Billing Active

What Billing Active Is

Clients move to Invoices from another billing system (for Cascadia, Zoho Books) one at a time, never all at once. Billing Active says whether a client is billed here yet. It is off for every client at first.

• Only a client with Billing Active on gets invoices made, numbered, emailed, charged, or given late fees here. For every other client, Invoices and Subscriptions make no drafts, sends no emails, and charges nothing.
• Billing Active lives on the client's Billing Account, with the date it started, the first billed month, who or what changed it, and a note saying why. It is changed only with Turn On and Turn Off, so editing the Billing Account by hand cannot change it.
• Every change shows in the Billing Account's record history and in the Activity Log, with the person who made it.
• Turning it off never deletes anything: invoices, drafts, payments, the start date, and the first billed month all stay.

See Billing Active

Owners and admins see every client with a Billing Account or a subscription in the Billing Active card on the Run Billing page (action invoices.active.list): whether it is on, the first billed month, the day it started, and who changed it last.

Turn It on or Off

Choose Turn On or Turn Off next to a client (action invoices.active.set).

• Turn On asks you to confirm that the other system no longer bills the client (in Zoho Books, its recurring invoices are stopped). It is refused until you confirm, so nobody is billed twice. Say whether Zoho Books already sent this month's invoice: if it did, billing here starts next month; if not, it starts this month.
• Turn Off stops all billing here for the client. Nothing is deleted, and Zoho Books is not restarted: someone restarts it there if the client should be billed there again.
• You can add a note to either. Both are refused for a client already in that state.

When a Customer Saves a Bank Account

Billing Active is never turned on by itself: only a person turns it on, with Turn On. When a customer with Billing Active off saves a bank account on its invoice page, owners and admins are told, once, on the Run Billing page (Needs Attention) and by email. For a customer moving from Zoho Books (a subscription names its Zoho Books recurring invoice), the notice reads "Stop the Zoho recurring invoice for" the customer, with its recurring invoice numbers, "then turn on its billing". Otherwise it reads "Turn on billing for" the customer. Nothing is changed in Zoho Books for you, and nothing is charged until someone turns billing on here.

• Turning billing on for the customer closes its notice.
• Dismiss closes a notice by hand (action invoices.alert.dismiss).

The Timing Rule

So nobody is billed twice for the same period, billing here starts with the first monthly period Zoho Books has not already invoiced. If Zoho Books already issued this month's invoice, billing here starts next month. The first day of the first billed month is the takeover day:

• Monthly invoices are made for the first billed month and after. An invoice for an earlier period cannot be finalized here.
• Late fees and past-due reminders are only for invoices issued here on or after the takeover day.
• A client whose first billed month is the current one, turned on after the 1st, gets its monthly draft the same day.