Overview

Every product and every order in BillPro has a purchase type. It decides how the customer pays: once, in instalments, on a recurring schedule, or by usage.

For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt

The four purchase types

Purchase type	How the customer pays	Order ends	Use it for
Single payment	The full price, in one payment. With Pre-authorise, the amount is reserved first and captured later.	After the payment, or when you capture or reverse the reserved amount	One-off purchases, deposits and reservations
Instalment	An optional deposit, then equal payments on a schedule until the balance is paid	When the balance is paid	Larger purchases paid off over time
Subscription	A fixed price at a regular interval, such as monthly or yearly	When it's cancelled or marked complete	Memberships and ongoing services
Metered	Any amount, whenever you charge it, based on usage	When you mark it complete	Usage-based services, billed by the hour or unit

Instalment, subscription and metered orders always save the customer's card, so BillPro can charge later payments. A single payment order saves the card only if you turn on Save Card Details.

The purchase types you can use are set for your merchant in Processing Details on your profile. See Configure BillPro with CardCorp.

Purchase types on products and orders

You set a purchase type in two places, for different reasons.

On the product, the purchase type is the default way you sell it. You choose it when you create the product, together with its price and, for instalments and subscriptions, its schedule. Setting it on the product means your team doesn't have to repeat the same terms in every order. See Create your product catalogue.

On the order, the purchase type is how this customer actually pays. It comes from the first product you add, and the order form then shows the options for that type. You can adjust the terms for one customer without changing the product:

Locks decide what you can change. If the product's price isn't locked, you can change the amount in the order. If an instalment product's payment configuration or a subscription's charge interval isn't locked, you can change the schedule too. Lock them on the product when every order must use the same terms.
Single payments and instalments can switch. Turn on Split Payments in a single payment order to make it an instalment order. If an instalment product's payment configuration isn't locked, turn off Split Payments to take a single payment instead.
Products in one order share a type. Single payment and metered orders can hold several products of their type. Instalment and subscription orders hold one product.

flowchart LR
  Product["Product
  purchase type, price
  and schedule"] -->|Added to an order| Order["Order
  same purchase type"]
  Order -->|"Unlocked:
  change price or schedule"| Order
  Order -->|"Single payment
  with Split Payments on"| Inst["Instalment order"]

The Orders list shows each order's purchase type in the Order Type column. See Display orders.

Single payment and subscription products can also be sold from a public product page. See Product page overview.

The four purchase types

Purchase types on products and orders

Recommended reading