How to Issue Bulk Credits & Adjustments for Customers Who Can’t Pay– Webcast Recording, Slides & FAQ

[Zuora-Community]

For customers struggling to pay, you may need to issue them a credit or adjustment to help them cope with the current COVID-19 situation.  Companies across many industries have seen a spike in subscribers that can’t make payments, resulting in the need for large volumes of credits and refunds.  The challenge is, it’s difficult for finance departments to issue these balance adjustments without spending time manually processing each one. That simply won’t scale fast enough with this situation.

If you are facing this challenge, learn how other companies are using Zuora’s tools to do bulk updates for credits and refunds.  Not only will it ensure a longer term customer relationship, it also saves your team from being consumed by repetitive manual work.

On Thursday, April 2nd, Zuora hosted the second topic in our series of webcasts and open office hours on strategies and tactics for scaling customer engagement during the COVID-19:

How to Issue Bulk Credits and Adjustments for Customers Who Can’t Pay

Over 100 customer attendees joined experts from our customer success, global implementation, and Subscribed Institute strategy teams to demo best practices, answer questions, and facilitate peer-to-peer discussions.  Attendees got the opportunity to:

• Learn how to immediately take advantage of the bulk credits and refunds capabilities in Zuora
• Hear from subscription experts on the most effective way to make these adjustments
• Connect with peer subscription companies who are facing the same challenge and learn how they are addressing it

We started with a 30-minute general session presentation on the subject, and then broke out into smaller "rooms" for further discussion and Q&A.

Here you'll find:

• The slides that were presented in the general session
• The recording of the general session
• A written Q&A doc on the topic, summarizing questions that were asked and answered during and following the session (in comment below)

Thank you to those who took part, and we hope this was a useful topic and format for you.  Please let us know any feedback.

Stay safe and well!

Presentation Slides

Video Recording

[Zuora-Community]

Q&A: How to Issue Bulk Credits & Adjustments for Customers Who Can’t Pay

Credit balance feature

Q: How can we enable credit balance?

A: Submit a ticket to support@zuora.com to enable this feature

Credit Strategy

Q: How are customers handling COVID-19?

A: Customers are providing discounts, credits to invoices, subscriptions, giving a free month, providing extended net terms on future invoices.

Invoice Adjustment vs Invoice Item Adjustment

Q: What is the difference between Invoice Adjustment and Invoice Item Adjustments?

A: Invoice Adjustments is deprecated, please do not use!! It will not create revenue schedules to offset revenue. Invoice Item Adjustments will create revenue schedules for each invoice item on the adjusted line item.

Credits in masse

Q: How can we issue credits in masse?

A: You can use API, Workflow, mass order entry, and Developer Tools

Q: Accounting code updates to bad debt, can it be done in bulk? As masse action for multiple credits?

A: Yes, you can use Workflow to do this, API call out, Developer Tools

Invoice Item Adjustments

Q: How do we add the charge back to the invoice after it was written off?

A: When creating an invoice item adjustment, if you do not see a charge box next to the credit box, then submit a ticket to support@zuora.com to have this feature enabled. The Enable Counter Item and Credit Balance Adjustments feature. Once added, you will enter the amount in the charge box, which will add the line item amount back to the invoice and you can collect payment. You do not have to re-open any accounting periods.

Q: How do I change the accounting code during an invoice item adjustment to a bad debt account?

A: First, you must add the bad debt account in the Finance settings > Manage chart of Accounts. Next, during the invoice item adjustment, under the Actions, click on edit link, you can then select the bad debt accounting code from the drop down menu, then save.

Q: How do I create a reason code for COVID-19 for my invoice item adjustment?

A: Click into your payment settings > Reason Codes > Select Invoice item adjustments from the dropdown menu > Click on add new reason code > enter the name of your new reason code and save. Now when you create an invoice item adjustment, you will be able to select this reason code from the drop down menu.

Credit Memo/Credit Balance Application

Q: Does a credit memo auto apply on the next payment run or must it be manually applied
?

A: In the payment run, you must check the box to apply the unapplied credit memo or credit balance to the next invoice before attempting electronic payment. You can not use this for external payments.

Q: Can you change the Accounting Code when creating a Credit Memo?

A: First, you must add the bad debt account in the Finance settings > Manage chart of Accounts. Next, during the credit memo creation, you will create and save. Then, under the Actions, click on edit link, you can then select the bad debt accounting code from the drop down menu, then post.

Revenue 

Q: 
If we create a credit balance using a negative 1x charge, how do we recognize revenue across the remaining term of the agreement?

A: You will need to create a revenue rule for the one time charge> Select daily over time > start recognizing revenue on the invoice item start date and stop recognizing revenue on the subscription end date, enter the remaining settings and save. Apply it to the one time charge.

One Time charge - Revenue over term

Invoice Split 

Q: How does Invoice Split feature work?

A: Splitting an invoice lets a customer spread out payments for a single invoice across multiple invoices. You can split an original draft invoice into multiple invoices, allocating all original charges across the new invoices on a percentage basis of your choosing. This capability is useful if you have a large original invoice that you agree to let a customer pay in several installments.

Q: Does invoice split work for Evergreen subscriptions?

A: Yes, invoice split works for terms and evergreen subscriptions

Refunds

Q: Do I refund on a credit memo or the original payment?

A: You can refund on the original payment or the credit memo. If you receive an error message on the original payment, you will need to check with your Gateway for refund timelines. If the time has passed to process the refund, you may have to process the refund as a check or if the gateway allows you to directly process the refund in the Gateway, you can then complete the refund with the Gateway and enter as an external refund in Zuora with the details and reference ID they provide you.

Q: What is an external refund and electronic refund?

A: Electronic refund is processed through the Gateway/Banks electronically. External refunds do not pass through the Gateway/Banks and must be sent through manually such as a check.

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