Recurring Payment
Requirement for implementing a custom solution to process recurring payments every month. BigRig requires the ability to set up recurring payment details such as the amount, duration (in months), and specific dates for processing the payments. These recurring payments should be automatically applied to open invoices on the specified date for the designated number of months as specified by the customer
Deliverable
We will develop a custom record to capture recurring payment details for customers.At the body level, the custom record will include the following fields:
- Customer
- Subsidiary – Automatically populated based on the customer’s selection.
- Location – automatically populated based on the customer’s selection.
- Payment Recurring Month: This value will determine the monthly recurrence interval for this payment.
- Payment Recurring Date: This date will be used to create payment records and debit the recurring amount. It will trigger the scheduled process for applying the amount to the respective invoices. Authorized personnel will have the flexibility to edit this date, and it will fall within the date range of 1 to 28.
- Payment Method: Select the payment method for this payment.
- Total Recurring Amount: The sum of amount due for the invoices.
At the line level, the custom record will feature the following fields:
- Invoice: This field will capture the Invoice document number.
- Original Amount: The total amount of the invoice each month.
- Amount Due: The due amount for that Invoice.
- Apply: A check box to initiate the recurring process for each invoices separately.
- Payment Details: A text field that will display the history of recurring payments. This field will be non-editable.
The managing role assigned to the recurring payment process will have view and edit permissions for this custom record. Upon creation, the authorized personnel can input the Payment Recurring Date, Recurring month, customer details, etc.
After saving the record, a scheduled functionality will run on the specified day each month. It will create payment records and apply the corresponding recurring amounts based on the “Total Recurring Amount” to their respective invoices. The distribution of amounts among invoices for each customer will depend on the recurring month and the total recurring amount.
For instance, if Customer A has 5 invoices listed, each with a total recurring amount of 5000 (resulting in 1000 amount due per invoice), and a recurring period set to 5 months, a monthly process will generate payment records totalling 1000. These amounts will then be evenly distributed among the 5 invoices in the payment record, allocating 200 to each. Consequently, after 5 months, all these invoices will be paid in full.
Invoices will be fully applied by the end of this recurring period. Any invoices that are not fully applied will remain open or partially applied until the next recurring record creation, allowing for continuous processing and application of payments.
Additionally, there is an option to stop the recurring process for a specific invoice. Authorized personnel can uncheck the “Apply” checkbox to suspend the recurring functionality. By default, upon the creation of the recurring record, this checkbox will be checked and editable. Consequently, in the subsequent months, the recurring process will not be triggered for invoices with this option unchecked, allowing for flexibility in managing recurring payments.
By using this checkbox, we will be flagging the listed invoices from the custom record. If a user creates another record for the same customer, the invoices will be displayed based on this flag. If the invoices are already listed, they will not appear in the newly created custom record. Therefore, the checkbox will determine the validation for displaying the invoice lists.
Once the recurring payments reach the limits defined by the history and the specified number of periods, the process will not be initiated further.
If BigRig needs to initiate a new recurring process for the customer, authorized personnel will be required to create a new record for that specific customer. The payment records will only be generated for the invoices listed within the custom record, ensuring that the recurring process is tailored to the selected invoices only.
Assumptions
The proposed solution is based on the following assumptions.
- Custom Record Management: The custom record will be exclusively managed by the authorized person, granting them full control over its contents and settings.
- Flexibility of Recurring Date: The recurring date can be modified as needed, allowing for adjustments based on changing requirements or preferences.
- Invoice Selection Criteria: The solution will consider only open and partially applied invoices for processing, ensuring that outstanding payment obligations are appropriately addressed.
- Invoice Currency: The invoices will be issued in a single currency, eliminating the need for currency conversion during the payment application process.
- Customer-Specific Functionality.
- Open Invoice Status: Invoices that are not processed on each run will remain open until the next recurring date, allowing for subsequent payment application.
- Time Period for Processing: Invoices processed or considered for payment allocation will be within the period of one month from the past recurring date to the current recurring date.
- Upon the creation of the payment record, it will trigger the payment gateway integration. This integration will capture the respective amounts within the payment gateway and subsequently update the payment status accordingly.
- If any errors occur during the process of applying the amount to the invoice record, the recurring process will not continue until the invoice status is changed to “paid in full”. It will halt when the recurring month interval is completed as per the custom record.
- The “Total Recurring Payment” field will be non-editable, and its value will be automatically calculated based on the selected invoices for recurring, considering the “Apply” checkbox value. This value serves as an indicator to inform the user that this payment record will utilize this much total amount in the specified monthly intervals. It is for informational purposes to highlight the expected payment consumption.
- All the fields inside the custom record will not be editable.