There are many billing features available, and a variety of ways to use them. This flexibility allows you to create an online workflow tailored exactly to your current business practices. You may find the strategies below helpful in deciding how to organize your billing on this site.
Pay upfront with office payment
With this billing method, the customer is required to pay before scheduling new lessons and classes. When payment is received, you will add credits to the customer’s account for the number of lessons and classes purchased. The customer can then log in and use the credits to schedule lessons and classes on the calendar.
There are two ways to add credits to a customer’s account. You can add a package, which is predefined group of lesson and class credits. Alternatively, you can add a specific number of individual credits.
Upfront payment is enforced by setting an option on the customer’s account, requiring the customer to have available credits in order to schedule.
There might be some items not paid upfront, such as extra lessons and classes booked by a coach or manager, or other billable items like charges and memberships. These items can be billed later using invoices, mark as paid, packages, or QuickBooks. (See “Pay later” below for more information).
Pay upfront with website payment
This billing method is similar to above, except the manager is no longer required to process payments and update customer accounts with credits. Instead, the customer buys packages directly from the online store using a credit or debit card. After purchase, the package is automatically added to the customer’s account, and the customer can book lessons and classes using the credits in the new package.
Pay later with office payment
With this billing method, the customer can book lessons and classes regardless of whether they have enough credits. Lessons and classes, as well as packages, memberships, and charges are billed at a later date by the manager. There are several billing options available.
Invoices provide a number of features, including line-item pricing, discounts, and taxes. Invoices can be printed, or published to customers’ accounts for online viewing. When payment is received, you will record the payment online. The invoice balance will automatically update to reflect the payment.
Mark as paid is a good option if you do not need the advanced features of invoices, and simply want to record the fact the items are paid. This method simply updates the billing status of the items to “Paid”, and allows you to generate a receipt of the transaction.
Packages are useful for automatically crediting lessons and classes. The package will credit certain lessons and classes depending on how it is configured. You can then use invoicing or mark as paid for the package itself, along with any lessons and classes not included in the package.
QuickBooks provides full invoicing and payments support. Items can be synced with QuickBooks, and you can handle all further billing directly from QuickBooks.
Pay later with website payment
With this method, you will include all billable items in an invoice, and then publish the invoice to the customer’s account. The customer can pay online with a credit or debit card.
For lessons and classes in particular, you can invoice them individually or you can include them in a package and then invoice the package. To do this, add the package to the customer’s account before invoicing. The lessons and classes will be credited by the package, and then you only need to invoice the package itself.