This will be a guide showing the steps to complete your monthly billing from invoice generation through dealing with autopay. This can be applied to annual billing as well. Monthly billing will begin with generating invoices for any reservations across the Campground and Marina modules with a monthly invoice frequency. Finally, the autopay batch will be ran and then the declined payments will be dealt with.
There is a feature within Sharper that allows unsettled payments to be automatically applied without having to manually allocate each one after generating invoices. The first part of this guide will show the steps to turn this feature on, as it is a one-time setup.
Auto Settle Payments
This process is designed for a one-time setup, eliminating the need for revisiting this part of the guide in the future. To enable this feature for all upcoming payments, follow these steps:
Navigate to Company Settings in the left-hand navigation panel.
Click on the Outlet Defaults tile.
Within the General section, activate the Payment Auto Settle option.
To activate this feature for CURRENT unsettled payments, proceed as follows:
Access CRM from the left-hand navigation panel.
Click on Payments in the top ribbon.
Click on the Filter icon located to the right of the Search bar.
Adjust the Status to unsettled to filter for current unsettled payments.
Choose a payment, then click on Auto Settle Settings in the top right corner.
Enable the Auto Settle option.
Select the Type as All, POS, or Reservation: All applies the payment to all invoices; POS applies to POS invoices; Reservation applies to any reservation invoice.
If you intend to apply the payment only to reservation invoices, select the Reservation by reservation number in case customers have multiple slips or spaces.
Click Save and repeat Steps 5-9 as needed.
Generating the Invoices
Using the navigation pane on the left, click CRM.
Click Invoices using the menu ribbon at the top.
At the top right-hand corner select Generate Invoices.
Fill out the necessary fields in this form (Invoice Through date, Customer, Booking Type, module toggles) and select Generate in the bottom right. Let this page run until invoices are finished generating.
Applying Unsettled Payments and Credits
Now that invoices are done generating, it is time to apply any unsettled payments or credits to these invoices. This is important for those customers that are on autopay and have a credit. We wouldn't want to run their saved payment method if they have a credit sitting on their account!
1. The most efficient way to find unsettled payments is to run the Unsettled Payment Method report found by clicking the Reports module using the navigation pane on the left. If you cannot find the report please put in a ticket.
2. Run this report and either export it to excel or keep this page open in a different tab.
3. Copy the customer name, and go back to CRM -> Payments. Paste or type that name into the Search bar.
4. Enter the unsettled payment by clicking on the customer's name.
5. Any open invoices will show up towards the bottom of this page. The newly generated one should be here as well.
6. Click the checkbox to the left of any invoices you want to apply this unsettled payment to. You can change the amount in the Amount field if you wish.
7. Save.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 in CRM -> Credit Memos to apply unsettled credits.
Running Autopay
Invoices are generated, and unsettled payments and credits are applied. Now we can run the autopay batch. In order to run autopay it must first be setup for each customer. If this is your second or more time running autopay it should already be setup.
1. While in the CRM module, click the Payments button on the menu ribbon at the top.
2. At the top right-hand corner, click the Auto Pay button.
3. Fill out the autopay form with your desired settings and click Pay in the bottom right.
The autopay form includes the following fields:
- Date Selection: Due date is the due date of the invoices. Invoice date is invoice date of the invoices. This works hand in hand with the Auto Pay Through field.
- Auto Pay Through: If Due Date was selected, the date entered here will run autopayments for any invoices with this due date or before. If Invoice Date was selected, the date entered here will run autopayments for any invoices with this invoice date or before.
- Customer: Can specify customer or leave blank to run autopayments for all customers that have a default payment method.
- Itemized Payments Toggle: If there are multiple invoices that are set to autopay you can charge the card per invoice if this toggle is on.
Dealing with Declined Payments
Naturally, payments will decline for a number of reasons after running autopay. To quickly find your declined autopayments there are a couple ways to do so.
- The cleanest way is to run the Declined Payments report found in Reports -> CRM. If there is not one there, try making it or put in a ticket.
- Another way is to remain inside CRM -> Payments and filter to unsettled payments by clicking the Filter button directly to the right of the search field.
Once you find the declined payments, Sharper will give various reasons as to why the card was declined, but it usually just comes down to 2 solutions:
1. The payment method has expired or needs to be updated.
2. The customer needs to be contacted.