Manage automatic membership and service agreements billing rules

Overview

Make membership and service agreement billing even easier by processing recurring payments automatically based on dates and billing rules you set.

Things to know

• This process works the same for both membership and service agreement recurring billing.

• If a customer has a credit card set as the preferred payment method for membership billing, only that card is used to process billing, even if the customer has additional credit cards on file. If the preferred credit card transaction is unsuccessful, payment processing fails.

• If a customer has multiple credit cards on file and no preferred payment method selected for membership billing, the customer’s primary credit card is used to process membership billing. If the primary credit card transaction is unsuccessful, an attempt is made with each stored credit card until a transaction succeeds.

• For next billing dates that fall after the 28th of the month, it's recommended to create one automatic billing rule from the 28th to the 31st that bills and charges on whichever invoice date is desired.
  For example, if you have an automatic billing rule that targets next billing dates on the 30th and your customer has a next billing date that falls on the 30th, the rule automatically push their next billing date to fall on the 28th after February is charged. This could lead to future missed billings if you don’t have a billing rule for next billing dates on the 28th of the month. Creating one billing rule that encompasses next billing dates from the 28th to the 31st (for example, from 28th To 31st with Invoice Day on 30th and Bill Day on 30th) helps account for these situations.

• Creating new automatic billing rules  will not be applied retroactively. New Billing Rules will only take effect from the month in which they are created and will not impact prior periods. To Find missed billing invoices, see Charge members for skipped and missed Next Billing Dates: recommended workflow.
  

Create automatic billing rules

1. Go to the navigation bar and click Accounting.

2. From the Invoicing screen, click Recurring Billing.
    

3. In the side panel, click Automatic Billing Rules.

4. In the Create a Rule tab of the Automatic Billing Rules section, enter the details of your rule:

   1. For memberships with a billing date from the _ to the _: Enter a range for the days of the month for the next billing date. For example, if you want to create a rule for memberships billed in the first two weeks of the month, enter 1 and 14.

   2. Automatically generate invoices on the _ of the month: Enter the day of the month that you want invoices to be created. If a month has fewer days than the number entered, the last day of the month is used.

   3. Automatically bill invoices on the _ of the month: Enter the day of the month you want the invoice payments to be processed. If a month has fewer days than the number entered, the last day of the month is used.

      Tip: The invoice and billing date should be the same unless your workflow requires that you need to generate invoices prior to billing customers.

   4. Apply this rule to the following membership types: From the dropdown, select which membership types you want the rule to apply to. If you don’t select any membership types, the rule applies to all memberships.
      

   5. Apply this rule to service agreement invoices: If the rule works for service agreements as well, check this box. The billing rule will include all service agreement invoices that fit the parameters you selected.

5. When you’re done, click Create.
   
   

To view the details of an automatic billing run or to follow up on any failed or not attempted payments, view Billing History.

Edit automatic billing rules

In the Automatic Billing Rules section, click the View Rules tab. Your billing rules display.

• Click Delete to delete a billing rule.

• Click Edit to change the details of a billing rule. When you’re done, click Save.

Note: If you delete a billing rule after invoices have already been generated, the invoices are billed according to the deleted billing date rule.

Want to learn more?

• Visit ServiceTitan Academy to enroll in Recurring Billing

• See Process recurring billing for memberships and service agreements

• See Recurring Billing FAQ