The Billing Lifecycle¶

Updated 7 November 2026

This page explains what PNLCS does on its own, on a schedule, without you lifting a finger — how a service goes from active to renewed, or from unpaid to suspended to terminated.

The settings named below are on Setup → General Settings: the Invoices, Automatic Payment and Late Fees cards on the Invoicing tab, the Automation card on the Automation tab.

Recurring billing¶

Each active service has a next due date. Raise renewal invoices (days before due) (Invoices card, default 14) before that date, PNLCS generates a renewal invoice and emails it to the customer. One invoice per customer collects everything of theirs that falls due in the same run: services, addons and domains. Renewals on different dates are invoiced on their own days, so a customer can get several small invoices. The invoice is due after Default payment due (days) (default 14), so with the defaults it falls due on the service's due date.

With Invoice each renewal separately ticked, each service (with its own addons), each domain and each lone addon gets an invoice of its own, so a customer can renew one and let another lapse.

One invoice a month¶

Set Consolidated billing day to a day of the month (1–28) to bill each customer once a month instead. On that day everything due before the same day next month, plus the lead above, goes on one invoice per customer. With the 1st and 0 days, the invoice raised on 1 December covers everything renewing in December; with the 1st and 31 days it covers January too, so customers pay a month ahead. Between billing days PNLCS raises only what would otherwise be invoiced late, such as a service ordered since the last billing day, at the usual lead.

No renewal invoice is raised for a service whose customer turned auto-renew off, or that has a cancellation request waiting. Paying the renewal invoice moves the service's next due date on by one billing cycle.

Supported cycles: monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, annually, biennially, triennially.

Payment reminders¶

Unpaid invoices get reminder emails at fixed points: 7, 3 and 1 day before the due date, and 1, 3, 7 and 30 days after it. There is no setting for these. Each invoice remembers the last reminder it got, so a reminder is never sent twice; if the scheduler missed a day, the next run sends the latest reminder due.

Overdue → Suspend → Terminate¶

If an invoice isn't paid:

1. Overdue — the day after its due date, an unpaid or partially paid invoice is marked overdue, and the reminders after the due date go out.
2. Auto-suspend — once the invoice has been overdue for more than Suspend after (days overdue) (Automation card, default 3), the customer's active services are suspended on the server (the site goes offline, the account still exists). By default this suspends every active service of that customer, not only the one on the invoice; tick Suspend only the services on the overdue invoice to suspend just those (the service, its overage and its addons). To hold one service back, set Do not suspend until on the service's page.
3. Auto-terminate — off by default. With Automatically terminate services suspended for non-payment ticked, a service that has been suspended for Terminate after (days suspended) (default 30) while the customer still has an overdue invoice is terminated (the account and its data are deleted). A service staff suspended by hand is left alone; only a suspension made by auto-suspend counts. php artisan pnlcs:auto-terminate --dry-run lists what it would terminate.

A product can keep its own periods. Suspend after (days overdue) and Terminate after (days suspended) on the product's edit page (Product details card) override the general settings for its services; left empty, the Automation card applies. A product with its own terminate after is terminated on that schedule even while automatic termination is off for the rest.

Once the customer has paid, a service suspended for non-payment is automatically unsuspended within 30 minutes, provided nothing on it is still unpaid and the customer has no other invoice overdue past the suspension grace period. A bank-transfer notice that moves an invoice to Payment Pending is not a payment: the service stays suspended until the money is in.

While a service is suspended the customer can still open it and download what is theirs, but the panel login, the module buttons and the hosting tabs are refused.

Late fees¶

You can add a late fee to overdue invoices (Late Fees card). Charge: Do not charge late fees (the default), A fixed amount, or A percentage of the invoice (of what its lines add up to, after discounts and before any credit), with the Amount and Days overdue before charging (default 3). The fee is added once per invoice, as an untaxed line.

Auto-renew and automatic payment¶

Services and domains auto-renew unless the customer turns it off: PNLCS raises the renewal invoice, and the customer pays it.

PNLCS charges a stored card only when Automatic Payment is switched on (Automatic Payment card; off by default). Then, every morning, each unpaid invoice due within Charge this many days before the due date (default 3), or already past due however old, is charged to the customer's stored card, at most Attempts per invoice (default 3) times, Days between attempts (default 3) apart. It works with cards stored through Stripe, iyzico or PayPal, and never for a customer who turned Automatic payment off on their Payment Methods page. The invoice of a new order (paid at checkout), Draft, Payment Pending and Collections invoices are never charged. php artisan pnlcs:auto-charge --dry-run shows what the next run would charge.

Cancellations¶

A customer can ask to cancel a service, Immediate or at the End of Billing Period. The nightly run ends the service on the day the request asks for (terminating the account on its server) and marks it Cancelled.

Refunds¶

You can refund a paid invoice — fully or partially — through the original gateway or offline for bank transfers. The invoice moves to Refunded (or back to Partially Paid) and the money is returned via the gateway.

What runs when¶

Full list and command names: Scheduled Commands.

You're always in control¶

Every automated action can also be done manually from the admin panel — create an invoice, mark it paid, suspend a service, issue a refund, accept an order. Automation just handles the routine so you don't have to.