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Register an Account using an Electronic Check for a Paid Plan with Billing Date in the Future and without a Prorated Invoice

Overview

When a customer registers for an account, you may want the billing date to be in the future because items such as the following must be completed before billing can occur:

  • Equipment needs to be installed.
  • The customer has to undergo a qualification process.
  • Service must be provided.

Best Practices

This is the recommended process to follow to register an account for a customer who is signing up for one or more paid plans using the electronic check (ACH) payment method when the billing date is in the future and proration does not occur:

  1. Create the account.
  2. Validate the bank routing number.
  3. When the billing date arrives, Aria automatically does the following:
  • Updates the account to the status specified in the plan in Aria6.
  • Calculates the payment due.
  • Collects the payment from the customer.
  • Sends the statement to the customer’s billing email address.

Notes

Funds might not be available in the customer’s bank account when the collection transaction is settled.

If you change an account holder’s status to a billable status before the billing date arrives, Aria  immediately resets the account’s billing dates and collects a payment from the customer the next time that an invoice for the account is generated. Aria resets the  account’s billing dates only if this option is set to True in Aria6: Automatically Reset Account Billing Dates on Non-Billable-to-Billable Status Change.

If you change an account holder’s status to a different non-billable status before the billing date arrives, Aria does not generate an invoice for the account or collect a payment from the customer when the billing date arrives.

Assumptions

The process described in the electronic check payment flow for a paid plan with a future billing date deals with the following:

  • Creating an independent account, not a parent-child account.
  • Assigning a master plan and optional supplemental plans to an account.
  • Creating an account with no orders or coupons.  

Preconditions

  1. Create your master plan(s) in Aria6 and specify the status that an account to which the plan is assigned should have.
  2. If you want Aria to automatically send statements to customers when their billing dates arrive, set the Suppress Regular Statements option to Send.
  3. Create your Direct-Post Configuration Set

To create a Direct Post configuration set for account registration for paid plans with a future billing date using the electronic check payment method and without proration, define the following key-value pairs in the set_reg_uss_config_params API call:

  1. Set the client_no field to your Aria-assigned client number.
  2. Set the auth_key field to your Aria-assigned authorization key.
  3. Set the set_name field to the name of your configuration set. The name of your configuration set must begin with “direct_post_”.

Example: The configuration set for paid plan registration with a future billing date using the electronic check payment method and without proration could be named “direct_post_achfuturebillreg”.

  1. Set the redirecturl field in the in_reg_uss_config_params array to the URL in your account registration application on which you display error or success messages. These messages are sent by Direct Post.

Postconditions

At the end of the account registration process described in the electronic check payment flow for a paid plan with a future billing date and without proration, the following results are achieved:

  • A new account exists with one or more paid plans assigned.
  • When the billing date arrives, Aria automatically does the following:
    • Calculates the payment due.
    • Collects the payment from the customer.
    • Sends the statement to the customer.

Process Flow Diagram

The diagram below illustrates the recommended process for registering an account for a paid plan with a future billing date using an electronic check as the payment method when proration does not occur:

  • The dark grey boxes indicate functions automatically performed by Aria based on the billing date that you specified.
  • The light grey boxes indicate functions automatically triggered by Direct Post based on your configuration set.
  • You can override the account status selected in the plan in Aria6 by specifying a different status in the create_acct_complete call.

UseCase11-ElectronicCheckPaidPlanBillingDateFutureNoProratedInvoice

Registering an Account using an Electronic Check for a Paid Plan with Billing Date in the Future and without a Prorated Invoice

Use the following steps to register an account for a paid plan with a future billing date when an electronic check is used as the payment method and proration does not occur.

  1. Use the create_acct_complete call to create an account and specify the alternate billing date.

Precondition: A customer visits your website and signs up for one or more paid plans.

  1. Set the client_no field to your Aria-assigned ID number.
  2. Set the auth_key field to your Aria-assigned authorization key.
  3. Set the do_full_invoicing field to false. This prevents the account from being invoiced at this point.
  4. Set the do_prorated_invoicing field to false.

Example:  If the account creation date is 11/1/11, the do_prorated_invoicing field is set to false and the alt_bill_day field is set to 15. The customer’s first invoice covers a period from 11/15/11 to 12/14/11. The customer’s second invoice covers a period from 12/15/11 to 1/14/12, etc.

Note: If you set the do_prorated_invoicing field to false, then the account status is inactive until the billing date unless you choose a different status in the status_until_alt_start field as described in Step e below. The account status as of the billing date is the one specified in the master plan unless you choose a different status in the status_cd field as described in Step f below.

  1. By default, the account status is inactive until the billing date if you set the do_prorated_invoicing field to false. To specify that a different status should be in effect until the billing date, set the status_until_alt_start field to your chosen status. Refer to the status_cd allowable values within the create_acct_complete API documentation for the list of account statuses.
  2. If you want the account status as of the billing date to be different from the one specified in the master plan, then set the status_cd field to your chosen value. Refer to the status_cd allowable values within the API documentation for the list of account statuses.
  3. Set the alternate billing date using either of these options:

Option 1

Set the alt_bill_day field to the day of the month on which the customer should be billed.

Examples:

  • If the account creation date is November 1, 2011 and you want the customer to be billed on the 19th of every month, set the alt_bill_day field to 19. The customer is billed on November 19, 2011.
  • If the account creation date is November 21, 2011 and you want the customer to be billed on the 20th of every month, set the alt_bill_day field to 20. The customer is billed on December 20, 2011.

Option 2

Set the alt_start_date field to the date on which the customer should be billed.Example: If the account creation date is November 1, 2011 and you want the customer to be billed on November 19, 2011, set alt_start_date field to 2011-11-19.

  1. Set the master_plan_no field to the number assigned to the master plan that the customer selected.
  2. Set the supp_plans field to the array of supplemental plan numbers assigned to any supplemental plans that the customer selected.
  3. Set the userid field to the user ID that the customer entered.
  4. Set the password field to the password that the customer entered.
  5. Set additional fields based on your company’s requirements.

Note: It is not recommended that you set the bank account fields using the create_acct_complete call. It is recommended that you use Direct-Post to set the bank account fields as described in Step 3 below.

Postcondition: The account is created and an account number is returned.

  1. Use the set_session call to obtain an Aria session ID for Direct-Post.

Precondition: An account exists.

  1. Set the client_no field to your Aria-assigned ID number.
  2. Set the auth_key field to your Aria-assigned authorization key.
  3. Set the user_id field to the user ID that the customer entered.

Postcondition: An Aria session ID for Direct-Post is obtained.

  1. Transmit bank account information from your payment information page to Direct-Post.

Preconditions:

  • You created a Direct-Post configuration set.
  • An Aria session ID for Direct-Post was obtained.
  • The customer entered bank account information.

Transmit the following fields and values from your payment information page to Direct-Post:

  1. Set the mode field to the suffix of the configuration set that you created.

Example:  If you named your configuration set “direct_post_paidbillfuturereg”, then you would set the mode field to paidbillfuturereg. The mode field is a hidden field.

  1. Set the inSessionID field to the session ID returned by the set_session call. The inSessionID field is a hidden field.
  2. Set the client_no field to your Aria-assigned client number. The client_no field is a hidden field.
  3. Set the formOfPayment field to ACH.
  4. Set the bank_routing_num field to the bank routing number that the customer entered.
  5. Set the bank_acct_num field to the bank account number that the customer entered.

Postcondition: The session ID is returned.

  1. Direct Post triggers secure bank account transactions and account changes based on your configuration set.

Precondition: Bank account information was transmitted from your payment information page to Direct Post. Direct Post does the following:

  1. Verifies the validity of the session.
  2. Validates the bank routing number.
  3. Sets the payment method of the account to ACH.

Note: If an error occurs after steps b or c above, then redisplay the payment information page and repeat the process beginning with Step 3.

Postconditions:

  • A session ID is returned.
  • The bank routing number is validated.

The following steps are automatically completed by Aria on the billing date:

  1. Aria updates the account to the status specified in the plan in Aria6 or the status that you specified in the create_acct_complete call.

Note: You can override the account status in the plan in Aria6 by specifying a different status in the create_acct_complete call.

  1. Aria generates an invoice.
  2. Aria collects the payment from the customer.
  3. Aria sends the statement to the customer.
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