Table of Contents

Billing Settings

Mitchell Ivany Updated by Mitchell Ivany

Read Time: 14 mins

Open Sonar Cast

In this article, we'll review Billing Settings and explain what each section and field controls. These settings determine how billing behaves across your Sonar instance, including proration, delinquency timing, Daily Billing, and late fees.

Use Billing Settings to manage general billing behavior, such as whether late fees are applied or whether accounts can become delinquent on a Saturday. To control the timing of specific billing events for each account type, use Billing Defaults.

Prerequisites

  • Your Billing Defaults are configured, since several Billing Settings work alongside them.
  • If you plan to use Auto Pay, at least one payment processor is set up. See Setting up Bank Account & Credit Card Processors.

  • Permissions

    Billing Settings is a system-wide configuration page. To view or change it, the corresponding role permissions must be enabled first. Take a moment to review these permissions and confirm the relevant roles have them added before proceeding.
    If you are a Super Admin on your Sonar instance, no permission changes are required for your account. For more information on roles and permissions overall, see User Role Creation & Best Practices.

First Time Setup

When you sign in to your Sonar instance for the first time, you may see the initialization process. These setup pages help you configure the basic settings needed to start using your instance.

One of them is Billing Settings.

These parameters work the same way as the settings in your Sonar instance. Each section follows the same behavior and controls the same billing options.

Proration Settings

Accounting Period Auto-Close

Days to check delinquency

Payment and Card Management

Billing Settings

To access the Billing Settings page:

  1. Click Settings.
  2. Expand the Billing category.
  3. Click Billing Settings.

Proration

Proration in Sonar calculates the amount due based on the days remaining in the current billing cycle. In Billing Settings, the proration checkboxes control whether proration is selected by default when changes are made to subscriber accounts.

Proration is always based on the current billing cycle. When updating a subscriber account, you can adjust the proration date as needed.
  1. Prorate Services: Allows subscriber services to be changed mid-billing cycle and adjusts the price based on when the change is made.
  2. Prorate Service Quantity: Allows additional quantities of the same service to be added to a subscriber account while only billing for the remaining time in the billing cycle.
  3. Prorate Account Status Change: Allows account status changes, such as canceling an account, to be prorated. Any remaining bill amount can be refunded to the account's payment method.
    If an account uses activation day billing and generates an initial invoice when first activated, Prorate Account Status Change must also be enabled.

    If this setting is not enabled, the invoice will not generate until the next billing period.
  4. Prorate Account Delinquency Status Change: Controls whether proration is selected by default when an account's delinquency status changes from active to inactive, or inactive to active.
    In Billing Defaults, if an account is set to move into another status after being delinquent for a set period, this setting prorates the account by default when it moves into or out of delinquency.

  5. Prorate Billing Day Change: Allows Sonar to prorate any amount due when an account's billing day changes, whether by subscriber request or company policy.
  6. Round Prorated Amounts: Allows prorated amounts to be rounded based on your company's preference, such as to the nearest cent or dollar.

General Accounting

The General Accounting section controls key accounting and billing behavior, including:

  1. Accounting period limits.
  2. When Sonar checks due invoices for delinquency.
  3. Whether Daily Billing is enabled.

Closing an accounting period sets a cutoff date. After that date, payments can no longer be deleted, which helps keep transaction records consistent when reconciling with accounting software.

Accounting Period options

The Accounting Period settings include two options:

  1. Accounting Period Close Date: Lets you manually choose a specific date to close the accounting period. This is useful if an outside accounting firm reviews or reconciles finances on a set date each month.
  2. Accounting Period Auto Close: Lets you automatically close the accounting period on a recurring schedule. This is useful if an internal accountant regularly manages the books.
Implications of Closing the Accounting Period

Most accounting changes in Sonar are handled by creating adjustments rather than editing or deleting existing transactions. There are two exceptions:

  1. Reversing an invoice credit.
  2. Reversing a discount.

If the accounting period is still open, reversing a discount or invoice credit zeroes out the transaction and marks it as void, because the transaction has not yet affected financial reporting.

If the accounting period is closed:

  1. Invoice credits cannot be reversed.
  2. Reversing a discount creates a new debit transaction using the current date instead of zeroing out the original transaction.
Past-dated payments can only be created in an open accounting period. They cannot be created in a closed accounting period.
Close the accounting period at the end of each day after entering data into your accounting software. This allows same-day errors to be corrected while requiring proper reconciliation for changes made on later days.
Days to Check Delinquency

Delinquency checks work with the settings configured in Billing Defaults. If a day is unchecked, Sonar will not run delinquency processing on that day. This can help prevent accounts from being disconnected or moved into a delinquent status on days when your team is unavailable to respond.

This also applies to account status changes triggered by Days of Delinquency for Status Switch. These status changes follow the same delinquency processing schedule as invoice delinquency checks.

If a scheduled delinquency status change falls on a disabled check day or a Delinquency Exclusion date, Sonar defers the status change until the next valid processing day.

Delinquency Exclusions prevent accounts from entering delinquency statuses on excluded dates. They do not prevent accounts from exiting delinquency.

To disable delinquency processing for holidays or other specific dates, go to Settings → Delinquency Exclusions. For more information, see Delinquency Exclusions: Overview.
Daily Billing

Daily Billing runs automatically at 12:05 AM based on your instance's time zone. When enabled, Daily Billing automates the following actions:

  1. Generates invoices on each account's Bill Date.
  2. Emails invoices.
  3. Applies service billing, including debits and credits.
  4. Sets the Auto Pay date on the invoices it generates.
If Daily Billing is not enabled, these actions must be completed manually for each account in your Sonar instance.
Daily Billing and Auto Pay are separate processes

Auto Pay processing runs on its own schedule, independently of Daily Billing. Each day, Sonar looks for invoices whose Auto Pay date is today and attempts payment against them. Turning Daily Billing off does not turn that process off.

The connection between the two is the Auto Pay date. Daily Billing is what assigns an Auto Pay date to the invoices it generates, which is why most Auto Pay activity appears to be driven by Daily Billing. Invoices created manually do not receive an Auto Pay date, so Auto Pay will not run against them. An Auto Pay date can optionally be populated when an account is activated or deactivated.

Disabling Daily Billing does not stop payments on invoices that already exist. Any invoice that already carries an Auto Pay date will still have a payment attempted on that date, even with Daily Billing turned off. Disabling Daily Billing only prevents new invoices from being generated and therefore prevents new Auto Pay dates from being assigned.

The table below summarizes what each process handles.

Process
What it does
Behavior when Daily Billing is disabled
Invoice generation
Creates invoices on each account's Bill Date and applies service billing, debits, and credits.
Stops. Invoices must be generated manually for each account.
Invoice emailing
Emails invoices as they are generated.
Stops. Invoices must be emailed manually or through an Email Invoice Batch.
Auto Pay date assignment
Sets the Auto Pay date on each invoice it generates.
Stops for new invoices. Manually created invoices receive no Auto Pay date unless one is set at account activation or deactivation.
Auto Pay processing
Attempts payment on any invoice whose Auto Pay date is today.
Continues. This process runs independently of Daily Billing.
Preventing Auto Pay on invoices that already exist

If you need to stop payments from being attempted on invoices that already have an Auto Pay date, disabling Daily Billing will not achieve it. The options below will.

Method
What it does
What to consider
Freeze the affected invoices
Auto Pay ignores frozen invoices, so no payment is attempted and no failed attempt is recorded.
The Auto Pay date does not advance while the invoice is frozen. Review and update Auto Pay dates after you unfreeze.
Disable the payment processor
Prevents payment attempts from being made or recorded while the processor is disabled.
Applies to every account using that processor, not only the invoices you intend to pause. The Auto Pay date is not advanced for a skipped attempt.
Turn off auto on the stored payment methods
Prevents those payment methods from being used for Auto Pay.
Applies per payment method rather than per invoice, and the Auto Pay date is not advanced for a skipped attempt.
Setting Autopay Credit Card Attempts or Autopay Bank Account Attempts to 0 is not a valid way to stop Auto Pay. Sonar validates these fields and will not accept a value of 0.
If you are pausing Auto Pay because of an issue with your own bank account rather than with subscriber billing, contact Sonar Support before changing billing settings. For sonarPay instances, pausing disbursements may be a better fit than stopping payments. See sonarPay Disbursements: Overview.
Always Round Taxes Up
  1. When toggled OFF: Taxes round to the nearest two decimals. For example, $15.136 becomes $15.14, while $15.132 becomes $15.13.
  2. When toggled ON: The value always rounds up. For example, $15.136 becomes $15.14, and so does $15.132.

Payment & Card Management

The Payment Card section controls payment card behavior for subscriber accounts. Use this section to configure Auto Pay attempts, minimum payment amounts, and the minimum amount Sonar will charge to a saved credit card.

  1. Delete Expired Credit Cards: Removes expired credit cards from subscriber accounts so they can no longer be used for payments.
    For cards created with sonarPay, this setting also removes cards marked as closed or invalid.
  2. Autopay Runs Entire Amount Due: Includes the full amount due in Auto Pay. This covers regular charges, delinquent balances, and any additional transactions on the account.
  3. Generate Invoice On Initial Activation Of Account: Creates an invoice when an account is moved to an active status for the first time.
  4. Run Autopay On Account Activation Invoice: Runs Auto Pay on the invoice created when an account is first activated.
    This option is only available when Generate Invoice On Initial Activation Of Account is enabled.

    If that box is not checked, this option does not appear.

  5. Account Activation Invoice Autopay Days: Sets when Auto Pay runs for the account activation invoice. For example, enter 0 to run Auto Pay the same day the invoice is generated, or 1 to run it the next day.
  6. Run Autopay On Disconnect Invoice: Runs Auto Pay on the final invoice created when an account is disconnected.
    An account can be disconnected in three ways:

    1. From the account, go to Edit dropdown → Disconnect.



    2. Use a scheduled event to disconnect the account.



    3. Complete a job that has Disconnects Account enabled.

    Moving an account from Active to Inactive does not trigger this setting. The account must be disconnected.
  7. Account Disconnect Invoice Autopay Days: Sets when Auto Pay runs for the account disconnect invoice. For example, enter 0 to run Auto Pay the same day the account is disconnected and the invoice is generated, or 1 to run it the next day.
  8. Minimum Credit Card Payment: Sets the minimum amount required to process a credit card payment. If an invoice is below this amount, it remains unpaid until the next billing cycle.
  9. Minimum Bank Account Payment: Sets the minimum amount required to process a bank account payment.
  10. Minimum Amount Due For Delinquency: Sets the minimum unpaid invoice amount required for an account to be considered delinquent. For example, you may choose not to mark accounts delinquent when the unpaid amount is less than $5. Align this amount with your minimum credit card and bank account payment settings so subscribers are not marked delinquent because of your own payment thresholds.
  11. Autopay Credit Card Attempts: Sets how many times Sonar will attempt a credit card payment before the payment is considered declined.
  12. Autopay Credit Card Retry Interval In Days: Sets how many days Sonar waits before retrying a declined credit card payment. Works together with Autopay Credit Card Attempts.
  13. Autopay Bank Account Attempts: Sets how many times Sonar will attempt a bank account payment before the payment is considered declined.
  14. Autopay Bank Account Retry Interval In Days: Sets how many days Sonar waits before retrying a declined bank account payment. Works together with Autopay Bank Account Attempts.

Additional Management

The Additional Management section includes options for managing invoice behavior, automatic subscriber fees, and account status after an account is disconnected from the network.

  1. Printed Invoice Batch Page Settings: Controls whether printed invoice batches print as simplex (one-sided) or duplex (double-sided). To learn more, see Printed Invoice Batches: Overview.
  2. Include Late Fee Invoices in Printed Batches: Adds invoices created from late fees to Print Invoice and Print to Mail batches. This applies when Invoice and Email Late Fees Immediately is also enabled.
  3. Disconnect Account Status: Sets the default account status that accounts move into after they are disconnected. To learn more, see Disconnecting an Account.
  4. Unarchive Account Status: Sets the default account status that accounts move into after they are Unarchived. To learn more, see Archiving an Account: Overview.
Printed Invoice Fee Service
In Canada, the Telecommunications Act and Broadcasting Act prohibit communications service providers from charging subscribers a fee to receive paper bills for wireless, Internet, telephone, or television services.

The Printed Invoice Fee Service dropdown lets you apply a debit to subscriber accounts that choose to receive a paper invoice or statement. This fee is applied when the account's invoice is included in an invoice batch. For more information, see Printed Invoice Batches: Overview.

You can enable Printed Invoice in the account's billing parameters.

The example below shows this setting on a demo account.



Late Fees

The Late Fees section is enabled by selecting Apply Late Fees near the bottom of the page.

When late fees are enabled, they apply to every invoice on an account that becomes past due. This may include late fees that are invoiced immediately, or multiple past-due invoices if late fees are enabled after invoices are already overdue.

When Apply Late Fees is enabled, additional late fee options appear.

  1. Apply Late Fees to Child Invoices: Applies late fees to child invoices in addition to parent invoices when the payment due date is missed. This only applies to accounts using a parent/child structure. For more information, see Child Accounts: Best Practices & How Tos.
  2. Invoice and Email Late Fees Immediately: Controls when late fees are invoiced.
    1. If disabled, late fees are added as a transaction on the account and invoiced during the next service period.
    2. If enabled, Sonar creates an invoice immediately and emails it to the subscriber.
      Invoices created from late fees are due the next day. These invoices will not receive additional late fees.
  3. Exclude Inactive Accounts from Late Fees: Prevents late fees from being applied to inactive accounts that still have an amount due.
  4. Late Fee Mode: Determines how late fees are calculated. Late fees can be applied as a fixed charge based on the selected late fee service, or as a percentage of the delinquent balance or the late fee service amount, whichever is higher.
  5. Late Fee Percentage: Sets the percentage used to calculate the late fee. This field only appears when Late Fee Mode is set to the percentage option.
  6. Late Fee Minimum Delinquency Amount: Sets the minimum invoice amount required before a late fee is charged. This is useful if you would rather not charge late fees on small invoice amounts, such as service change or vacation mode fees.
  7. Late Fee Service: Sets the late fee service added as a debit on the subscriber's account when an invoice becomes past due. For more information, see Services: Overview.
  8. Account Types to Exclude from Late Fees: Lets you exclude one or more account types from the late fee settings configured here.
  9. Days After Invoice Due for Late Fee Application: Sets how many days after the invoice due date the late fee is applied, based on the invoice due date configured in Billing Defaults. If this field is set to 0, the late fee is applied on the invoice due date.
    If this field is set to 0, the late fee is applied on the invoice due date.

How did we do?

Billing Defaults

Building Packages

Contact