Hey I am looking for a BC replacement that bills the clients directly like BC did. I don’t want to be in the middle. I don’t really want to white label. I prefer set and forget! Treepl is looking good so far, but I can’t find any documentation on how clients are billed for their site subscriptions. Help?
Hi @Elle. Welcome to the forum.
Currently, Treepl doesn’t bill direct to the client - only to Partner. There have been discussions on this topic but not sure if or when this feature might come.
If you’re not interested in the billing side of it, perhaps you can find an existing Partner and make an arrangement with them regarding site management/billing???
https://treepl.co/treepl-partners-directory
Hello @Elle,
We have several ideas for direct billing (like customizable commissions with distributed payments) and we’re happy to implement them within 1-2 sprints if we get enough requests for that feature from the community.
Ok, billing through another partner will just look amateur. Bummer because I’m not finding any other BC alternative that suits my needs. I suppose there’s no reason I can’t set the client up as a free partner, right? That would be my next option. Also while I’m here, you don’t have billing in AUD? If I have to recoup the monthly fee from my clients, it would be good to have a fixed amount in my currency.
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@Alex. I want to add my vote in favour of the option for Treepl to charge clients cards directly.
BC’s direct billing is a very successful model for us for many reasons. Most especially because it properly defines the relationships. i.e.
- the client is ultimately responsible to maintain a valid card/payments to retain their live site.
- the platform is responsible for ensuring uptime and maintaining the technology.
- the partner provides help and support to the client which is a ‘value added’ service that’s appreciated by clients and can be separately billed. If something goes wrong on the site/platform, the client see us as being the solution to the problem. “Not the cause of the problem”. (But if client is paying us for Treepl Service then they’ll blame us when things go wrong). This completely changes the dynamic of the relationship.
BC charges all our clients cards directly. We bill clients a separate monthly fee for “helpdesk support service” (providing client up to 1hr phone support per month then hourly rate for any excess hours). This works really well for everyone.
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I agree, and this is shaping up to be a deal breaker for us.
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@on.works @Elle
We can add this feature within one sprint. Like adding ability for an Admin user to pay for the site (partner will be able to enable and disable it for a particular role/admin user).
Also, just FYI, Treepl Partners have an exclusive feature that allows suspending the site and make it look like a “system block” already: https://prnt.sc/ozj92y . We can expand it a little bit as well and provide a link to a payment form on the both soft and hard suspend pages.
Currently, we just don’t see it this request in public backlog but since we now have a request from an existing Treepl Partner (@on.works), we could have this item created @Peter-Schmidt?
Sure @alex 
Added here: https://treepl.co/public-backlog-state/request/bill-clients-directly
– Very “basic” now, so please let me know if you guys have specific requests I should add
@alex
I agree with this feature request completely. I was also a BC partner that always directed my clients to pay Adobe directly for the same reasons @on.works pointed out. In the meantime, what do you recommend for a billing system?
@JasonDunlap @Elle @alex … Here’s what we’re doing to deal with the issue (this solves things to a point although not a perfect solution). Take a look at our pricing page. You’ll note we separate Treepl subscription plans (USD) vs monthly support etc (NZD).
Here’s how it works (and where it doesn’t):
The ‘purchase plan’ options are subscription buttons created in PayPal. These will charge the client card in USD and setup auto recurring charges for the yearly or monthly cycle. Transactions go to our PayPal USD currency balance which directly offsets the USD outgoing payments to Treepl.
The upsides:
- We can be assured of USD coming in, relative to USD going out to Treepl.
- We don’t wear any currency fluctuation (a potentially volatile risk with the trade war ya’ll are sick of winning).
- It separates CMS billing as a remote fixed cost that’s not open to negotiation. This enables the client to consider our NZ charges on face value and merit without Treepl costs shifting the value proposition.
- If they don’t pay (e.g. card expires or whatever) and service is restricted then that’s a problem we can help them solve rather than being a problem they perceive we caused them.
So, essentially, this allows us to continue the model we had with BC. (Almost!).
But…
The downsides:
The big problem that I’m yet to fully resolve is GST. Being NZ based selling to NZ clients we need to charge GST (which is no problem in and of itself). But this requires providing a receipt to the client itemised with GST for the NZD total that the credit card was charged. PayPal doesn’t tell us what that amount is. We only know the USD amount and the forex rate on the day. Invariably the calculated total will not precisely match the transaction total. There’s also the issue of how we make this all reconcile in Xero. I’m yet to find the best way to handle it. Work in progress.
Again, we’re open to suggestions.
I’ve gone through entire public backlog yesterday with the team and we still didn’t find this request there.
Perhaps this is something partners could discuss at upcoming Treehouse meeting next week.
Hi Guys
So the link posted earlier in the thread has been working all the time. But when I added this item I forgot to put in in the “request” folder, so it was not visible on the page, but only via the direct link in the thread. So please go vote
https://treepl.co/public-backlog-state/request/bill-clients-directly
Hi Guys, I just found this thread and added a vote on the wish list, but it seems that noone else has. So maybe those that expressed an interest above could follow the link and vote?
https://treepl.co/public-backlog-state/request/bill-clients-directly
Thanks
Garrett