Emails

Introduction

Advanced Billing has many configurable email settings for customizing this communication method. The settings include the ability to configure the cadence of various email types and templates which can be tailored to best meet the needs of your business. Each of these settings are accessed from the Email tab in the Settings menu in the Config section of the application.

Please see the section below on customizing HTML emails for more information.

We recommend customizing each email once you have enabled it, in order to present your Subscriber with the exact information you need. Only basic information has been built into the templates. We encourage you to craft thoughtful responses to your clients, as this is will be the first piece of information they receive upon signup, payment, etc.

HTML Emails

If you plan on using HTML layouts in your emails, we require that you read the following documentation here. It is critical to understand the required formatting for HTML in order for your email layouts to appear properly in Advanced Billing.

Emails Settings Enabled Per Product

When enabling email settings, you can specify who should receive emails – based on the products that they have purchased. Select products that will generate emails for the following types of emails:

Cancellation Emails
Card Expiration Emails
End of Trial Emails
Receipt Emails
Signup Emails
Upcoming Renewal Emails

ACH Authorization Agreement Email

This will only be visible in sites using Authorize.Net or Stripe with ACH enabled, and is used to send a copy of the agreement terms after the customer uses the self-service page to add a bank account.

Bank Account Verification Email

This will only be visible in sites using Stripe with ACH enabled, and is used to request that the customer visit a page to verify their bank account.

BCC Email Settings

The BCC Email Setting provides the option of bcc notification to one or multiple email addresses when a customer is notified via email. This setting can be toggled on or off and can be configured with multiple email addresses by listing them separated by commas.

Cancellation Emails

A confirmation of subscription cancellation can be automatically sent to customers via email. This setting can be configured for all products or for specific products. The email template can also be customized.

Card Expiration Emails

You can choose to have Advanced Billing notify your customers when their credit cards are about to expire. Customers will receive three notifications during the month of card expiration. The notifications will be sent on the 1st, 15th, and about a week before the end of the month.

Example body/content from card expiration emails

End of Trial Emails

Emails can be automatically sent to prospective customers who are using subscriptions in the form of a trial. You are able to set the number of days prior to the end of the trial for the end of trial email to be sent. The default setting is 3 days. This can be configured for all products or specific products. The end of trial email template is editable as well.

Invoice Email Template

By default, Advanced Billing provides your subscribers with a short summary of the contents of the actual invoice. The email template contains a link for your subscriber to view the invoice on an Advanced Billing-hosted Invoice Page.

Receipt Emails

You are able to configure if customers receive a receipt email upon occurrence of billing events. This can be set for all products or specific products. The template for the email sent to your customers can be customized as well.

Receipt emails will also be generated for external payments that are not processed through your gateway.

Advanced Billing enables email notifications upon subscription signup. Emailing the customer can be configured and set for all products or specific products. The template used for such notifications can also be customized. In addition to customer notifications, you also have the option of receiving an email notification to the primary email address for the Advanced Billing site. This can be set for all products or customized to apply only for specific products.

When you select "Emails to Me", you will only receive an email if "Emails to my Customers" is selected as well.

Select to email an alert to the merchant when a subscription is created and to email a customer a signup email

Upcoming Renewal Emails

Email settings can be configured for notifying customers of upcoming subscription renewal. This feature can be toggled on or off and the email template for these notifications can also be customized. The setting can be configured such that each product and product subscription period duration has a different email renewal timing. For example, you are able to set a different email renewal timing for annual subscriptions than monthly subscriptions.

To create a new email timing configuration, click on the ‘Add Custom Rule’ button. This will open a menu which will enable you to select a product and which email renewal periods (based on those enabled by the product’s price points) for which you want the new renewal email setting to apply. Enter the number of days for the renewal email timing setting and click ‘Save Rule’.

When “Upcoming Renewal Emails” is disabled the “upcoming renewal notice” event will be sent (default 3 days before renewal).

You can have multiple custom email rules for a given product:

If you want to notify a user 4, 6 and 10 days before the renewal
In such a situation we will send three emails and ‘upcoming renewal notice’ events for the same renewal date.
You can also specify rules by product price point
In such a situation we will send two renewal emails and two “upcoming renewal notice” for the “Gold” product and its monthly product price points.
If you have one specific custom email rule for a “Gold” product and one custom email rule for all products, we will ignore the “All Products” rule for the “Gold” product because specific product rules take priority. For the below settings only one email and “upcoming renewal notice” event will be sent for “Gold” product 6 days before renewal. For the rest of the products, an email and event will be sent 7 days before renewal.

If you have selected custom email rules, but previously you have modified the “send to subscribers of all products” value to 10 days, events will always be generated 10 days beforehand and not the default 3 but only for the products which do not have a custom email rule.

We have a few safety checks in place to ensure that subscriptions don’t receive duplicate or unnecessary renewal emails. These caveats are listed below:

We won’t send an “upcoming renewal notice” activity event and renewal email for a subscription whose next billing date is less than 18 hours. The reason for this is that notifications too close to renewal are less useful.
If you want to send an email to subscribers of all products, enable renewal emails and choose “Send to subscribers of all products (current and future)”. You can choose the number of days to send notifications.
- If the number of days is for example 5, an email and “upcoming renewal notice” event will be sent 5 days before renewal. For such settings, only one email and event is sent for each subscription’s renewal.
- If you change the number of days from 5 to 3 and an email was already sent for 5 days, the second email and event won’t be sent for the same renewal date again.
If you change your settings from “Send to subscribers of all products (current and future)” to “Send to subscribers of only the products I choose” or vice versa and an email was already sent for your old settings, we won’t send a second email and event for the same renewal date.
If you edit the email timing for a particular custom email rule, for example from 10 to 4 days, and an email was already sent for 10 days configuration we won’t send another email for the newly configured 4-day rule for the same renewal date.
For the settings below, we will send a renewal email and the “upcoming renewal notice” event for the “Gold” product and its “Every 1 month” product price points 6 days before renewal. For all other products, we will send only an “upcoming renewal notice” event.

Update Payment Request Emails

The email template sent to request that customers update their payment details can be customized. These emails are not automatically sent by Advanced Billing, but instead are sent at you request, such as via a subscription’s payment details page.

Select the option to edit the "update payment request" email

Direct Debit Instruction Email

You can customize the template for the Direct Debit Instruction emails. This will only be visible for sites using GoCardless with Becs NZ Scheme once enabled in the Settings/Direct Debit tab.

Note: for the list of supported Liquid variables, see the corresponding email template article.

Select the option to make Advanced Billing send the Direct Debit Instruction based on your email template

Select the option to edit the "Direct Debit Instruction" email

Preview of the "Direct Debit Instruction" email

Prepaid Subscription Payment Receipt Emails

This receipt email, if enabled, will send to prepaid subscriptions rather than the normal payment receipt email. It will only be available to Relationship Invoicing sites that have the prepaid subscriptions feature enabled.

Suspended Prepaid Subscription Emails

When a prepaid subscription becomes suspended because its prepayment balance has been deplenished, you can choose to send an email to notify the customer. It will only be available to Relationship Invoicing sites that have the prepaid subscriptions feature enabled.

Reactivated Prepaid Subscription Emails

When a prepaid subscription is reactivated from a suspended state, you can choose to send an email to notify the customer. It will only be available to Relationship Invoicing sites that have the prepaid subscriptions feature enabled.