Variable Payment Streams
If you would like to create a Payment Stream where you charge different amounts per customer per month you can set up a Variable Payment Stream. This is a useful feature where the billing price varies from month to month for a particular item. Variable price can be used for one or more line items on a multi-line item Stream.
To be able to create a Variable Payment Stream the Stream needs to:
- Have a Frequency of monthly
- Have a Billing Schedule other than optional
Additionally, any customers added to the Stream will need to have the same start date.
Make sure you put a check in the box marked “Variable Stream” to make the Payment Stream changeable. If you do not see this checkbox, you’ll first need to select a Billing Frequency of Monthly and a Billing Schedule other than Optional.
Once you save the payment stream, you’ll notice it says Amount: Variable. Since the amount can change every month you must approve the Stream's worksheet before your payments can be processed.
To approve a Variable payment stream:
- Click on the Payments tab
- Click on the more actions (3 vertical dots) button on the far right side of the selected stream
- Select Edit Worksheet (this option ONLY shows up for Variable Streams)
- In the subsequent window, you'll have the opportunity to approve the price, after optionally editing the price.You’ll notice that you can change these item amounts, or add a discount.
- Once you are done editing the item amounts and discounts, if any, click Approve to approve the worksheet for that billing timeframe.
To verify if a Stream is approved, click the Edit Worksheet button. The statement, "This Worksheet has been approved", will appear in the lower left-hand area of the window if the stream was approved. You will have the option to unlock if it hasn't yet been processed.
Please Note: If you forget to approve a worksheet, you can go ahead and approve it later and the payments will process the night of your approval. For example, if you have payments to be processed on the 1st of the month, but you do not approve it until the 3rd, it will approve the payments and run them on the 3rd instead of the 1st. You can unlock or update a worksheet up until the point of the payments being processed.