What is continuous recurring billing?
Continuous recurring billing (CRB) allows you to continue billing for monthly or weekly recurring services on a proposal after the selected end date has passed.
When CRB is switched on, the selected end date of your proposal becomes more of a "minimum contracted date" and avoids you having to re-send a proposal on the end date to continue billing on a proposal - especially if nothing has changed.
When you create a new proposal in Ignition, CRB will always be switched on as a default.
This also helps you continue to collect payments for monthly/weekly work in case you forget to re-engage your clients with a new proposal during a busy period like tax season. We want to ensure that you are getting paid for the recurring work that you do!
Why do I still need to set an end date?
Minimum contracted periods have a number of benefits
Most engagement letters and terms have some reference to a minimum contracted period. The end date gives you the ability to reference a date in your engagement letter using placeholders.
End dates are useful when it comes to workflow - they provide a date in which Ignition can recur jobs from.
End dates allow us to calculate a total potential proposal value and surface the data up as projected revenue on your dashboard.
The contracted period end date gives you an internal touch point to check in with each client to be sure scope & limitations are still being met. The end date also gives you an opportunity to reach out to offer additional or new services to your clients.
Will my clients see the end date?
It will depend on your settings. You can either hide or show the end date on a proposal and also set this as a default on your account. Choose to Show or Hide on the Terms tab → Display proposal value toggle of a proposal.
You can also set this as a default within your Settings → General → Proposal settings section.
If you choose to show it, the accept page will display the end date as the "contracted period end date". If you choose to hide the end date, clients won't see any reference to an end date at all.
Note: The "Display proposal value" toggle will only hide the proposal end date if you have at least one recurring service AND continuous recurring billing enabled on the proposal.
Can I disable continuous recurring billing after I have enabled it?
Yes. You can either:
Go into a proposal and Actions → Disable continuous billing
Go into your proposals list and perform this action in bulk by selecting the proposals → Bulk actions → Enable/Disable continuous billing
Please note: Disabling continuous recurring billing on proposals that have already passed their end date will impact that proposal - such that no more billing will occur on that proposal. The proposal will remain active and will not be completed - you will have to do that manually.
If you disable continuous billing before the end date of the proposal, it will complete as per normal when all billing is completed and it passes the end date.
Can I see which proposals have Continuous Recurring Billing enabled?
Yes, you will be able to see a symbol next to the proposal if it has continuous recurring billing enabled and also has a recurring service (this will not appear if that proposal only contains one-off billing).
You can also filter for proposals with this enabled by using Proposal Filters.
What does this mean for rollovers and re-engagement?
If you are happy with the existing annual re-engagements process where you rollover your active proposals, this process will remain the same which you can do at any time! The earlier you get started, the less you need to worry about come year end.
Please note: Rolling over a proposal with continuous recurring billing enabled will not complete the original proposal when the new proposal is accepted. It will instead switch off continuous recurring billing automatically. You will still need to complete the proposal manually.
Can the existing accepted proposal be upgraded to continue after the end date?
Absolutely! And this presents a huge opportunity to streamline your re-engagement process.
You can select currently active proposals from the proposal list to "Enable Continuous Recurring Billing" on.
What about my engagement letter and terms of service?
If you intend to use continuous billing then you will want to think about adding a clause similar to "this agreement is ongoing until either party cancels" to outline the ongoing nature of the engagement. If you need some help editing your engagement letter, you can check out this article here.
As always, we’re here to help with making these changes!
Please reach out to help@ignitionapp.com if you have any questions!