How to use Client Subscriptions

How to use Client Subscriptions

Client Subscriptions lets you recoup the software subscriptions you buy on behalf of clients, such as Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks plans. You track what each product costs you and what you charge the client, and OnboardMe raises the bills on a schedule.

Each client subscription is billed through an OnboardMe recurring bill. A subscription can have its own recurring bill, share a bill with the client's other subscriptions, or be billed to a different client altogether.

This is separate from your business's own OnboardMe plan and from one-off bills.

Why it helps

• See cost, charge and margin for every product on every client in one list.

• Put several subscriptions on one invoice, so a client gets one bill a month instead of one per product.

• Bill a parent entity or group for subscriptions held by related clients.

• Bill lines follow the price automatically, so a price change never leaves a recurring bill out of date.

Before you start

• Open Clients → Subscriptions.

• The clients you will recoup against should already exist in OnboardMe.

• Products and list prices live in the catalogue. Click Setup → Templates (Owners and Admins). Add or adjust a product there if the plan you recoup is missing.

• If you sync bills to Xero, connect Xero first and know which revenue account or sale item to use.

How pricing works

Each subscription has three figures:

Margin is Price charged minus Cost.

• Partner discount % comes off the catalogue price to give your cost. Catalogue $100 with a 20% partner discount gives a cost of $80.

• Markup % is your target margin, not an add-on to cost. Cost $80 with a 20% markup gives a charge of $100. If partner discount and markup are the same, the client pays the catalogue price.

• Follow practice discount defaults uses the vendor settings from Setup → Settings.

• Follow master catalogue price charges the catalogue price until you set your own amount.

• Typing Cost or Price charged yourself locks that figure, so later catalogue or default changes don't overwrite it. A bulk update can override the lock if you choose.

If the product's price is tax inclusive, tax is taken out of Price charged and the bill total equals Price charged. Otherwise tax is added on top.

Note: Changing a template price doesn't re-price existing clients on its own. Open the template and click Apply to following clients to update subscriptions that follow the catalogue price. Manually set charges are left alone.

Set vendor defaults

Do this once per vendor so new subscriptions start with the right cost and charge.

1. On Client Subscriptions, click Setup → Settings.

2. Select a vendor, or type a name in Add a vendor… and click Add vendor.

3. Set Partner discount and Markup for that vendor.

4. Turn on Follow catalogue list price if new subscriptions should charge the catalogue price until you customise them.

5. Click Save.

Add a subscription

1. Click New.

2. Under Subscription pricing, search for the Client (type at least 3 characters) and pick the Subscription type.

3. Check Cost, Price charged, partner discount and markup. Change them if this client isn't on the vendor defaults.

4. Under Billing grouping, choose who gets the bill and whether it goes on a bill that already exists. See One client, several subscriptions and Bill another client for a subscription below. Leave it on Invoice this client with nothing linked to give this subscription its own recurring bill.

5. Under Subscription billing, set Frequency, Due days, Start date, Next run date (the first bill date) and an optional End date.

6. Enter Bill details (required). Use [SubscriptionName] to insert the product name, for example Monthly subscription for [SubscriptionName].

7. Complete the bill line: account, tax and description. The line amount is locked to Price charged.

8. If you use Xero, choose a Branding theme and whether to Send to Client.

9. Click Create.

One client, several subscriptions

A client can hold as many subscriptions as you need, for example Xero Grow plus a payroll add-on plus Dext. A client can only have one active or draft subscription of each product.

By default, every subscription gets its own recurring bill. Three subscriptions means three invoices each cycle. To send the client one invoice instead, put the subscriptions on the same recurring bill. Each subscription becomes its own line on that bill.

Put a subscription on the client's existing bill

1. Set up the first subscription as normal. This creates the client's recurring bill.

2. Click New for the next subscription and pick the same Client and the new Subscription type.

3. Under Billing grouping, keep Invoice this client selected.

4. In Link to existing recurring bill, choose the client's bill. Each option shows its frequency, next run date and total. Bills that already hold subscriptions are marked Already used for subscriptions.

5. The Subscription billing settings now come from that bill and are greyed out. The lines already on the bill show under Already on this bill, and this subscription's line shows under Line we will add.

6. Click Create. A preview opens: Add this line to the recurring bill? Check the bill and click Add line and save.

No new recurring bill is created. The subscription is added as a new line on the bill you chose.

Tip: You can link a subscription to any active recurring bill the client has, not just one created by Client Subscriptions. For example, add a Xero subscription to the client's monthly fixed-fee bill.

Note: Link to existing recurring bill only appears when the client already has at least one active recurring bill.

What the shared bill looks like

• Frequency, next run date, due days, bill details and branding theme belong to the bill, so they are the same for every subscription on it.

• Each subscription is a separate line, and each line's amount follows that subscription's Price charged.

• [SubscriptionName] in a line's description is filled in with that line's own product when the bill is raised.

• When a bill has more than one line, each subscription line's description starts with the client's name.

• If a subscription is set to draft, its line is left off the bills raised while it's in draft. The other lines still bill.

Bill another client for a subscription

Use this when a different client pays, for example a parent company that pays for its subsidiaries' Xero files, or a family group billed on one invoice.

1. Open or create the subscription.

2. Under Billing grouping, choose Bill another client for this subscription.

3. Do one of these:

   • Pick the Bill-to client. Leave Link to billing schedule empty to create a new recurring bill for that client.

   • Or choose an existing schedule in Link to billing schedule. Each option lists the subscriptions already on it, who it's billed to, its frequency, next run date and total. Choosing one fills in the Bill-to client for you.

4. If you linked a schedule, the subscription is added as a new line on it. Its frequency, next run date and invoice header come from that schedule.

5. Click Create or Save, check the preview and click Add line and save.

On the Client Subscriptions list, Client shows who holds the subscription and Bill to shows who pays. The paying client's row has a number badge showing how many subscriptions share the bill.

Note: Link to billing schedule only lists schedules that already carry at least one subscription. To add a subscription to any other recurring bill, use Invoice this client → Link to existing recurring bill on that client.

Who can change a shared bill

When the bill holds two or more subscriptions, Subscriptions on this invoice lists them all. Other clients' amounts are read-only there.

Move a subscription to a different bill

1. Open the subscription.

2. Choose the new bill in Link to existing recurring bill (same client) or Link to billing schedule (bill another client).

3. Click Save, check the preview and click Add line and save.

The subscription's line is taken off its current bill and added to the new one. Other lines on the current bill stay where they are. If the subscription was the only line on its current bill, that bill is ended. Bills already raised don't change.

Take a subscription off a shared bill

On a subscription billed to another client, click Move to standalone billing. OnboardMe removes its line from the shared bill, updates that bill's total, and creates a new recurring bill for the subscription's own client using the same settings.

How bill amounts stay in sync

You never edit a subscription's bill line amount directly. It always follows Price charged. When the price changes, OnboardMe updates that subscription's line and the bill total. This happens when you:

• Save the subscription with a new price.

• Run Bulk update or Apply practice defaults.

• Click Apply to following clients on a template.

• Import a vendor file that changes the cost.

Only the subscription's own line changes. Other lines on a shared bill are left as they are.

Edit, draft and cancel

• Click a row, or the pencil, to edit pricing and billing together.

• Turn the Active switch off to make the subscription a Draft. Drafts aren't billed. If no other subscription on the bill is active, the bill pauses.

• Subscription history shows how cost, charge and discounts were set, including imports and bulk updates.

• Billing history shows the runs and bills raised from the subscription's recurring bill.

To cancel, click the cancel icon on the row, then Cancel subscription. Cancelled subscriptions show as Terminated and can't be reactivated.

What happens to the bill depends on what else is on it:

Note: Once the last subscription is removed from a bill that has other charges, it's an ordinary recurring bill again and you can edit it from recurring billing.

Update many subscriptions at once

1. Tick the rows you want, or filter to one vendor.

2. Click Options → Bulk update.

3. On Pricing, set Partner discount % and/or Markup %. Choose whether to Recalculate from catalogue and Override manual cost/charge locks. Click Apply to.

4. On Status, choose Activate, Set to draft or Terminate, then Apply status.

Options → Apply practice defaults pushes the vendor settings from Setup → Settings onto selected active subscriptions that follow practice defaults.

Import a vendor spreadsheet

Click Import CSV to set up or update subscriptions from a Xero partner billing export or a similar file. When you set the billing template for new subscriptions, you can also link each new subscription to the client's existing repeating bill instead of creating a new one.

See How to import client subscriptions from a vendor spreadsheet for the full steps.

Where bills appear

• Bills raised from subscriptions appear on Bills & Payments like any other OnboardMe bill.

• The recurring bill also appears under recurring billing, but it's view only there: View only here. To change pricing or schedule details, edit it from Client Subscriptions. Click Open subscription to jump to it. This applies to any recurring bill once a subscription has been added to it.

Bill only after the monthly import

If your vendor costs change month to month, you can stop subscription bills from raising automatically. In Settings → Business details, set Subscription repeating billing to Wait for monthly import. Then:

1. Import the vendor file for the month.

2. Click Pending bills on Client Subscriptions, pick the month and vendor, and click Show due bills.

3. Click Bill selected or Bill all.

Reports and the attention filter

Click Reports for Client subscriptions, Billing vs cost, Outstanding bills, Failed billing runs and Needs attention. Each report can be downloaded as PDF or CSV.

Set Status to Needs attention on the list to see subscriptions whose bill has a Missed run or Run failed. Click a badge to open the bill's run history.

Tips

• Set vendor defaults before a large import so new rows start close to how you actually charge.

• Decide up front whether a client should get one invoice or one per product, and link subscriptions as you add them. Moving them later works, but ends any bill left with no lines.

• Use Bill another client for this subscription for groups, so the payer gets one invoice with a line per entity.

• Use import to refresh vendor costs each month, then Bulk update only when you want client charges to change as well.

Related

• How to import client subscriptions from a vendor spreadsheet

• OnboardMe Recurring Billing

• Bill Narration placeholders