Billing
This topic provides an overview of billing concepts and what Rebilly provides. Billing is the process of generating invoices, collecting payments, and managing customer subscriptions. Rebilly provides comprehensive billing management. You can manage all aspects of billing, and perform billing-related interactions in the Data tables section of Rebilly.
To view all billing interactions that are available in Rebilly, see Billing management.
Orders
An order is a customer's request to purchase a product or service. Orders contain one-time sales items, subscription items, or both. Orders are associated with a customer, a product, and a pricing plan. Orders generate invoices that the customer must pay to receive the product or service. For more information, see Orders.
Invoicing
An invoice is a document issued by a merchant to a customer, relating to a sale transaction, and describes the products, quantities, and agreed prices for the products or services the merchant has provided or will provide to the buyer. For more information, see Invoice lifecyle. Invoices are associated with a customer, currency, and website.
To view, edit, or manage invoices see Invoices.
Products and pricing plans
Products are the items that your business sells. A product can be a physical item, a digital item, a service, or a subscription. For example, a product could be a t-shirt, a software license, a haircut, or a monthly subscription to a magazine.
Pricing plans define how customers pay for a product. For example, a product could have a one-time payment pricing plan, a free trial period, a recurring (subscription) pricing plan, or a usage-based pricing plan. For more information, see Products and pricing.
Pricing formulas
Pricing formulas determine how the price is calculated and displayed on an invoice or receipt.
Rebilly supports five types of pricing: fixed-fee per time period, flat rate per unit, stair-step, tiered, and volume. For more information, see Pricing formulas.
Subscriptions
A subscription is a recurring charge for a product or service that is billed at regular intervals, such as monthly or annually. These periods are referred to as service periods. An invoice is generated for each service period. Example: A monthly pre-paid subscription to an internet service provider. A subscription can be canceled at any time by the customer or the merchant. A subscription can also be paused or resumed.
To reactivate a cancelled subscription, a quote for the proposed subscription reactivation is issued to the customer. If the customer accepts the quote, depending on which quote acceptance conditions are defined and fulfilled, the order is reactivated. For more information, see Subscriptions.
If you edit, add, or remove items from a subscription, you can issue a quote to the customer for the proposed changes. If the customer accepts the quote, depending on which quote acceptance conditions are defined and fulfilled, the subscription is updated. Alternatively, you can issue an interim invoice with proration for difference in cost to the customer for the proposed changes. If the customer pays the invoice, the subscription is updated. For more information, see Edit a subscription.
For more information about subscriptions, see Subscriptions.
Quotes
A quote is a pricing estimate for requested goods or services and can help facilitate negotiation before creating an order. Customers can approve or reject a quote. If the customer accepts the quote, depending on which quote acceptance conditions are defined and fulfilled, a new order is created based on the quote. Merchants can also recall or cancel an issued quote. For more information, see Quotes.
Taxes
Taxes are additional costs that are added to the total cost of an order. Taxes are calculated based on the tax rate, the tax jurisdiction, and the tax type. Taxes are added to the total cost of the order. For more information, see Taxes.
Shipping rates
Shipping rates are the costs associated with shipping a product to a customer. Shipping rates are calculated based on the shipping method, the shipping destination, and the weight and dimensions of the product. Shipping rates are added to the total cost of the order. For more information, see Shipping rates.
Credit memos
A credit memo is a record which describes a certain amount that is owed to a customer for a particular invoice or invoice item.
A credit memo is similar to an invoice. It includes items, taxes, and shipping, but its total is subtracted from the invoice amount. A common use case for a credit memo is to provide a customer with store credit, rather than a refund, if the customer pays more than they owe or returns a product. For more information, see Credit memos.
Coupons
Use coupons to reward customers, generate sales, or to test new pricing strategies. Use coupons to apply different types of discounts to invoices, subscriptions, and pricing plans.
Redeemed coupons are attached to a customer's account. Depending on the coupon restrictions, redeemed coupons are applied from the customer's account to invoices or subscriptions.
After a coupon is redeemed, it cannot be modified. You may deactivate a coupon or create a new coupon, but you cannot reuse the same coupon code. For more information, see Coupons.
Auto-pay
Autopay is process of automatically collecting payment from a customer on a subscription renewal date. If autopay is activated, the payment is retrieved from the customer on the renewal date using the default payment instrument that is set on the subscription. If a default payment instrument is associated with the subscription, is used to collect payment.
You can use the autopay schedule to set multiple retries for subscriptions that fail to bill successfully, and specify whether to cancel the subscription after the last attempt.