Billing Settings and Options in Business Engine

Payments

Business Engine supports Stripe and NMI as payment partners. Support for Paystack is coming soon.

Topic	Details
Payment partners	Stripe and NMI. Paystack is coming soon
Payment methods	Credit card and ACH (US bank account)
Setup with Stripe	Create a Stripe account and send COS Systems one publishable key and one secret key for both your test and live environments (4 keys in total). One Stripe account is supported
Payment reports	Downloaded from your payment partner's account

Invoices

All invoices are digital. Each month the invoice is published on MyPages and the customer receives an email with a direct link to it.

Topic	Details
Invoice delivery	Published on MyPages with an email link. Invoices cannot currently be attached as a PDF to the email
Invoice template	Can be customized with your logo, texts and contact information
Manual invoices	You can create an invoice manually and set its invoice date, due date and auto pay date
Billing reports	Available through the COS Reporting database, or by creating queries in BE Admin and downloading them as .csv files

How customers add a payment method

There are three ways a payment method can be added or changed:

In the order flow: when a customer orders a service on the Marketplace, they choose how to pay their invoices (card/ACH or manual payment) and add their payment details.
By email request: if an order was created in BE Admin or a sales tool, you can send the customer an email asking them to add their payment details on MyPages.
In BE Admin: your staff can add or change payment information directly.

Billing cycles

Business Engine supports two billing cycles. Billing settings, such as the due date, can differ between customer types, but not between individual customers.

Cycle	How it works
Monthly billing	The invoice date or due date is a fixed day of the month, and all customers of the same customer type share the same date. The first invoice is usually prorated to cover the days until the fixed day
Anniversary billing	The invoice date or due date is the day the customer's service was activated, so dates are spread over the month. Activations on the 29th to 31st are moved to the next available date that month

Key cycle settings

Setting	What it controls
Billing fixed day type	Whether the fixed day anchors the invoice date or the due date
Billing fixed day type value	Which day of the month is used, or the activation date for anniversary billing
Invoice days before due	Number of days from the invoice date until the invoice is due
Days to auto pay date	When the automatic payment is taken. The auto pay date can differ from the due date
Billing days until the initial invoice is due	Due date of the customer's first invoice, counted from activation
Delay first invoice	Delays the first invoice a set number of hours after activation, so several orders activated together can appear on the same invoice (default 1 hour)
Billing proration	Whether the first invoice covers only the days until the next billing date
Next billing date behavior	Monthly: each invoice row covers one month from the activation date. Fixed day: the first row runs from activation to the fixed day, then each row covers a full month from the fixed day
Billing fixed from date day and first invoice period grouping	Control how the first invoice period is split when an order is activated in the middle of a cycle

Example: monthly billing

A customer activates on January 15. Invoices are created on the 1st and due on the 28th.

January 15: a prorated first invoice for January 15 to 31 is created and due the same day.
February 1: the second invoice for February is created, due and paid automatically on February 28.
March 1: the third invoice for March is created, due and paid automatically on March 28.

Example: anniversary billing

A customer activates on January 5. Every invoice covers the 5th to the 4th of the next month and has the same amount.

January 5: the first invoice for January 5 to February 4 is created.
February 5: the second invoice for February 5 to March 4 is created, and so on each month.

The due date for an individual existing invoice can be changed when needed.

Payment options and payment attempts

Customers pay either automatically or manually.

Automatic (default): the amount is charged to the registered card or bank account on the auto pay date.
Manual: the customer starts the payment from MyPages each month.

A customer with automatic payment cannot pay an invoice manually until it is due.

Failed payments and retries

If an automatic payment fails, for example because of insufficient funds, Business Engine retries the payment. By default one payment attempt is made per day. The number of attempts per day is configurable.

When a customer updates their payment method

The retry schedule is not tied to the payment method. If a customer has an unpaid invoice and updates their card or bank details on MyPages, no new payment attempt is triggered by the update. The customer needs to pay the invoice manually by clicking Pay now on MyPages.

Late fees and delinquency

A late fee can be applied automatically a configurable number of days after the due date. The late fee can be a fixed amount or a percentage.

A percentage late fee is calculated on the total invoice amount, including taxes and any late fees already added. For example, with a 5% late fee on a $50.00 invoice:

The first late fee is $2.50, and the new total is $52.50.
If the invoice is still unpaid when the next late fee is applied, it is 5% of $52.50, which is $2.63.

A customer is considered delinquent a set number of days after the due date (default 6 days). Delinquency only triggers an email to the customer.

Pausing service for non payment

If you use auto provisioning, you can temporarily disconnect a customer by setting the order to status Paused. This is a manual action. Billing does not stop automatically when an order is paused.

Other settings

Setting	Description	Default
Transaction fees	A fixed or percentage fee for card and/or ACH payments, added to each invoice	Off
Payment attempts per day	Number of card or ACH payment attempts allowed per day	1
Invoices with low amount	Invoices below this amount are automatically set to paid	$2
Delay first invoice	Hours between activation and the first invoice	1 hour
Refund for cancelled orders	Whether cancelled orders are refunded from the termination date	Off
Proration when an order is replaced	When a customer upgrades, for example from 100 Mbit to 1 Gig, the unused part of the paid invoice is credited on the first invoice for the new service	On
Delinquent period	Days after the due date before a customer is considered delinquent	6 days

Credits, adjustments and refunds

Action	How it works
Credit	Added to the customer's account, independent of any invoice, from the Transactions menu. Enter credits as positive amounts. You can use templates, pick a credit reason or write your own description. If the credit is larger than the invoice, the remainder is kept on the account and used on the next invoice
Gift card credit	A credit that applies generally or only to a specific service and price type
Invoice row	Adds an extra row to an invoice, usually a positive amount for an added cost. A negative invoice row is possible but affects accounting differently than a credit
Refund	Returns the full transaction amount to the customer's card or bank account. Partial refunds are not possible
Cash payment	A registered cash payment is added to the customer's account, just like a credit

Taxes

You can handle taxes in one of two ways.

Business Engine tax tool (built in)

Define tax areas in several layers, such as federal, state, county, local and district.
Apply one or more taxes to a price type, as a percentage or a flat fee.
Taxes are applied based on the service location (latitude and longitude) and the selected service.
Tax areas and rates are not updated automatically, so you need to keep them up to date.

Avalara integration

Business Engine is integrated with Avalara. To use it, you need your own Avalara account and to share the account details with COS Systems. Read more here.

GL codes

General Ledger (GL) codes map billing data to the right financial accounts for reporting and reconciliation. GL codes are optional. You manage them in BE Admin under Settings > Services > GL Codes.

Each GL code can be linked to a price type, a service, or both. For a bundle with several price types, create one GL code entry per price type, since each price type generates its own invoice row.

Service	Price type	GL code
Residential Internet 1 Gbps + TV	Monthly Price Internet	1010
Residential Internet 1 Gbps + TV	Monthly Price TV	5010

When you create a GL code, fill in:

Code: the GL code to use.
Discount code: the code used for prorations or promotions.
Description: a short description of the code.
Price type and Service: what the code is linked to.
Type: Service.