Outstanding software for outstanding MSPs
CWTools specializes in creating useful utilites for the Connectwise Manage system
Connectwise Automated Late Fees Service
Finally! A system that automatically generates late fee invoices and/or agreement additions for past due customers. Completely automated and customizable.
You will see a dramatic improvement in payment receipts after activating this application. We originally wrote this application for in-house use 8 years ago. Immediately our slow paying customers started magically paying on time!! And we are hearing the same responses from other MSPs using this software.
Capabilities
Every 24 hours (user adjustable time) the service will search for all past due invoices in your Connectwise system and systematically create Miscellaneous late fee invoices for non-agreement past due invoices, and agreement additions for past due agreement invoices. This is user selectable, you can choose to only create miscellaneous invoices for all past due balances and not create agreement additions during configuration.
Configurable Parameters
There are numerous parameters you can set to configure the system exactly to your needs
Service Details
- The system runs as a service on any machine at your location – it is recommended to install it on a server or other machine that does not get powered off.
- Minimal resources required - the entire nightly process takes a few minutes.
- Grace periods can be set on a per customer basis or globally to allow for some "wiggle room"
- Individual customers can be "disabled" from the service (from within your Connectwise Manage) so no late fees are generated for them.
- The system can send an email “digest” each day that tells you what late fee invoices were created, jeopardy customers. grace period customers and more.
- All data required for the service is actually stored in your Connectwise system, no data of any kind (except the log) is stored on the machine running the service. This allows you to move the service to a difference machine if needed without losing any integrity of data or historical data required by the service.
- A new configuration type “Late Fee Service Info” is created by the setup application in your Connectwise system, the service then creates and uses these configurations under the past due customer’s accounts to store past due invoices and other data required by the service.
Late Fee Service FAQ
Subscription based with FREE TRIAL
The subscription is annual and costs only $189 per year. Conversion from free trial to subscription is built into the software setup application. Support is free for subscribed customers and trials.
A 15 day FULLY FUNCTIONAL free trial is built into the system. The subscription can be activated
on one system. The system will notify you via email when your subscription or trial is nearing expiration.
Testing with the Trial
There are two methods of testing the application in your environment:
Method 1 (Best - and most thorough)
-
All Connectwise installations include a “training” database. This documentation shows you how to quickly make your training database an exact copy of your production environment.
(You will need to login to the Connectwise University to access this doc):
Copy your production Connectwise data to your built-in training database
You can then point the Late Fees service to your training database to see exactly how the process works without touching your production system.
Method 2 (Easier but doesn't update your Connectwise System')
- Alternatively, you can point this application to your production system and simply set Test Mode to TRUE in the setup app to avoid any changes to your Connectwise system. The system will run normally, and the email report will show you everything that WOULD HAVE happened in your Connectwise system. It is important to note that when using this method, every subsequent run of the service will produce the same email report since the system is not storing the required data to your Connectwise system and therefore does not know which late fee invoices have been processed
Built-in Setup Application
Daily Email Report with CSV File
At the end of each nightly run, the system generates a complete HTML email report that is sent to the email addresses you specify during setup.
The report shows which invoices are in the various stages of past due:
- GRACE PERIOD - The invoice is within the grace period you specified. For important information about grace periods see the Late Fee Service FAQ
- JEOPARDY status - The invoice has past its due date, but is not yet 30 days past due (we generate late fees only after an invoice is 30 days past due per standard monthly finance charge accounting principles)
- DISABLED late fee customers - Each customer can have late fees set to ENABLED or DISABLED for their account. The DISABLED section shows the late fee invoices as if they had been created, but in reality no late fees are assessed when a customer is set to DISABLED.
- BELOW MINIMUM AMOUNT - During setup you can specify a minimum amount for late fees, any late fees below this amount will appear in this section of the report but late fees are not actually assessed.
- CONVERTED TO MISC - Normally - assuming you have Agreement Addition creation set to TRUE, all past due AGREEMENT invoices will assess the late fees on the next agreement invoice. The system does this by creating a new ADDITION under the agreement with all of the late fee details. This way the late fees show up on their normal monthly agreement invoices. However, should and agreement get cancelled, expired or disabled for some reason, there would be no more agreement invoices created for that agreement so the customer would never see the late fee charges. In this case, or in the case of an agreement being set to something other than monthly billing, the system will create a Miscellaneous invoice for the late fee charges instead of an agreement addition. These are called CONVERTED TO MISC late fee charges.
- INVOICES PAID SINCE LAST RUN - Self-explanatory. Displays any invoices that were past due that have been paid since the porevious run of the service.
- CSV File - Each email report will also have a csv file attached that has the same data in csv format. These CSV files can also be found in the Connectwise Late Fee Service Logs folder on the root level of the C drive.
Daily Email Report - New Late Fee Invoices Created
Daily Email Report - New Late Fee Agreement Additions
Daily Email Report - Other Helpful Categories for tracking late fees
Requirements
- Connectwise 2020.4 or later is required. This application utilizes the Connectwise REST API - no database access is required.
- .NET 4.7.2 or later is required on the machine running this software (Windows 10, Server 2012 or newer recommended ) NET 4.7.2 is a free download from Microsoft if not already installed on your system.
- The installer includes a setup application that lets you configure the service for your environment. The built-in setup application makes setup easy. You will be up and running in about 10 minutes.
Creates Misc Invoices OR Additions to Agreement Invoices - automatically!
- Late fees can be set to "CONSOLIDATED" which allows multiple late fees for a customer to be combined to a single late fee invoice.
- Late fees can be set to "SEPARATED" which will generate a separate late fee invoice for each past due invoice.
- Agreement additions are created for past due agreement invoices so that any late fees are included on their next agreement invoice.
- If an agreement is cancelled, expired, or set to a non-monthly billing, the system will automatically create a Miscellaneous Late Fee Invoice (instead of an agreement addition) to ensure the customer receives the late fee charges.
