Mid-month assignments or changes to a client's account for any monthly items will first appear on the client's monthly bill the following monthly billing cycle. "Monthly items" include: monthly billing plans, recurring fees, and storage. The client will not be automatically charged for the current month for anything assigned mid-month.

Billing plans are how your clients pay for their time in the kitchen. When a kitchen manager assigns a billing plan to a new client for the first time, or changes a client's current billing plan, this assignment will retroactively update the Current Billing Plan to be effective the 1st of the current month. That means if you assign a client to a 60-hour Time Based Plan on February 15th, for example, the client will have the full 60 hours to use through the end of February. The system will track their hours accordingly, so if the client books over 60 hours, the overage hours will be aggregated and appear on the March monthly bill. 

Important: Changing or assigning a current billing plan will not result in an automatic retroactive charge for that plan amount this month. Similarly, any charges that the client had previously been billed for during the current month (i.e. hourly bookings or a different monthly billing plan) will not automatically be credited back.

So for instance, if a client is on a credit-based plan, then on the 9th of the month you switch them to Hourly, the bookings they made between the 1st and the 9th of that month will not be billed for.

If you wish to charge the client for the new monthly plan assignment for this month, you have a few options:

1) Add a custom one-time fee to their account for the full or prorated amount of their billing plan and/or new monthly fees. For example, if a new client starts on the 15th of the month and you want to assign them a $350/month billing plan and $50/month dry storage, you could assign a prorated custom fee of $200 (half of the full amount) to represent the remaining 15 days in the month. You can also do this for existing clients switching to a new plan. Just note that any overage will be based on the full hours/credit of the plan, so you may wish to review their monthly bill created on the 1st to make any adjustments.

2) Assign the client to Hourly for the remainder of the month. This is a great option for new clients when they first sign up with you. You can set them to the Hourly billing plan when you approve them as a client, and then set their monthly billing plan to start next month. You can update this with the Edit Client option. With this method, the client will pay as they go the same day of their booking (Hourly billing plan), for the remainder of the month. They will be assigned and charged for their monthly billing plan at the beginning of the next month. This prevents you from prorating time and will ensure you charge them accurately for the time they rent.

When monthly bills are generated on the 1st of the month, The Food Corridor looks at the billing plan a client was last assigned to for the previous month, and the amount of hours they booked, to calculate the total to be billed.
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If changing the rate on a credit-based plan, or the hours or overage rates on a time-based plan, we recommend creating a new billing plan with the new hours/rate, and assigning the new plan to the client as the "Next Month's Billing Plan" before the 1st.

Doing this will calculate the overage for the previous month per the previous hours/rates, and reflect the new price/hours moving forward starting on the 1st. Once billing takes place on the monthly billing date, the kitchen manager can delete the billing plan with the old hours/rate.

Mid-month assignments/changes to a client's account for storage and recurring fees work the same as above. The system will recognize that the storage and/or fee is now assigned to the client, but it will not begin charging the client for these recurring items until the 1st of the following month. If you wish to charge the client for these recurring items now for the current month, you will need to add a custom one-time fee for the prorated or full amount.
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Starting on the 1st of the following month and moving forward, the client's monthly billing plan, assigned storage, and assigned recurring fees will take effect as usual on the monthly bill as prepayments for that month.

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Note: One-time fees that are added to a client's account will be automatically billed to the client's payment method at midnight. If you need to assign a custom one-time fee or credit, go to Clients > Client profile > Fees/Credits > Add Fee/Credit > Custom.
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