The Guide to Consolidated Billing

Transcription

1 The Guide to Consolidated Billing Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 1

2 1. The Guide to Consolidated Billing 1a. Introduction The new Consolidated Billing feature is designed to help premium partners streamline their billing with their customers. It will remove the need for partners to bill customers each month and spend time on payment collection, effectively eliminating a mundane and time consuming task from their day-to-day. This feature enables partners to set their own subscription fees, invoice customers using their brand and receive funds directly into their bank accounts. Partners will also receive one single invoice from Business Catalyst each month for all of their sites. 1b. Key Features Receive one consolidated bill for all your sites Ability to set your own subscription fees Ability to invoice customers using your brand Ability to receive fees directly into your bank account Ability for prospects to use your 30-day trial to create, upgrade and pay for sites Have the system automatically disable sites to assist in payment collection 1c. Prerequisites There are a number of prerequisites that partners must meet in order to use this feature. You must be a premium rebranding partner Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 2

3 You must have a valid credit card on file so we can automatically charge you for your sites You must have an account with one of the following supported recurring payment gateways, e.g. Authorize.net, PayPal Website Pro, eway or Sage. Please refer to our Payment Gateway articles in the knowledge base for more information. Your merchant account must accept payments using Visa, MasterCard and Amex. It is not possible to customize this to support only 2 out of the 3 card types. It is a requirement of Consolidated Billing that all 3 of these card types must be supported. 1d. Important things you need to know There are a number of important things you need to know before you sign up for Consolidated Billing. These are as follows: You can sell sites to your customers on Monthly or Annual basis; however you will not qualify for a 10% discount if you sell on annual basis. We will always bill you our full wholesale monthly rate, monthly in arrears. This means you can cancel a site at anytime and only pay BC up to the day of the cancellation. We will not award Partner Point for sites upgraded using Consolidated Billing (Partner Points program will be ceasing for all partners in second half of 2010). All of your exiting paid sites will continue to be billed in the old manner. There are no plans to have these transferred over to Consolidated Billing. We cannot move sites even if you explicitly ask for them to be moved, currently there is no mechanism for this. We will announce plans to transition sites to Consolidated Billing in the coming months. 1e. How does it work Every Business Catalyst partner has access to the Partner Portal, but also every partner Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 3

4 has a single free site for the operation of their own website. This free site is a critical component of the Consolidated Billing feature. When you opt for this feature, Business Catalyst will use your free site as the ecommerce engine for the sale of sites to your customers. Your free partner site will also handle all invoicing and payment collection using existing functionality in your site. In fact this is how Business Catalyst has operated its business to date. We invoice and collect payments from customers via the same functionality that partners have in their free site. With this new feature we are effectively allowing partners to operate a similar business like we have for many years. There are two scenarios you should be familiar with when enabling Consolidated Billing. 1. Once Consolidated Billing is enabled all trial sites triggered will have an upgraded button visible to your clients when they log into their site. This will allow your clients to upgrade their site based on the pricing and plans you have elected to offer. These sites will form part of the single invoice that you will receive from Business Catalyst each month. 2. As a Partner you may still elect to upgrade sites manually through your Partner Portal however in this instance you will have four billing options available to you. Three of the four options have always been available to all of our Partners and these will remain. You may continue to select to upgrade a site using these options. However these will not form part of the single invoice you will receive from Business Catalyst. These will be invoices based on the billing relationship you have selected. Should you select the Invoice Me On Account relationship then these selected sites will form part of Consolidated Billing. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 4

5 2. Setting up Consolidated Billing in your Partner Portal 2a. How to enable Consolidated Billing To enable the Consolidated Billing feature simply log in to your Partner Portal -> Billing -> Consolidated Billing section and complete all the different sections and make sure that you meet all the requirements (listed above and within your Partner Portal): 1. Setting up Plans and Prices 2. Update your credit card details Note: It is important to note that as your site numbers increase, the total cost of your monthly consolidated bill will also increase. Please make sure that the credit card you have stored in your Partner Account has sufficient funds and the limit is appropriate. Failure to provide valid credit card details on file may result in customer sites being disabled. 2b. Setting up Plans in your Partner Portal When you enable the Consolidated Billing feature we will automatically create a number of products in your free site. You can find these in ecommerce -> Products. You will see two products for every plan that Business Catalyst offers. The first product represents the plan for monthly sales, and the other for yearly sales. It s up to you whether you want Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 5

6 to allow customers to buy a plan on a yearly basis however plans must be offered on a monthly basis. The list of products is based on the plans that Business Catalyst offers. These name of the products is not customizable at this time. Note: Regardless of whether you charge customers monthly or yearly, we will always charge you the full wholesale monthly fee in arrears for a site, i.e. we do not give 10% discount for annual payment when using consolidated billing. You can also choose which plans you wish to offer for sale to your customers (to see a list of plans please download the latest partner pricing via your Partner Portal -> Tools -> Partner Resources area). For example the Full Solution is generally offered in a 1, 5 and 10 user configuration. You can choose to offer just the 1 and 5 user plans and not the 10. To not include a plan type in your offering you can set up the Ongoing Fee to -Don t Offer- as shown in the screenshot below. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 6

7 Note: You cannot vary the limits on the plans, e.g. you cannot offer a 20-user plan. To configure the list of plans offered please go to Partner Portal -> Consolidated Billing section. 2c. Setting up Prices and Currency When we initialize the list of products in your site, we will automatically assign the default prices for each plan in the currency that we currently charge you, i.e. US or Australian dollars. However if the payment gateway that you have selected (see list of supported gateways in Section 1 above) allows you to process payments in a different currency, e.g. GBP then you can sell plans to your customers in that currency. To take advantage of this feature and sell plans in a different currency please go to ecommerce -> Products and assign the relevant price to each plan for the relevant country/currency. You must also ensure that the default URL of your free partner site (Admin -> Manage Domains) is set to the same country. When you customize prices for the plans you wish to offer, you can specify whether they should include tax or not, i.e. in Australia you can specify 10% GST to be added to any Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 7

8 plan. Should this be a requirement then you can display the tax as a separate line item on the invoices sent to your customers. You can customize the invoice your customers receive by going to your free partner site -> Admin -> Systems s -> Invoice. Note: Regardless of the currency you wish to charge your customers, Business Catalyst will always charge partners in either US$ or AU$ depending on the billing relationship we already have with you. Partners within Australia are charged in AU$ and the rest of the world in US$. 2d. Added Benefits One of the other benefits of the Consolidated Billing is that now you can also choose to charge customers a setup fee for new sites. For example when a customer signs up for a 1-user plan you can essentially charge them: US$49 setup charge Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 8

9 US$49 monthly recurring charge When Business Catalyst charges you for the 1-user plan: We won t charge you a setup fee since Business Catalyst does not have a setup fee on any of its plans. You effectively make US$49 profit. We will charge you US$39 for the 1-user plan. You effectively make $10 extra profit. You also earn 20% commission on the US$39/month which is redeemed through the existing process. Also keep in mind that regardless of whether your customer buys a plan on monthly or yearly basis, we will always charge you the full monthly fee in arrears for as long as the site is live. 2e. Varying your Monthly Hosting Fee When you or your customer upgrades a trial site via Consolidated Billing your customer will be charged the prices that you have setup for the plans you are offering. They will also receive an invoice via . You can vary the amount for any specific invoice however you will need to do this manually afterwards. Here are the steps you should follow: You or your customer upgrades a trial site via Consolidated Billing Invoice is generated and ed to your customer and your customer s credit card is charged for the relevant amount. To alter the invoice amount, you will need to retrieve the relevant recurring invoice in the customer section of your free partner site To make adjustments to the amount simply edit the invoice and save. You will need to manually process the difference. You can do so by accessing the Recurrence/Direct Debit Tab -> Edit invoice -> Process Now. Please know that Process Now will only process the difference owning and not the full amount again. If you are lowering the price of the invoice, then you will need to void the initial payment Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 9

10 via your payment gateway. Then delete the initial payment in the Payments Tab and reprocess for the new amount. To ensure the payment was successful please select the Payments Tab, two payments will be present one with the original amount and the second with the difference of the amount to charge. Finally please re- the invoice to your customer with the new details and prices. Once the change to the recurring invoice has been done, this will apply to all future invoices. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 10

11 3. What Business Catalyst will charge you and when 3a. When will Business Catalyst charge you Business Catalyst will charge you at the end of every month for any existing live sites and those upgraded within that month. The platform will automatically prorate the hosting cost based on the date a site was upgraded and the plan selected. At the end of every month you will received a detailed invoice from Business Catalyst. The invoice will be ed to the primary address on your account. To update this address simply login to your Partner Portal -> Settings -> Your Details -> Primary address. 3b. How and how much will Business Catalyst charge you Business Catalyst only accepts payment using credit card. We accept Visa, MasterCard and American Express cards. We are not able to accept any other forms of payment from you for your Consolidated Bill. Regardless of whether you have sold a site to your customers on monthly or annual basis, we will charge you monthly in arrears. If a site is upgraded mid-month then we prorate the initial monthly charge. We will not provide a 10% discount if you sell a plan to your customers on an annual basis. In other words we will always charge you the full monthly fee for your live sites. Note: Please ensure your credit card details are always up to date. Should your credit card fail then your customer sites may be disabled. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 11

12 3c. Understanding the Monthly Consolidated Bill Invoice Your monthly invoice will include a summary of all paid sites, which have been automatically charged to the credit card you have on file. The summary will include site name and the period we are charging you for a given site. In the future your Consolidated Bill will also include charges around excess charges that your customers may be able to buy from you, including additional users, newsletters, disk space and more. Please know that the system uses its own internal invoice numbering system and you should not expect these to be in any specific sequence. However you can refer to the invoice name, which will be more descriptive for the period you are being charged. 3d. Changing Plan Types Should a plan change (upgrade or downgrade) be required for any site that forms part of the consolidated billing the request should follow the same process that is currently in place at Business Catalyst. Please log into your Partner Portal -> Tools -> Partner Resources and submit a Change of Plan request form. The change of plan will be processed by our Accounts Team within 8 business hours. What this means is that we will make the relevant licensing changes that will apply to the site from the date the change of plan is processed and you will be invoiced at the end of the month for the plan changes to that site. The charge will be prorated based on the plan and date of plan change. 3e. Purchasing Extras Purchasing any Extras (users, s, newsletters, disk space and SMSs) will not form part of Consolidated Billing. To purchase additional extras simply follow the current Business Catalyst process of submitting a case to Accounts. You will be invoiced for these separately, based on the billing relationship you have selected. In the future we plan to allow your customers to buy extras directly from you. When they do, we will then charge you for this in your Consolidated Bill. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 12

13 4. Setting up your public facing website One of the decisions you need to make is which plans you want to offer to your prospects via your website. Business Catalyst plans are made up of the Full Solution and a number of lead-in plans. Lead-in plans are effectively a subset of the system which provides prospects an easy upgrade path to the full solution. Full Solution (All-in-One) (1, 5 and 10 user) Lead-in: Websites Lead-in: Websites Starter Partners are encouraged to offer the Full Solution plan only. By doing this you simplify your website and ensure it clearly articulates what you are selling. It will provide customers with a single option to sign up for a free trial of an online business with your company. From there, free trial customers have the opportunity to automatically upgrade and pay you directly for their sites. 4a. Setup Instructions To begin the setup of your public facing website you must first retrieve the URL for your Online Business Builder. You can find this in your Partner Portal -> Tools -> Partner Resources section under the Integrated Sign-Up and Login on your Website. It will be in the format of: You will then be required to simply link from the public face of your partner site to this URL. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 13

14 4b. Prospects Triggering Trial Sites When a prospect uses that URL to sign up through your site Take a Free 30-Day Trial, they ll automatically receive a Full Solution site in trial mode. 4c. Prospects upgrading their own site When the prospect is ready to upgrade (green Upgrade button, top right corner of their site) they ll be presented with the various flavors of the Full Solution, e.g. 1, 5 or 10-user (see above on setting up your prices and plans). They will be prompted by the platform through the upgrade process. However, if you wish to offer customers one or more of the Lead-in plans, then you will need to alter the Online Business Builder URL so sites are created based on the correct Lead-in plan at the time of creation. When such a site is upgraded, the only option available Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 14

15 is to simply pay for it, i.e. Lead-in plans do not come in different flavors and there is no opportunity to upgrade a trial Lead-in plan to a Full Solution or to a different Lead-in plan. To enable the creation of Lead-in plans simply append the following to your Online Business Builder URL and link to it from your public facing website. Lead-in: Websites URL Lead-in: Websites Starter URL Full Solution URL Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 15

16 5. Your Customers, Invoicing and Payment Collection As prospects sign up for new trial sites, we will automatically add them to the Customer section of your free partner site. And when sites are upgraded, the system will automatically create an order for the relevant customer in your free partner site. You can at any time also view the list of invoices generated for a site via your Partner Portal -> Clients section. Simply choose a site to see its billing history. From this area you can also yourself the invoices at any time. 5a. Customer Invoices Once a site has been upgraded, an order will be created and an invoice will be ed to your customer. The ed invoice can be customized to have your own look and feel. You can also customize the from name and address that these invoices are sent from. To customize please go to your free partner site -> Admin -> Systems s -> Invoice. For more detail on this please review the following Business Catalyst Online Wiki Article: 5b. Understanding billing frequency (Recurring Invoices) It s important that you understand how recurring invoices work and what timing is used for their generation and payment collection. Site upgraded today will generate a new invoice and ed to your customer with today s date as the invoice date Recurring orders will always recur 14-days before the next invoice date (see Recurrence Tab within each invoice. For example: Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 16

17 An order with a monthly recurrence has an invoice date of 1-Sep The next invoice will generate 14-days before the next invoice date which is 1-Oct. In this case the invoice will be generated on the 16-Sep with an invoice date of 1-Oct. Recurring invoices are always generated and ed to customers 14-days before the next invoice date so customer have an opportunity to review them before they are charged. Note: recurring orders are automatically ed to your customers. If you prefer that they did not receive a copy of the invoice via please contact Business Catalyst so we can disable this feature for you. This can lead to higher retention rates. The new invoice will automatically be charged on 1-Oct (see Recurrence Tab -> Direct Debit days). If payment cannot be processed, you will receive an , however the system will not reprocess the payment again. You will either need to process the payment manually or alternatively the system will automatically disable the Administration area of your customer site after 7-days and ask them to enter new credit card so it can process the payment. For detail on this please review Suspending customer sites due to outstanding invoices directly below. 5c. Suspending customer sites due to outstanding invoices If an invoice is outstanding the system will automatically disable the Administration Area of a customer site 7-days after the invoice due date to facilitate payment. When the Administration Area is disabled, customers who login will be presented with a list of outstanding invoices and the ability to make payment. A successful payment will automatically re-enable the Administration Area of the site. Customers can also choose to update the credit card details they have on file for all future invoices. If payment cannot be collected after 4-weeks, then the entire site is disabled. This includes the actual site content, any accounts and the Administration Area. It s important to Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 17

18 note that recurring invoices will continue to recur and it s up to you to manually stop them or cancel the site. Note: Business Catalyst will also continue to charge you regardless of whether the site is disabled or not. It s important that you cancel a site through the Partner Portal in order to stop Business Catalyst from charging you we do not provide refunds. Partner Portal -> Tools -> Partner Resources -> Site Cancelation Form. Once a site is cancelled it will be irretrievably removed from the platform. Please make sure you back up this site first. 5d. Customers cancelling their own sites Site owners can currently cancel their own sites through the Home Tab -> My Accounts -> Action Box page of their site. This feature also applies to sites being billed using Consolidated Billing. When customers cancel their site will stop billing you. Note: When your customers cancel a site, the system will automatically delete any future dated invoices already generated and disable recurrence on the main invoice for this site. You will continue to have access to the billing history of this site via the Customers section in your free partner site. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 18

19 5e. Partner cancelling a paid customer site If a customer contacts you to cancel a subscription you will need to: Login to your Partner Portal Go to Clients tab and choose site to cancel Click on Delete Site button When a site is cancelled, in your free partner site -> Customers section you will notice: All future dated invoices already generated for this site are deleted from the Customer section of your free partner site The recurrence on the recurring invoice for this site will be disabled. See screenshot below for your information: 5f. Updating credit card details There are two ways to update a customer s credit card details: 1. You can instruct your customer to update their details themselves through their site by going to the Home Tab -> My Accounts -> Action Box -> Update Credit Card details. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 19

20 2. Alternatively, you can update the details for your customer manually. You will need to go to Partner Portal -> Tools -> Partner Resources -> Update Credit Card Details Form. Once the credit card details are updated you will be able to see the new details in your free partner site -> Customer section. You will need to use the secure URL ( for your free partner site in order to view an obfuscated version of the credit card details. You can locate your secure URL via Admin -> Manage Domains. Note: Updating credit card details will not process outstanding invoices. You will need to click on Process Now to process outstanding amounts manually. Alternatively your customers will be asked to pay for these when they login, 7-days after the invoice date of any outstanding order. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 20

21 6. Check List for Setting up and Testing If you are going to offer 30-day trials on your website and allow customers to automatically upgrade and pay for those, then it s important that you fully test the entire process. Here s a summary of the steps for setting up and testing Consolidated Billing: Get an account with a supported payment gateway and add this to your free partner site Go to your Partner Portal and enable Consolidated Billing Provide valid credit card details so we can charge you each month for the sites you have on Consolidated Billing We will populate your free partner site with all the plans and default prices Login to your free partner site and update prices for any of your plans Using Partner Portal -> Consolidated Billing choose which plans you wish to offer (we encourage partners to only offer the full solution) Add a link to your public facing website so prospects can easily signup and create 30- day trial sites (if not already there) You should create a trial site and login to it Click on the Upgrade button (top-right) to see the relevant prices displayed You can optionally go ahead and upgrade/pay for a site and then void/refund the transaction via your payment gateway interface in order to have gone through the complete process, although this last step is not required. If you upgrade a site, then login to your Partner Portal and cancel the site. We do not charge for sites, which were upgraded from trial to live and then cancelled immediately after. Business Catalyst The Guide to Consolidated Billing 21