Since the billing system was introduced early last year it has become one of the most popular features in Flight School Booking.
Getting it up and running was a huge amount of work. To get the feature into production more quickly we simplified the scope, so for example, the system provided the full list of transactions as a CSV file, but did not provide reports, or export directly to Xero, QuickBooks or Sage.
Another example is the use of a fixed reference date for billing. Anyone currently using the system to charge membership or hangarage fees will know the invoices are all produced on a fixed date. For annual invoices this could be 1st April, or for monthly invoices it could be the on the first of the month.
Most schools were charging an annual fee on the day a customer signed up. The billing system creates a pro-rated invoice for the remaining time until the next billing cycle. For new customers this was (and is) easy, but it was laborious to migrate a customer to a system where everyone paid on the same date.
We're pleased to let you know the system now allows for both fixed and flexible billing dates.
So you can choose whether your customers pay the full membership fee when they join, or a pro-rated amount on a fixed billing cycle. The setting for this is under Admin > Billing > Price groups. Create a price group with a membership fee element, and edit the item as shown:
When the reference date is set as "customer's effective date", this is the date the customer is assigned the price group, "today" in the example below.
