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Advance Billing

You may sometimes need to send invoices and collect payment from your customers before their subscription renews. With Zoho Billing, you can bill your customers in advance, even before the subscription’s next billing period starts. This is particularly helpful to ensure that you get paid on time and avoid interruptions in service.

Scenario:

Patricia runs a magazine subscription business, which requires her to pay her delivery agent in advance to send magazines to her customers. If a customer cancels a subscription at the end of the existing billing cycle, she will suffer a loss due to the delivery fees. To ensure that this loss does not happen, Patricia can use Advance Billing and bill her customers 5 days before the subscription’s next billing date. Upon receiving the payment, she can dispatch the magazines to her customers, ensuring a seamless billing experience.

Note:

This feature is currently in early access for Enterprise edition, Zoho One Elite Addon and in certain plans of Zoho Billing. Visit our pricing page to check whether your plan supports Advance Billing. Reach out to support@zohobilling.com to enable this feature for your organization.

Enable Advance Billing

To enable Advance Billing for your organization:

  • Go to Settings and click Advance Billing under Subscriptions.

  • Click Enable Advance Billing.

  • Select the Advance Billing Method.

    OptionDescription
    Advance Payment RequestA payment request will be generated for your customer before the renewal date, according to your configuration. Upon receiving payment, an invoice will be generated for the customer in advance.
    Advance InvoiceAn invoice will be generated for your customer’s subscription before the renewal date, according to your configuration.

    Note:

    If advance payment requests have already been generated for some subscriptions, you cannot switch the advance billing method to Advance Invoice. You need to cancel those advance payment requests to switch to Advance Invoice.

  • Enable Apply Payment Terms From the Upcoming Billing Cycle if you want the payment term to be calculated from the start of the next billing cycle.

    Scenario:

    Zylker has enabled advance billing for its monthly subscription service. The advance invoices are generated 5 days before the end of the billing cycle, with the payment term set as 5 days. If Zylker enables this option, the advance invoice will be due 5 days after the new billing cycle starts.

    With this option disabled:

    Old Billing Cycle: 1 July - 31 July

    New Billing Cycle: 1 August - 31 August

    Advance Invoice Generated On: 26 July

    Payment Term: 5 Days

    Due Date: 31 July

    With this option enabled:

    Old Billing Cycle: 1 July - 31 July

    New Billing Cycle: 1 August - 31 August

    Advance Invoice Generated On: 26 July

    Payment Term: 5 Days

    Due Date: 6 August

    Note:

    This option is not supported for Advance Payment Requests. You can enable this option only for Advance Invoices.

  • Click Automate advance billing to generate advance invoices automatically for all subscriptions.

    Note:

    Advance invoices and advance payment link will not be generated automatically for a subscription if:

    • The subscription has no remaining billing cycles.
    • The subscription has unbilled charges or metered billing enabled.
    • The subscription is on a zero-value or free plan.
    • The subscription is created for items.
    • The subscription is not in the Live status (e.g., it is in Trial, Future, Cancelled, or Expired status).

  • Select the Advance Period for the Subscription Frequencies, that is, how many days before renewal you want the advance invoice to be generated for each of the billing frequencies.

    FrequencyMaximum Period for Advance Billing
    WeeklyThe Advance Billing period should be less than 6 days for weekly subscriptions.
    MonthlyThe Advance Billing period should be less than 26 days for monthly subscriptions.
    YearlyThe Advance Billing period should be less than 364 days for yearly subscriptions.

    Note:

    The schedule you select here will be applicable to all subscriptions by default. However, you can configure the schedule for individual subscriptions from their Overview page.

  • Check Disable Advance Invoice Failure Emails if you do not want Zoho Billing to send an email to your organisation’s primary email address when an advance invoice fails to generate because of other configured features in the subscription.

    Note:

    This option is available only if you have configured Advance Invoices.

    Configure Advance Billing

  • Click Save.

Generate Advance Invoice Manually

You can generate advance invoices manually for 1 term or multiple terms for a subscription from the subscription’s Overview page.

To generate a manual advance invoice:

  • Go to the Subscriptions module under Sales.
  • Select a subscription.
  • Click More at the top.
  • Select Generate Advance Invoice.
  • Enter the number of cycles for which you want to generate the advance invoice.
  • Click Preview to preview the invoice before generating.
    • Click Show PDF View to view the advance invoice PDF.
  • Click Generate.

An advance invoice will be generated for the selected cycles, which can be viewed from the Invoices module under Sales. You can manually send the invoice to your customers or mark it as Sent.

Note:

The advance invoice will be created in the Draft status or sent to your customers, based on the preferences that you have configured.

Generate Advance Payment Request

You can generate an advance payment request and send it to your customers. Once payment is completed, an invoice will be generated for the subscription’s next billing cycle.

To generate an advance payment request manually:

  • Go to the Subscriptions module under Sales.
  • Select a subscription.
  • Click More at the top.
  • Select Receive Advance Payment.
    • Select Proceed With Existing Subscription to receive advance payment without any changes to the existing subscription.
    • Select Edit Subscription & Proceed to receive advance payment after making changes to the subscription.
  • Select how you want to record the advance payment.
    • Record Payment Manually - If you have received the payment already, you can choose to record the payment manually. To do this, enter the necessary details in the next page and click Save.
    • Generate Payment Page URL - If you want to generate and send a hosted payment page link to your customers, you can click Generate Payment Page URL.
      • Click Copy to copy the URL and send it to your customers. You can also send the link to your customers through email:
      • Click Preview and Send Email.
      • Make the necessary changes in the email.
      • Click Send.

When the customer completes the payment or when you record a payment, an invoice will automatically be generated for the upcoming cycles in the Paid status.

Configure Advance Billing for Individual Subscriptions

You can enable, disable, or change the advance period for individual subscriptions from their Overview page or from the subscription’s creation and edit pages.

To configure advance billing for a subscription from the Overview page:

  • Go to the Subscriptions module under Sales.
  • Select a subscription.
  • Click the Settings icon next to the Advance Billing section in the Overview page.
  • Make the necessary changes.
  • Click Save & Confirm.

To configure advance billing for a subscription from the creation and edit pages:

  • Go to the Subscriptions module under Sales.
  • Create or edit a subscription.
  • Enter the required details.
  • Go to the Other Preferences section.
  • Click the Edit icon next to Advance Billing.
  • Make the necessary changes in the popup that appears.
  • Click Save & Confirm.

The advance billing preferences for the subscription will be updated, and they will override the organization preferences.

Edit or Cancel a Subscription

When you edit or cancel a subscription that has an advance invoice, Zoho Billing voids the advance invoice. If the subscription is cancelled, the invoiced amount is stored as unused credit for the customer.

Note:

If an advance invoice has a credit note associated with it, you cannot edit or cancel the subscription. Editing or cancelling the subscription requires voiding the advance invoice, and an invoice with an associated credit note cannot be voided.

Note:

If you edit or cancel a subscription that is part of a consolidated advance invoice, the consolidated advance invoice will be voided. A new invoice will be raised in the Sent status without the edited or cancelled subscription’s line items.

Dunning Management for Advance Billing

The dunning management settings configured for your organization also apply to advance invoices. However, the timing of final actions depends on whether the advance invoice’s billing period has begun.

Refer Final Actions For Unpaid Invoices for details on available actions.

Note:

The following conditions determine how final actions are applied to advance invoices:

  • If the advance invoice’s billing period has not yet started, the invoice final action will occur immediately at the end of the dunning period or upon final retry failure. The subscription’s final action will be scheduled at the end of the current billing cycle.

  • If the advance invoice’s billing period has already started, both the invoice and subscription final actions will occur immediately at the end of the dunning period or upon final retry failure.

If the dunning period extends into the next billing cycle, the subscription will remain in Past Due status until the payment is successful.

Note:

The end-of-term dunning subscription final action (if scheduled) will not be automatically removed upon successful payment and must be removed manually, if required.

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