How Can jBilling Help You?
“jBilling is a very solid and flexible piece of software.”
Latest News Items
April 11, 2012
March 30, 2012
February 24, 2012
Getting Started with jBilling
The
Enterprise Open Source Billing System
Getting Started Guide
Copyright 2008-2011 Enterprise jBilling Software Ltd.
Welcome
Hello, and welcome to jBilling!
jBilling is a mature product that generates invoices and processes payments for companies of all sizes. Thousands of users across the world are thrilled with the freedom and possibilities provided to them by this billing and invoicing system.
By choosing jBilling, you will save countless hours of tedious, manual work. Some of jBilling’s time-saving features include: Invoice generation following complex business rules and taxes, customer self-care through its web-based interface and automatic payment processing.
Getting jBilling setup and ready to run is not without effort. Are you going to accept credit cards? How often are your customers going to get invoices? How are they going to receive these invoices? How much time can a customer take to pay an invoice? What happens if a customer doesn’t pay? You know the answers to these questions. Eventually, you will need to let jBilling know so that it can run your billing, following your business rules.
The purpose of this guide however, is for you follow instructions that are designed to help you become familiarized with the basics of the jBilling system. You will begin by taking a look at: Trend, a fictitious company who sells advertisement on their popular website. Trend is included in the standard jBilling download. Information has already been set up in this site: there are customers and invoices, among other example data. You can login using the user name: admin, and password: 123qwe.
Get yourself a cup of hot chocolate, some patience and keep reading! Running jBilling is well worth the effort.
Overview
This guide is made up of the following three sections:
The steps provided in these sections will leave you with a better understanding of how to set up and run through jBilling’s billing and invoicing process. Let’s take a look at the overview of the process now:
Products represent the products and services that your company offers. Your customers buy products by placing purchase orders. Periodically, a batch process called the billing process will run and generate invoices based on these purchase orders. Your customers will then pay the invoices by submitting payments, or the system can automatically process these payments through its automatic payment processing feature.
You are now ready to enter some information into the system. Let's get started!
Entering Your Customer's Data
This section reviews the basic data you will need to enter into the jBilling system:
Product Categories
Product categories are the first thing you need to enter into the jBilling system.
It is possible to create as many categories as you want. Categories help to group products. This grouping will be helpful later on when you run a report, or for invoice calculations.
For Trend, you can create the category, 'Advertisements'.
To Create a Product Category:
1. Click on the Products link. A list of categories will appear in the middle pane on your screen.
2. Click on the ‘+ Add Category’ button. The Add Product Category screen will appear.
3. Ensure that Items is selected in the dropdown pane beside Type.
Please Note: The category type lets jBilling know how to treat the products that belong to this category. A regular product should belong to the category type: Items.
4. Enter the category name: Advertisements into the text box beside Name.
5. Click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to save the category. You will return to the Products screen. OR,
6. Click on the ‘Cancel’ button to discard the category. You will return to the Products screen.
Products
For the most part, products are the catalog of products and services your company sells. Keep in mind that there are other factors that affect how much your customers pay you, such as taxes and discounts. These too must be represented as products.
In Trend, you will create a 'Side banner – monthly fee' product.
To Create a Product:
1. Select the Advertisements category you have just created.
2. Click on the ‘+ Add Product’ button in the Products pane. The page will refresh to the Add Product screen.
3. Enter: Side banner – monthly fee, in the text pane beside Description.
4. Enter: A-01 in the text pane beside Product Code.
Please Note: This field determines how products will be ordered in an invoice.
5. Make sure that Advertisements is selected in the Categories pane.
6. Enter: 100 in the text box provided under Prices.
7. Click on the ‘Save Changes’ button. You will return to the Products screen. The newly added Front page banner product will be listed in the Products pane. OR,
8. Click on the ‘Cancel’ button to disregard any changes. You will return to the Products screen.
You have probably noticed that several fields in this area have not been addressed. There is also more to learn about the fields described above. For more information, please refer to jBilling's User Guide.
Customers
Now that you have something to ‘sell’, let's enter some information regarding the buyers.
To Create a Customer:
1. Click on the Customers Link. The system will direct you to the Customers screen.
2. Click on the ‘+ Add New’ button. The New Customer screen will appear.
The New Customer form contains information about a customer. The login name and password allow the user to access jBilling to review their invoice, submit payments and other customer self-care operations.
Please Note: jBilling is capable of notifying your customers of many billing related events through email. Therefore it is very important to enter this information.
3. Enter: bsmith for the Login Name.
4. Enter: secret15 for the Password (enter the same information in Verify Password).
5. Enter: Brian for First Name.
6. Enter: Smith for Last Name.
7. Enter: bsmith@acme.com for the Email Address.
8. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click on the ‘Save Changes’ button to create the customer.
9. Click on the ‘Cancel’ button to disregard any changes. You will return to the Customer screen.
More information about this customer, such as their name, organization name, address and credit card information can also be entered if desired or required. Don’t worry about this for now. You will be given the chance to edit this customer’s information a little later on.
Purchase Orders
Congratulations! Now that you have a customer and something to sell to them, you are ready to make some sales.
A purchase order in jBilling represents your company’s sales. This could be a one-time purchase or a subscription into which the customer pays regularly. It might be helpful to think of a purchase order like a bag, full of the many different products that a customer buys. Let's create one for Trend.
Your customer, Brian Smith, just bought a subscription to have his company's ad on the front page. He is going to pay monthly for this service.
To Create a Purchase Order:
1. Ensure Brian Smith is selected. His customer information will display in the pane on the right.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Select the ‘Create Order’ button.
3. Select: Monthly from the dropdown list beside Period.
4. Select: pre paid from the dropdown list beside Type.
Please Note: You are selecting pre paid because Trend gets paid in advance for its advertising services. For more information on this field, please refer to the jBilling
User Guide.
5. Click on the Products tab, located beside the Details tab. You will see a list of all products.
6. Find your product (Side banner – monthly fee) and click on it. The product will appear in the Order # pane on the right hand side of your screen.
7. Click the ‘Update’ button. The product will now be listed in the Order # pane.
Please Note: To remove the product, click the ‘Remove’ button. The Order # pane will clear.
8. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button to save the purchase order. You will return to the Customer screen.
Please Note: To disregard any changes, click the ‘Delete’ button. You will return to the Customer screen.
9. Scroll down to the bottom of the Customer screen. You can view the purchase order in the Lines pane.
Order Periods
Now that you have a customer, it is time to define how often they will be billed, and therefore, how often they should pay.
The most common billing period is monthly. jBilling however, can handle any number of days, weeks months or years as an order period.
Follow the instructions below to create two order periods for Trend: a Monthly one and one for 3 month periods.
To Create a Billing Period:
1. Click on Configuration at the top of your screen.
2. Click on Order Periods on the side bar. The Order Periods pane will appear.
3. Enter: 3 under Value, select Month from the dropdown list under Unit, and type Quarterly in the text box under description.
4. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button to save your order period.
Please Note: To disregard any changes, click the ‘Cancel’ button. You will return to the Configuration screen.
5. Repeat steps 3 to 4 and enter the following: 1 under Value, Month under Unit, and Monthly under description.
Scenarios
So far, you have been working with simple examples. You might be wondering if other scenarios common in your company can be addressed using jBilling. It is actually very hard to come up with a billing scenario that jBilling cannot handle. Setting up your system is all about good management of products and orders.
To learn more, please refer to the jBilling User Guide.
System Configuration
Data alone is not enough to run your billing. You also need to tell jBilling about the billing process itself, as well as other system-wide parameters. This guide will not get into specific details of all these parameters as most of the configuration has already been set up in Trend. However, it will briefly address the following aspects in order for you to understand how Trend's billing is run:
Please Note: For more detailed information on any of the above topics, please refer to the jBilling User Guide.
Notifications
jBilling will notify your customers about various events, the most important one being any new invoice.
Notification is located on the left side bar within Configuration. Clicking on it will reveal the four possible notification categories within the jBilling system:
Email Delivery Parameters
jBilling will send emails to customers on your behalf for multiple reasons. Sending them their invoices is one reason, but reminders, failure to receive a payment, balance overdue, etc can also be sent. You can opt out of sending any emails, but consider that this service is totally free and, once well configured, will save you a considerable amount of time.
The Aging Process
What happens if the due date has come and past and the customer has not yet paid? This is an issue addressed by the aging process. This process notifies your customers about their overdue invoices, and changes the status of that customer’s account.
For example, there are 3 steps in Trend’s aging process: A grace period of 5 days, Overdue with 7 days, and Overdue 2 with 10 days. The end result is that the customer receives one notification after 5 days of an invoice going overdue, followed by another one after 7 more days, and the last one 10 days later.
To Configure the Aging Process:
1. Click on the Configuration link.
2. Click on Aging, located in the side bar on the left hand side of your screen.
3. Enter a Grace Period of: 5 in the text box beside Active.
4. Enter: 7 in the text box beside Overdue and click on the check box.
5. Enter: 10 in the text box beside Overdue 2 and click on the check box.
6. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button to save your Aging Process.
7. Click the ‘Cancel’ button to return to the main Configuration screen.
The Billing Process
The billing process is the batch process that will generate invoices. Having a good understanding of what it does is important.
Trend wants to: run its billing on the first of each month, verify the results of the billing process three days before it actually runs, and enable payment retries.
To Configure the Billing Process:
1. In Configuration, click on Billing Process, located in the side bar on the left hand side of your screen.
2. Click the calendar icon in the Next Run Date field and select the date for the first day of next month.
Please Note: This field automatically updates by the billing process when it runs.
3. Select the check box beside Generate Review Report.
4. Enter: 3 in the Days to Review Report field.
5. Enter: 2 in the Number of Retries field.
6. Enter: 5 in the Number of Days Between Retries field.
7. Enter: 1 and select Month for the Billing Period field.
8. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button. OR,
9. Click the ‘Cancel’ button to cancel the changes and return to the Configuration screen.
Invoice Numbering
jBilling will apply the number 1 to the first invoice generated. If, however, your company has generated previous invoices, it is necessary to tell the system about this number so it can properly number the next invoices.
Payment Processors
This section only applies if you plan on using automatic payment processing (usually with credit cards) and have an account with authorize.net.
When jBilling runs the billing process, it can also automatically pay the generated invoices with your customer's credit cards or banking information. This allows for several other automation features: payment retries, notification to your customers about the results of their payments (usually via email), etc. Each payment processor has its own API. In plain English, each payment processor talks a different language so jBilling needs an 'interface' for each of them. Right now, jBilling only supports one payment processor: authorize.net. Creating new interfaces to support other payment processors is not difficult, but it requires the development of a plug-in which is out of the scope of this guide.My First Invoice
Congratulations! You have completed learning about some areas of configuration within the jBilling system. You are now ready to generate invoices.
Generating an Invoice
Invoices are created from purchase orders. This ensures that your customers do not get billed unless they have bought something from you first. Never modify an invoice directly: delete the invoice, change the order and generate the invoice again. The idea is to have a consistent model where you can trace documents and the reasons for their existence.
Even though you have entered a customer and his purchase order, you still do not have any invoices. There are two ways to generate an invoice in jBilling:
Ideally, you would have already completed entering all your data before moving onto: Generating the Invoice. However, this example requires you to edit information for your customer and purchase order first.
Editing Customer Information
Let’s edit some of Brian Smith’s information:
1. Access the Customers screen.
2. Click on your customer, Brian Smith.
3. Scroll down and click on the ‘Edit’ button. Your screen will refresh to the Edit Customer page.
3. Scroll down and click on the ‘Edit’ button. Your screen will refresh to the Edit Customer page.
5. Change the Invoice and Delivery Method to: E-mail and Paper.
6. Scroll down and click on the plus sign (+) beside Credit Card. The credit card pane will appear.
7. Enter credit card number: 4111111111111111, and Expiry Date: 11, 2010.
8. Click on the check box beside Use for Automatic Payment.
Please Note: This step ensures that your customer’s credit card information appears automatically when paying the invoice.
9. Click the ‘Save Changes’ button to save the changes you have made. OR,
10. Click the ‘Cancel’ button to disregard any changes and return to the Customer screen.
Editing the Purchase Order
Click on the Orders link, located at the top of your screen. Find and click on the purchase order you created for Brian Smith. You will be editing this purchase order, so that it is only active for six months.
1. Once you have selected the purchase order, scroll down to the bottom of the page.
2. Click on the ‘Edit this Order’ button. The purchase order screen will appear.
3. Click on the calendar icon beside Active Until and select the date that is six months from today’s date.
For example: if today’s date is June 1st, 2011, you would select, December 1st, 2011.
4. Click on the ‘Save Changes’ button. You will be returned to the Orders screen. OR,
5. Click on the ‘Cancel’ button to disregard any changes. You will be returned to the Orders screen.
Generate the Invoice
The order is ready! It is now possible for you to create the first invoice. For this example, you will be manually triggering the invoice generation.
Please Note: This is not the recommended way to generate an invoice. If you leave the order the way it is, the next billing process will automatically generate the invoice for you. However, in this example, you want the invoice right now and can’t wait.
To Manually Generate an Invoice:
1. Ensure that the purchase order you have just edited is highlighted.
2. Scroll down and click on the ‘Generate Invoice’ button. You will be redirected to the Invoices screen.
Review the Invoice
Review the date, due date, total and invoice lines to ensure all the information is correct.
To Review the Invoice:
1. Click on the invoice you have just generated.
2. Scroll down to the bottom of the Invoices screen.
3. Click on the ‘Download PDF’ button. The invoice will download as a PDF file.
4. Open the PDF file to view the invoice.
Please Note: If any information on the invoice is wrong, you will have to delete the invoice by clicking on the ‘Delete Invoice’ button, modify the order, and generate the invoice again.
Pay the Invoice
Last but not least, you want this invoice paid. Trend's services are pre-paid, therefore, so is the order that you created.
To Pay the Invoice:
1. Click on the ‘Pay Invoice’ button. You will be redirected to the Payments and Refunds screen.
2. In the Payable Invoices pane, ensure that the button beside your invoice is selected.
Please Note: It is also possible to review the invoice on this screen by clicking on the View Invoice link, located beside the Due Date column.
3. Scroll down. You will notice that the total amount of the invoice appears in the Payment Amount text box.
4. Click on the check box beside Process Payment in Real-Time so that the payment is sent to the payment processor for immediate approval.
5. Click on the plus sign (+) beside Credit Card. Confirm that the credit card screen appears with the customer credit card information already populated in the appropriate fields.
6. Click on the ‘Make Payment’ button, located at the bottom of the New Payment screen. You will be redirected to the Confirm Payment screen.
Please Note: This is your last chance to ensure that all the data is correct before it is applied.
7. Click on the ‘Make Payment’ button located at the bottom of the screen to complete the payment. Your invoice will appear in the Payments and Refunds screen, with a message indicating that you have entered a new payment and it is being processed. OR,
8. Click on the ‘Cancel’ button. Your changes will not be saved and you will be returned to the Payments and Refunds screen.
What's Next?
Well done! You have just completed the Getting Started guide. As stated throughout, if you require more information or further clarification on the jBilling system, please refer to the User Guide.
Your next stop is the Getting Started - BRMS guide. It covers the usage of rules for rating, complex pricing and product relationship management through a Business Rules Management System (BRMS).
Copyright 2012 Enterprise jBilling Software Ltd. All rights reserved. jBilling is a registered trademark used under license.