In a proposal, you can use the 'Pause billing' option to activate ongoing services that will be billed automatically at a later date, rather than right away.
What's in this article?
What impacts the billing of ongoing services that are billed automatically?
By default, these services are activated for billing upon agreement approval.
Their billing is impacted by the Billing & Payment Settings;
When billed at the end of a billing cycle - an invoice will be issued as soon as the next billing date arrives.
When billed upfront - an invoice will be issued immediately, to cover the current billing cycle.
How to use 'Pause billing?
Simply toggle the 'Pause billing' option when creating a proposal. Billing for the service will stop until it is activated from the Billing Hub.
In the example below, the billing is set to 'Upfront' (which, as mentioned above, means an invoice will be issued immediately, to cover the current billing period). So when the toggle is off, the service bullets state;
An invoice will be issued on agreement acceptance
Toggling the bullet will edit the bullet, stating the time at which the invoice will be sent;
Billing will commence after service activation
Example use cases for 'Pause billing'
Here are some examples of how our vendors use 'Pause billing':
1. Whenever services are dependent on each other
When one service must end before another can begin, toggle 'Pause billing' on the second service.
For example, a bookkeeper must clean a client’s books before they can charge for any other services but still wants to use automatic billing for their benefit.
In this case:
Add the services you'd like to include in the proposal
Toggle the 'Pause billing' option for services that are automatically billed, so they won’t be billed until you activate them.
When cleanup is done and the other services need to be charged, go to the Billing Hub and click Play to activate their billing.
Here's how your Services section would look:
2. When services are optional
If a client wants to see all services upfront and update their active services later, the proposal can be arranged with a robust list of all relevant services, in which some will be paused to reflect that they are optional and not billed upon approval.
In this case:
Include optional services in the proposal, make sure to add a note in the description that this is an optional service.
Toggle 'Pause billing', so that optional services are paused in the Billing Hub, until activated.
Click Play to add them to the bill whenever's appropriate 😁
Here's how your Services section would look:
Still have questions? Feel free to send us a message by sending an email to [email protected], our team is always happy to help!