Payment terms configuration¶
Target Audience: Administrators, Superusers
Introduction¶
Payment terms decide when an invoice is sent and how long the customer then has to pay it. By default these come from the payment provider configuration and therefore apply to every package on a title. A payment terms configuration lets a single package use different terms without a separate provider configuration — typically because business customers are invoiced on other terms than private ones.
Payment terms apply to invoice payments only, which means Ropo and Billecta. They have no effect on card, Adyen or Klarna subscriptions.
Manage them in PAP under Control panel => Payment terms configuration.
How a package picks its terms¶
A package either uses a payment terms configuration or the payment provider configuration — the choice is made on the package itself, in the Payment terms section of the package editor. Leaving it on Use the payment configuration is the default and keeps the old behaviour.
Campaigns never carry terms of their own. A campaign inherits the terms of the package it belongs to, so moving a package onto new terms moves all of its campaigns with it.
Note
The override is all or nothing. A package that uses a payment terms configuration takes every day field from it, never a mix of the two. The only exception is the grace period, which is optional — see below.
Fields¶
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | A name describing who the terms apply to, for example "Private" or "Company". Shown in the package editor's list |
| New purchase (days) | Days the customer has to pay the first invoice, counted from the purchase. 1–365 |
| New purchase, monthly (days) | The same for a monthly subscription's first invoice. 1–14 |
| Invoice sent before renewal date (days) | Days before the renewal date that the renewal invoice is sent. 0–365, where 0 sends it on the renewal date |
| Monthly invoice sent before renewal date (days) | The same for a monthly subscription. 0–14 |
| Credit period on renewal (days) | Days the customer has to pay the renewal invoice, counted from the day it is sent. 1–365 |
| Credit period on renewal, monthly (days) | The same for a monthly subscription. 1–14 |
| Grace period for unpaid delivery (days) | Days the subscription keeps being delivered past the due date before it is stopped. Optional — leave it empty to use the payment provider configuration's grace period |
Every field except the grace period is required.
How the renewal dates are calculated¶
invoice date = renewal date − invoice sent before renewal date
due date = invoice date + credit period on renewal
period start = renewal date
The advance notice and the credit period are deliberately separate, because how far ahead a publisher invoices and how long it then gives the customer to pay are two different decisions.
Setting the credit period equal to the advance notice reproduces the behaviour Payway had before these fields existed: the renewal invoice falls due exactly on the renewal date. Existing configurations therefore keep working unchanged.
Example. A subscription renews on 1 January. With the invoice sent 14 days before the renewal date and a credit period of 14 days, the invoice goes out on 18 December and falls due on 1 January. Set the advance notice to 0 instead and the invoice goes out on 1 January and falls due on 15 January — which also moves the invoice, its VAT and the receivable into the new year.
Grace period for unpaid delivery¶
The grace period runs from the later of the period start and the due date, never from the due date alone. When a renewal invoice is sent far enough ahead to fall due before the period it pays for has begun, there is no delivery to give grace on yet, so the window opens when the period starts. No customer is stopped in the middle of a period they have paid for.
Warning
Check the write-off period against the grace period. Write-off is measured from the due date, grace from the period start. If the credit period is shorter than the advance notice, the due date lands before the period start and the two drift apart — an invoice can then be written off and credited while the customer is formally still within grace, which stops the subscription earlier than intended.
Keep the write-off period on the payment provider configuration longer than (advance notice − credit period) + grace period. Payway cannot validate this for you: the write-off period lives on the provider configuration, out of reach of the payment terms.
Removing payment terms¶
Payment terms that are in use cannot be removed. Reassign every package using them first — the delete dialog reports how many packages are affected.