The question comes up quite often as far as how a payment plan is applied in our system when you have two or more classes added to the same invoice that do not belong to the same time period. Since our payment plans are configured at the time period level, creating an invoice with separate classes can lead to some confusion as to how the payment plan will be added on. Here's a workflow that we use to determine how the payment plan is added either through the online registration portal or on the admin side.
Firstly, with our payment plans, though they are attached per time period, if two classes from separate time periods are placed on the same invoice, the customer is only given one payment plan option. This means that the system will default to only one option, even if each time period has its own separate configuration. Since each payment plan can have it's own configuration, let's outline the steps as to how our system determines which payment plan is displayed.
Different Month Duration
When a payment plan is first added on to an invoice when a customer is checking out, the system will select the option with the shortest duration (less months), regardless if a deposit is set up on one of the time period's payment plans. This means that if one time period has a 4 month plan and a deposit, but another time period has a 2 month plan and no deposit, your customers will be offered the 2 month plan when adding the payment plan to their invoice.
Equal Month Duration and Deposits
Another thing to this, if they're equal months duration but one has a deposit, the system will default to the one that does not have a deposit on it. If they're both the same months duration but each have a deposit on it, ASAP prioritizes the percentage based one first. This means that if I charge a $5 fixed rate deposit in one time period but a 10% fixed rate in another, the system will add a 10% fee.
If both time periods have a percentage based deposit, it will charge the higher of the two percentage based. So if each time period has the same length, but one has a 10% deposit while the other is 5%, the 10% deposit will be added to the invoice.
If both time periods have a fixed rate deposit, it will charge the lower number between the two. So if one time period has a $5 deposit while the other has a $10 one, the $5 fixed rate deposit will be charged.
Payment Plan Fees
With regards to payment plan fees, whichever payment plan is selected based off the information above will also be issued that fee. So the system will not pick and choose which fee is applied, rather it will choose the fee that's based in the time period's payment plan configuration.
Will it change when registering as an admin?
The same default option is given when the admin also sets it up on their end. There is no difference on how the payment plan is initially displayed in the admin side. As long as the criteria is met from the above criteria, the admin will also be given the same default options while configuring it on their end. The only difference is of course, that the admin has the ability to edit and set the duration and amounts to whatever they would like.