Billing
Bill what is actually owed, on the schedule it is owed on.
Recurring and one-off charges, installments, variable amounts, credits, waivers, discounts, penalties, grace periods and proration — generated from obligations rather than replacing them.
Charges.Schedules.Credits.Penalties.
- Recurring obligations on any schedule
- One-off obligations and special assessments
- Monthly, quarterly, termly and annual cycles
- Anniversary and custom cycles
- Installment plans that keep the parent obligation
- Variable and computed charge amounts
Part of one system
Members & accountsObligationsBillingPaymentsReconciliationCollectionsCommunicationsMember portalStandingEntitlementsReporting. See how they fit
| Charge | Count | Value | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Individual annual duesDUES.ANNUAL | 4,927 | $7.51M | Issued |
| Corporate membershipsDUES.CORP | 41 | $812,000 | Issued |
| Chapter feesFEE.CHAPTER | 386 | $96,000 | Issued |
| Held — dispute openHOLD.DISPUTE | 6 | $144,000 | Held |
| Skipped — waived by committeeSKIP.WAIVED | 14 | $336,000 | Skipped |
| Skipped — no contact on fileSKIP.NOCONTACT | 11 | $264,000 | Needs attention |
| Issued | $8.42M |
Generating an invoice is not the achievement. Knowing which invoices were not generated is.
Recurring invoicing is a commodity and Zetu does it properly, but it is not why this page exists. What separates a billing run you can trust from one you cannot is what it tells you about its own gaps: the accounts it skipped, the charges it held, the members it could not reach, and the value of each.
A run that reports only its successes is how an organization discovers in March that eleven members were never billed in January — and by then the money is a year old and the relationship is awkward.
Schedules
Every shape recurring revenue actually takes.
Monthly
Dues, service charge, subscriptions, retainers. The common case, on the day of the month you choose.
Quarterly and annual
Maintenance contracts, professional renewals, insurance-style cycles keyed to a renewal date rather than a calendar month.
Termly and academic
Three or four cycles a year on dates that are not evenly spaced and do not align to quarters.
Installments
One obligation split into a schedule, with the parent still visible and still countable as expected revenue.
Variable charges
Usage, royalties as a percentage, consumption-based utilities — a fixed schedule with an amount computed at run time.
One-off assessments
A special levy, a joining fee, a building-fund contribution, apportioned across a defined group by a rule.
Bulk billing
One run across thousands of accounts, with per-account outcomes rather than a single success flag.
Prorating
Joining mid-period, upgrading mid-term, or leaving early, charged for the part that applies.
Custom cycles
Anniversary-based, every eight weeks, twice a year on named dates — the schedule is data, not a code path.
Adjustments
Things change after the invoice goes out.
Credit notes
Reduce what is owed against a specific obligation, with a reason and an approver, leaving the original amount visible.
Waivers
Forgive a charge entirely. Common in associations and schools, and exactly the kind of decision that needs a name attached to it.
Discounts
Early-payment, long-service, multi-member or hardship discounts, applied by rule or by decision.
Penalties
Late fees as obligations in their own right, so they can be disputed and waived without touching the underlying charge.
Grace periods
A defined window after the due date during which the account is not treated as overdue. Set per obligation type.
Write-offs
Judged uncollectible, removed from the collectible book, and still present in the history where it belongs.
Capabilities
What is in billing
- Recurring obligations on any schedule
- One-off obligations and special assessments
- Monthly, quarterly, termly and annual cycles
- Anniversary and custom cycles
- Installment plans that keep the parent obligation
- Variable and computed charge amounts
- Bulk billing runs with per-account outcomes
- Held, skipped and failed lines reported with values
- Invoice, statement and notice generation
- Credit notes, waivers and adjustments
- Discounts by rule or by decision
- Late penalties as first-class obligations
- Grace periods per obligation type
- Proration for mid-cycle joins and changes
- Approval on decisions that change what is owed
- Complete change history with attribution
Questions
Billing, in practice
Can we bill different members on different schedules?
Yes. The schedule belongs to the obligation, so an organization can run monthly dues for one class of member, annual renewals for another, termly fees keyed to an academic calendar, and one-off assessments raised by a committee decision, all in the same book. Nothing forces them onto a common cycle.
How do installment plans work?
An installment plan splits one obligation into a schedule of smaller ones while keeping the original visible. That matters for reporting — the annual due is still $240 of expected revenue, not four unrelated charges — and it matters for standing, because a member keeping an approved plan is not delinquent.
What about penalties for late payment?
A penalty is an obligation created by the breach of another obligation, so it has its own amount, date, policy and waiver rights. Making it a real obligation rather than a line adjustment means it can be disputed, waived by someone with authority, or written off — each on the record — without corrupting the charge it came from.
Can charges be waived or adjusted after the fact?
Yes, with attribution. Credits, waivers, discounts and adjustments are recorded as their own events against the original obligation rather than edits to it. The original expectation and the decision that changed it both survive, which is what lets a prior period still reconcile to what it said at the time.
Keep reading
- ObligationsWhat billing is generated from.
- PaymentsHow the money comes back.
- ReconciliationComparing the two.
- Recurring billing vs recurring receivablesThe distinction this whole site rests on.
- Zetu vs subscription billingWhen plan-and-card billing is the better answer.
- CommunicationsGetting the invoice to a human being.
Bring us one messy month.
Bring one month of obligations and one month of payments. We will show you what reconciles, what does not, and what that is costing you.