In addition to activity-related services, there are often recurring services, such as the maintenance of a server or the costs for a license, which must be billed in a defined cycle. This is a task that should be automated rather than performed manually. Otherwise, errors quickly creep in or services are billed too late or not at all.
With the new subscription functionality in foreknown, rules for generating recurring additional services can be defined directly on the order. The additional services then flow automatically into the invoice wizard.
Configure a Subscription Service
In foreknown, every service, whether from activities or other services, is always linked to a specific order position. It is therefore only logical that the definition of a subscription service is also defined at order position level.
The “Subscription Service” checkbox is used to activate the subscription functionality for an order position of the type “Other Position” and provides some settings to define the subscription cycle, the exact day per cycle, a start date, a maximum number of repetitions and a description of the additional service.
As soon as the order is finalized, a nightly job checks whether there are any subscription services due and generates an additional service based on the data and settings of the respective order position. As soon as an order or order position is marked as completed, no more subscription services are generated.
Like any other additional service entry, these entries are also proposed for invoicing in the invoice wizard and can be validated before an invoice position is generated from them.
Conclusion
The introduction of the subscription service is a further step in the automation of invoicing. Thanks to a uniquely defined set of rules, services are generated punctually and uniformly, thus avoiding errors and omissions.