Have you seen several charges from smrtPhone in quick succession? That's due to Auto Top-Up and Batch Billing. This article + video explain why this happens and how you can reduce the chances of it happening again.
Why does Batch Billing Happen?
When we get a record of a group of charges - such as phone calls, text messages, recording storage, phone numbers, and so on - we need to charge your card for the usage. However, if your Auto Top-Up top up amount is less than the amount we need to charge, we have to make several charges until the amount is covered. These successive charges are called Batch Billing.
For example:
Imagine you have a credit balance of $6.
Your Auto Top-Up amount is set to replenish $10 when your account dips below $5, and
You have $37 in cumulative charges due
Under this scenario, you will see 4 successive charges for $10. The first $6 of your remaining credit will go toward the debt, leaving $31 balance due, and it will trigger a Top-Up for going under the threshold. But your Top-Up amount was only $10... applied to the balance, you now have $21 due... and you've again gone below the threshold so another Top-Up triggered. That next Top-Up ($10) goes immediately toward the balance... leaving you with $11 due and another Top-Up triggered. It takes one more Top-Up to cover the entire $37 due plus make sure you are replenished above the Auto Top-Up threshold. Your final credit balance will be $9. ($6 existing credit + $40 new credit - $37 in charges = $9.)
How Your Auto Top-Up Settings Can Reduce Batch Billing
Auto Top-Up is a fantastic tool to avoid the suspension of your account due to a low credit balance. You always pre-pay for your usage on smrtPhone, so you are never hit with surprise billing.
You set both the threshold amount (the point at which we will charge you to replenish your credit amount) and the amount of each recharge.
If you notice you are hitting a lot of Batch Billing moments and you find these multiple charges annoying, you can adjust the threshold and the Auto-Recharge amount to be just the right balance of maintaining appropriate credit for your business activities without having too many charges crowd your credit card statement.
We recommend looking at your logs and your billing statements to understand what is the right balance is for your unique company. Remember - you can always adjust these amounts until you find the optimal levels. It may take a month's worth of data to understand - and, if your company strategy changes or you experience rapid growth, you may have to re-adjust these settings regularly.
How to Adjust Your Auto Top-Up Settings
Auto Top-Up is a setting in your Billing & Logs Tab which allows you to set up an amount of money that will be automatically withdrawn when the balance reaches a set low.
To reach Billing & Logs, you access your Admin Dashboard in your smrtPhone Page and then, under your name, next to your balance, will scroll down a list with options, among which is listed Billing & Logs:
Here, the next step is to click on Payment Methods, and in this window, you can set up your Top-Up plan.
Configuring your Auto Top-Up, by clicking the green button, you now can choose both the amount that will be automatically withdrawn and the amount in your balance triggering the moment when this withdraw should occur.
You can manually set both:
The threshold when the system will automatically withdraw the money (If balance falls below...)
How much will be automatically added to your account when the balance falls below your set amount (Recharge the balance to...)
If Auto Top-Up is disabled, the system will charge you from the current credit in your account, which you can manually manage whenever there's a case.
Note: if the system will not be able to charge you because there is not enough money in the current balance, the account will go into negative until you manually add funds again.
🤑 Batch Billing
Keep in mind that the balance/credit from your account is the amount from which you will pay for all of the phone numbers, calls, also for call recordings, text messages, and stored recordings.
This means that if your spending is larger than your credit, the Auto Top-Up will occur more than once a month, to cover your costs, making sure that your balance doesn't reach a negative number - which would trigger account suspension.