What are subscriptions?
Subscriptions can be used in TutorCruncher to charge a monthly fee to clients. They can be customised to be charged just on the client, or per student, and the date they are charged each month can be set. They generate Ad Hoc Charges for all of the clients you select on the dates that you wish, so when you generate and send invoices the clients will be charged for their subscriptions as well as any other charges they have (lessons etc).
It is important to note that Subscriptions do not automatically bill a client and you will still need to regenerate and send invoices when the charges have been created.
How to use Subscriptions
Subscriptions can be used in TutorCruncher to charge a monthly fee to clients. They can be customised to be charged just on the client or per student, and the date they are charged each month can be set. They generate Ad Hoc Charges for all of the clients you select on the dates that you wish, so when you generate and send invoices the clients will be charged for their subscriptions as well as any other charges they have (lessons etc).
If you want to start using Subscriptions make sure that you enable 'Use Subscriptions' in System > Settings > People and Activity > Activity
Step by step process
Go to Activity > Subscriptions. Click ‘Create Subscription’.
Fill in all of the required fields. Choose the name, rate and the day of the month you want your clients to be charged.
The 'Charge Offset' is the number of days before the 'Day of Month' you wish the charges to be generated. For instance, if I pick 'Day of Month' as the 10th, and the charge offset is 4 days, Ad Hoc Charges will be generated on the 6th.
You can choose whether the subscription applies to the client or to students. If you choose the client, the charge will be generated for the client, but if you choose the student, you have to select which student it applies to and the client can be charged for each student they have.
- For example, you may wish to charge the client £100 per month for their child taking 11+ lessons, and also want to charge £150 for another child taking GCSE lessons.
You can also choose the Ad Hoc Charge category. Find more information below.
When you have saved the subscription you can see its details, including the date that the Ad Hoc Charges will be generated.
The next step is to add the clients to the subscription. Click the 'Add Client to Subscription' button.
You can view the subscriptions for a client or student on their profile page.
On the 'Charge Generate Date', ad hoc charges will be created for each client subscription you create. Multiple subscriptions can be added per client or student.
More information
Click here for more information on Ad Hoc Charges.
Click here for more information on Ad Hoc Charge Categories.
What's the difference between ad hoc charges & credit request items on subscriptions?
Using subscriptions is a great way to send a monthly charge to your client. Before doing so though, you should familiarize yourself with the two types of charge types that we have. These are ‘Credit Request Items’, as well as ‘Ad Hoc Charges’. We’re going to go into a little more detail on these two types of charges:
Credit Request Items: Similar to how normal credit requests work in TutorCruncher, this type of subscription would send a monthly charge to the client that would then be credited to their account. As lessons occur, those lessons would be invoiced for & their credit would be deducted.
Ad Hoc Charges: These types of charges are slightly different from credit request items. Rather than adding credit to a users account, this would be a one-off charge that would be for that month of usage.
How do I create a subscription?
All you need to do is add a specific set of users to a subscription. Then, on the date you have specified, charges will be created for all users on the list. If you specify a date after the 15th of the month, TutorCruncher will assume these charges are for the upcoming month. If you specify a date before the 15th of the month, TutorCruncher will assume these charges are for the previous month.
What if I create a subscription for the 31st of a month, will those charges still generate if a month doesn't have 31 days?
It will indeed! Charges would generate for the end of the month regardless of what date has been set on the Subscription.