set in the Advance start month as of field, and the new term will be calculated as 05/01/2018 to 04/30/2019.

  7. Select an appropriate Prorating option:

    8. Note: Prorating applies only when you want to bill on an annual or fixed-term basis, as opposed to an anniversary or rotating term basis. If billing is done for all products (for example, all fees and product billings) on an anniversary basis, you must enable the Do not prorate option.

      Enable to specify that fees are the same regardless of when a customer joins the organization.

      Enable to specify a global setting that prorates all products for the current year (depends on the billing interval). The following example relates to a billing interval of 12. If a customer joins during a term, iMIS reduces the initial fees based on a standard 12-month calculation. For example, if a customer joins in month 7 and the annual fees are $200, the calculated fees would be 6/12 of the total fees, or $100.

      Enable to specify user-defined prorating rules according to the needs of your organization. This rule is a per product setting and must be defined and assigned to individual products. Specify prorating rules on the Prorating window (go to Settings > Billing > Billing products, and click Prorate Rules). See Defining Prorating Rules for detailed information.

      Note: When a former member, who is still marked as active in the system, rejoins your organization, the rejoin is processed as a renewal and prorating does not apply.

  8. Enable or disable the Maintain previous balance option. If this option is enabled, iMIS maintains the previous balances on customers who have made a partial payment or no payment. Previous balances are usually maintained in conjunction with a low Standard Billing Interval. For example, if annual fees were $100 and the customer paid only $80, iMIS would retain a balance of $20. When the customer is billed next year, iMIS would add the previous balance of $20 to the customer's total balance.
    • The Maintain previous balance option applies only to cash-based dues. For accrual-based fees, previous fee balances can be viewed in the individual's AR window because accrual fees billings create invoice records. The PREVIOUS_BALANCE field in the Subscriptions table will not be populated for an accrual fees billing even if the Maintain previous balance option has been checked.
    • The Maintain previous balance option must be enabled for a _CREDIT (user-defined credit) to display on a Renewal Notice.
    • This option does not apply to voluntary contributions (VOL).
  9. Enter the iMIS ID or select a contact to be the main Billing contact. This is the person who would like to receive an email message each time someone makes a billing-related purchase. The email message is similar to the one the event contact receives for an event purchase.
  10. Click Save.