We’re pleased to introduce new major feature in HostBill, that will give both the client and the admin more control over service auto-renewal.

Service Auto-Renewal Control

HostBill provides multitude of automation options for billing operations. One of the automated billing features is automatic invoice generation (recurring invoices) for products or services with recurring billing cycle.  The admin can determine how many days before the invoice due date the invoice will be automatically issued and sent.

Until now, the client control over the recurring billing/invoicing was limited to the possibility to file a cancellation request and the possibility to renew the service earlier (the client could request to generate the invoice and pay before the due date). Our new feature: Service Auto-Renewal Control gives both the client and the admin more control over the auto-renewal.

First of all, we’ve added the option to turn-off automatic invoice generation for given product or service.

Secondly, the admin can also determine for each client, if the renewal invoice should be generated automatically or manually.

Additionally, the admin can turn on service auto renewal client function (in product configuration options) to enable the client to control automatic invoice generation.

Benefits for the Client

Thanks to the new feature the client will have more control over the service. The client can esily turn off automatic renewal (if they don’t want to prolong/renew the service) or change gateway for given service (for example change credit card to bank transfer).

Benefits for the Admin

Some services, paid for the year in advance, shouldn’t be automatically renewed. This concerns for example SSL certificates that need to be ordered and configured again every year. For such service automatic recurring invoicing can now be turned off.

The admin now also has the option to turn off automatic service renewal when they want to politely cut the client loose, if they don’t want to serve them any longer. Admin can set the account status to ‘Closing’ (in that case client will not be able to make any new order) and turn off auto-renewal in all the client’s services.