One of the best ways to handle charging for subscriptions or repeatedly bought products is by sending a Recurring Invoice, they allow you to keep track of client payments and even automate the process. 

Usually on the first purchase of this kind of product you may want to charge a bit extra whether it be as insurance, to cover extra costs, or to open an account for the client. This is known as a set-up fee, you can quickly add them to your Invoices to keep track of the entire transaction in one place.

How to Add Set-Up Fees?

To start, head over to the Products tab inside of your Payments section and click on Create Product.

Add the details as normal, continue to the Pricing section, and select the price type as recurring.

In the amount field, enter the price that will be charged to your customers regularly—whether it’s weekly, monthly, or annually, depending on your business model.

Add the amount for the Setup Fee, when added to an invoice this will be charged to your customers on the first invoice and disappear in the latter ones.

After saving the product with both the recurring price and the setup fee, go to the Invoice & Estimates tab, in the dropdown, and click on Recurring Invoices. To create the actual invoice select New Recurring Invoice, to begin the process of sending the recurring bills to your client.

As you create the invoice, include the product you just set up, which contains both the recurring charge and the setup fee. The system will automatically apply both charges to the first invoice.

Once added you will see two charges in your invoice, one for the product and one for the fee. Finish your invoice as normal, for subsequent ones, the Set-Up Fee will not be added.

Recurring Invoice settings

To manage your recurring invoice settings, click the dropdown arrow on the right-hand side. This will expand the section where you can configure the frequency, start, and end dates of the recurring invoice, as well as other related settings.

You can customize how often the invoice will be sent to your client. Choose the frequency, such as monthly or weekly, select the specific day (like the first or last Friday), and set the number of months in between each invoice. You can also define the start and end dates for the recurring invoices and specify how many days in advance the invoice should be sent.

There you have it! You can now add Set-Up fees to your recurring invoices, not charging them separately or running around the system trying to find the payment since it will be under the same invoice.