Revision as of 11:04, 24 July 2013

Adding a Client

To add a new client, go to Clients > Add New Client. You will then be presented with the Add New Client form. You can choose whether or not to send the client a welcome info email using the tick box at the bottom of the page.

Adding a Contact

To add a new contact, begin by locating the client in your WHMCS and entering their Clients Summary page and then click on the Contacts tab. If they already have existing contacts setup, the first of these will be shown - in this case, you need to choose Add New from the dropdown menu. If they don't have any contacts setup then you can just proceed with entering the details of the new contact. Clients can also manage contacts from the client area themselves.

The minimum required fields are First & Last Name and Email Address. All the other fields are optional and the Email Notification checkboxes allow you to set which email categories the contact should receive copies of. Once completed, simply click the Add Contact button to complete the process.

Note: Support contacts do not receive copies of all support tickets. Support contacts can open tickets themselves via email and will only receive emails when an admin replies to a ticket they opened.

Sub-Accounts

An extension of the Contacts feature, Sub-Accounts allow clients to create sub-users under their main account, which then allows that contact to login, and carry out various actions that the main account holder has permitted them to. Refer to the Sub-Accounts Guide for more information.

Setting a Billing Contact

A billing contact is used where the name/address an invoice should be sent to differs from the main account and/or the name/address of the card holder that will be paying the invoice is different (if using a merchant gateway). A billing contact is setup in the normal way as above and then from the main profile area for that client, in the Default Billing Contact you need to select the contact which you've setup for the purpose.

Disable Notices

There are situations where you may want to disable overdue email notices for certain clients. You can do this in WHMCS from the client profile tab by ticking the "Don't Send Overdue Emails" checkbox. The Invoice Payment Reminder prior to the due date will still send, but this will surpress the First, Second & Third Overdue Invoice Notice email messages.

Billing Preferences

There are a number of billing related settings that can be set on a per client basis. These are set from the Client Profile tab also. The options consist of the following:

• Late Fees - ticking this box will prevent any late fees being applied to invoices that become overdue for this client
• Tax Exempt - ticking this box will stop any tax rules from being applied to invoices generated for this client
• Separate Invoices - Enabling this option will mean that items due on the same date and via the same payment method will not be automatically grouped together into a single invoice as would normally happen. You might use this for example with resellers where they won't always want to renew every product they have.
• Disable CC Processing - Enabling this option will prevent invoices for this client due via a merchant gateway from being automatically attempted for capture - leaving the client to login and make payment manually for all invoices even with a credit card stored on file
• Payment Method - This option can be used to perform a client wide update to all products/services, addons, domains & unpaid invoices of the default payment method that they are set to both now and in the future.
  Note: In version 4.5 making a selection here will change the default payment method of items and return the dropdown to no selection, not retain the selection you make.

Changing a Clients Status

Rather than deleting a user you would normally just change the users status for record keeping purposes. To do this, go to the Profile tab of the client you wish to change and then select the status you want in the dropdown box. Then click the Save Changes button to save the new status.

• Active - Can login and has active services
• Inactive - Can login but has no active services currently
• Closed - No active services and cannot login to the client area

Please note: The clients status does not stop invoicing if their packages status is still active

Automatic Status Changing

In WHMCS 5.1.2 and above any client account with no products, addons or domains active will have their account automatically set to Inactive by the cron job. This does not stop the user logging in, opening a ticket or paying any due invoices.

Furthermore, in WHMCS v5.2 and above, this can be further extended to include clients who have not logged in to the client area for three months, or it can be switched off entirely via Setup > Automation Settings.

An active product or addon is defined as being in Active or Suspended state. An active domain is Active or Pending-Transfer.

Should the client purchase a product domain or addon, then on the next cron run, their status would automatically be set to Active again.

Client Files

• The files section in a clients profile allows you to upload files specific to that customer
• This can be used for documents, agreements or other downloads specific to the individual
• Files can be set as Admin Only to only be viewed by admins, otherwise they show on the Client Area Homepage for the client to be able to download
• Files are uploaded to the /attachments directory and can be added and managed from the Client Summary page in the admin area

Managing Credit

You may want to add credit to a client if they overpay one month or if you have some downtime which you want to provide credit for. With WHMCS, you can give the client a credit balance and when their next invoice is generated, this credit will be automatically applied to it. If the credit is enough to cover the entire invoice, the invoice is automatically marked paid. Otherwise, the total amount due is just decreased by the required amount.

Issuing Credit to a Client

1. Begin by going to the Clients Summary page for the client you wish to add Credit to
2. On the Actions section, click the link "Manage Credits"
3. In the popup window that is displayed, click the Add Credit button
4. Enter a description for the credit for your records and the amount of credit to add and click "Save Changes"
5. The credit will be added to the clients balance and credit entry shown on the credits list

Removing Credit from a Client

1. Begin by going to the Clients Summary page for the client you wish to add Credit to
2. On the Actions section, click the link "Manage Credits"
3. In the popup window that is displayed, click the Remove Credit button
4. Enter a reason for removing the credit for your records and the amount of credit to remove (a positive number) and click "Save Changes"
5. The credit will be removed from the clients balance and entry shown on the credits list

Automatic Credit

Credit is added automatically when a user overpays an invoice. A common cause of this is when the client sets up more than 1 PayPal Subscription. This will appear in the log as "Credit for Overpayment of Invoice #xxxx"

Reviewing Credit Logs

If you want to see why a client has been given credit, you need to click the Manage Credit link from the Actions panel on the Client Summary page. You will then see a list of credit log entries for the selected client. You have the option to delete entries if you wish and they will then be deducted from the credit balance.

Credit Card Billing

If the client pays by credit card, then a credit card may be stored on their account unless they chose for it not to be. To check if you have card details on file, from the client summary screen click Manage Credit Card Information in the Actions panel. If a card is stored you will instantly see the card type, last 4 digits, expiry date and issue number/start date (if applicable).

Adding a New Card

You can replace the existing card stored for a client or add one if none is already stored on this page at the bottom. Simply enter the card details (card issue and start date are optional) and click Save Changes.

Viewing Full Card Number

If you need to view the full card number, then on this screen you will see a heading named this with a box below asking for the CC Encryption Hash. This is the random hash key used for your install which you can find in the configuration.php file. Enter the hash there to confirm you are authorized and click submit for it to reload showing the full number.

Removing Card Details

If you would like to remove card details from a client, simply click the Clear Details button located at the bottom right of the screen.

Password Resets

• If a client forgets their password, they can click the Forgotten Password link on the login form to begin the reset process
• After entering their email address they will be sent an email with a confirmation link to confirm they are actually the one who requested the reset. The reset link is valid for 2 hours from the time of request
• When they click the link in the email their password is reset to a random value and the new password is emailed to them. If they didn't request the reset they are advised to simply ignore the email and not click the link.
• Admins can also issue a new password in 2 ways:
  1. On the Client Summary, Profile or Contact Pages, click the Reset & Send Password link to automatically generate a new password and email it to the client
  2. Or alternatively, you can change their password to a specific new value on the Profile Page where it says "Enter to change"

Merging Clients

Merging clients combines 2 separate client accounts in WHMCS into one. This merges everything relating to the 2 separate entities into one including but not limited to products, invoices, transactions, tickets, etc...

Merge Clients Popup

1. Begin by locating the first of the clients you want to merge
2. Click the Merge Client Accounts link on the Client Summary page
3. In the popup that appears, you will be asked to enter the Client ID. If you don't know the client's ID the Search field can be used to search by name, company or email address. Click the client's name and the ID will be filled in.
4. After specifying the second client, you can choose which profile you want to keep, so either merge into the first client, or second client - this determines which profile data is kept - ie. name, email address, etc...
5. Once happy, click the submit button to complete the process

Deleting a Client

Deleting a client removes everything related to that client from the WHMCS database except for transactions. They are considered income that isn't being refunded just because the client is being removed. To delete the client, begin by clicking the Clients tab on the Administration Menu Bar. Browse for the client you wish to delete and click their name to enter the Clients Summary page. From here, click Delete Client in red from the Quick Links section of the summary page. You will be asked to confirm you want to delete the user and after confirming the user will be removed and you will be returned to the Clients List. Should you wish to remove their transactions aswell, you should do this before deleting the client from the Transactions tab.

Client Display Format

The way you want to refer to and see your clients will often differ depending on whether you are a primarily B2C or B2B enterprise. So WHMCS let's you choose the exact format you want to use in Setup > General Settings > Other using the Admin Client Display Format option. The choices consist of:

• Show first name/last name only - eg. Joe Bloggs
• Show company name if set, otherwise first name/last name - eg. Demo Company
• Show full name & company if set eg. Joe Bloggs (Demo Company)