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Show actual invoice amount even when charged against credits

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Dan Kamins

11 Aug, 2015 02:10 AM

An invoice on an account with sufficient credits to cover it doesn't actually show the amount of that invoice. It's left as an exercise to the reader to do the math to figure out how much the invoice was for. This is odd. Can the actual billed amount be shown?

1. 1 Posted by Drew Songer on 11 Aug, 2015 05:39 PM

   

   Could provide a specific case of this activity? The total amount of an invoice should display the net balance between charges and credits.

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2. 2 Posted by Dan Kamins on 11 Aug, 2015 08:35 PM

   

   Yes, the total amount already does display the net balance between charges and credits. What it doesn't show is that actual charges from the invoice.

   Here's how it looks now:

   -$5200 CREDIT_FORWARD
   $100 Monthly
   $50 Overage
   =============
   -$5050 Total

   All customers and admins want to see:

   $150 Total new charges

   In other words, show the total without the CREDIT_FORWARD. (In addition to what's shown now)

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Marc Guyer on 12 Aug, 2015 12:58 PM

   

   Thanks for clarifying, Dan. This sounds like a request for a workaround to support another workaround. Since (I think) you're using large credits to enable an external method of payment (the workaround), the more relevant information in an invoice receipt is the total charges separated from the credit. That's a bit unusual.

   Continuing from this thread: we have a new feature coming that will enable you to eliminate the need for the external payment method workaround. We'll have native external payments soon which will smooth things out for you considerably. Then, you likely won't be carrying this big credits anymore. Phase 2 of the project, btw, is to add features to facilitate automation of managing those external payments -- like quickbooks invoicing, ACH, paper checks, cash, etc.

   Ok, so, back to the invoice presentation changes. This is possible. You can modify the invoice layout in your email notification content to change the presentation of the invoice, or simple add a "total new charges this period" in the content. The template content has always been fully customizable but the default invoice layout is now also fully customizable since our rollout of the new template system:

   Blog Post

   Updated Documentation

   You can make the changes yourself but we also have expert design and implementation services available to help take full advantage of the new responsive layout and call-to-action features.

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4. 4 Posted by Dan Kamins on 23 Aug, 2015 02:43 AM

   

   As Marc said, this is perhaps largely relevant as a workaround for a workaround... necessary for these accounts that prepay or for which billing is handled externally. In either case a large credit is applied and usage debits against it.

   But it's not ONLY for these cases. There are likely normal times where a customer has a credit applied (for whatever reason -- won a contest, referral bonus, etc.), and everybody simply wants to see a line item for new charges this period. That's how, to my knowledge, every invoice I've ever seen works.

   I looked at the docs you shared, and it wasn't obvious how to show the "total new charges this period". But I would say most important to us is not the email template, but just our ability to look in the admin web UI at an invoice and see this amount. I think it should be an easy addition to the web display of invoices (both past and current), and since it's not customer facing, it wouldn't really impact anybody.

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5. Drew Songer closed this discussion on 21 Jan, 2016 06:36 PM.