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Unearned Income



What is Unearned income?
Unearned income is any income that has been paid in advance, but services have not yet been rendered or used yet.

Why Track Unearned Income?
Have you ever have to issue a refund for services not yet rendered, but you have already spent the money? Such as someone pays for a year of service and then cancels after a month or two and you have to issue a partial refund? This can seriously hurt cashflow by adding unexpected reductions in cash.

Keeping track of unearned income protects your business against refunds & cancelations, lawsuits, etc. If a client pays for a year of service on annual billing, or quarterly, or semi-annually... anything beyond the current 30 days period is "unearned income"... It is dangerous for a company to assume that money is earned when they could cancel and ask for a refund.

It would be nice to have a tally of how much Unearned Income there is and every month and how much can be released from Unearned Income that month... once that calculation is adjusted. This way we can make sure to keep the unearned income amount in our bank accounts as protection. Smart business owners would have an Unearned income bank account, and as each month passes and they earn 1/12th of annual billing that has been paid (New Earned Income), or 1/6th of semi-annual that has been paid, or 1/3rd of quarterly income that has been paid they can transfer it to their Income bank account to be safely spent.

Example:
A client pays $1200 for a year (annual billing). At the start of month 1, $1200 is paid, Only 1/12th = $100 is New Earned Income, & $1100 is New Unearned. In month 2 $1000 is Unearned and $100 can be released and is New Earned Income. Once it renews the cycle starts over.

Proposal:
- 3 New Values for the month totals on the home screen: Unearned Income Total, New Unearned Income, New Earned Income
- Clients could have individual totals for these 3 values...
- and an Annual Unearned Income Report should be added as well showing this month by month.
- Other reports could have these subtotal and values added as well.

This would be a powerful & unique feature to WHMCS that nearly every billing software lacks, but is super cool. It empowers business owners to make healthier financial decisions and helps them protect their business. Once business owners learn to rely on these values, they would never leave to another billing software that lacks this cool feature. It also helps WHMCS to retain clients that might go out of business due to poor financial handling.

Please implement this!

Thanks!

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