Recurring billing is a way for you to automatically bill to the credit card of record or automatically invoice a customer for a specific class or invoice template. This is a very powerful feature that gives you much more flexibility in terms of how and when you charge people.
NOTE regarding security and the Saved Credit Card feature: If ASAP stores credit card information based on Preference Settings or the use of ASAP Recurring Billing, that card information is encrypted within the ASAP database according to PCI guidelines (https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/index.php). At no time is the card information viewable by a customer, ASAP user or member of ASA's staff. Only limited information needed to identify a card is available such as last four digits, type and expiration date. ASA takes data security and card processing requirements very seriously. ASA maintains PCI-DSS compliance at all times and is a registered Service Provider with both Visa and MasterCard.
You may set up a fee for the class as you normally would. This is not related to the recurring fees that you set up. If you set up a normal class fee, the student will pay the class fee upon the initial registration/enrollment and will pay the recurring schedule based on the setup that you create for recurring billing and invoicing.
It is imperative that you set up recurring billing or invoicing BEFORE registration begins. If you create a recurring billing or invoicing schedule after students have been registered, the student will NOT receive bills/invoices according to the schedule that you set up.
To enable a class for recurring billing, select Is Recurring Fee in the edit class details screen for the class that will have recurring billing.
Once the Recurring Billing has been activated, a new link will appear in the Class details page- This link is underlined and called “Click here for Recurring Billing Configuration”. See below:
Once you click on the link, it will take you to the Recurring Billing Setup and Configuration page. This is where you set up your recurring billing schedule and fees.
After the initial registration fee that you have set up in your class, the additional invoices/autopay transactions will be the ones that you set up in recurring billing/invoicing (the $15 fee amount below is the initial payment, the $10 monthly fees are separate from the initial charge and do not have to be the same amount.)
When creating either of these schedules the following is recommended:
- Use only automatic invoices or automatic payments (not both) in the organization. Using both for a single organization can cause a tremendous amount of confusion for recordkeeping and bookkeeping purposes.
- Keep close track of your A|R Aging and Recurring Billing reports to be sure that the invoices are being paid in a timely manner and no problems with payments have occurred.
- Also, if you are using automatic payments, be careful to look out for anything that might cause a credit card to not process. A|R Aging, Failed Transactions and Recurring Billing reports are all reports that you should be very familiar with. Remember that there are many things that can cause a credit card that was valid to become invalid such as a change in billing address that isn’t reflected in your books, an expired credit card or a replaced credit card (if a customer’s credit card is stolen/compromised, that customer might get a new credit card issued but forget to contact all of the companies on the credit card that was being autobilled).
- Choose a day of the week/month/quarter/year that you will be charging or invoicing so it’s easy for you to keep track of/anticipate payments and invoices to be generated. For example, you might have all monthly recurring fees happen on the 1stor the 15thof the month. This will make it much easier for you to keep track of these payments/invoices because you will be looking at specific times rather than every day of the week.
In general, exercise caution and care when managing recurring billing. The last thing you want to do is upset a customer. If not handled correctly, this convenient feature could cause a large amount of requests for refunds, chargebacks and generally unhappy registrants.