Billing and Online Payments · The Mobility Factory Documentation

Billing accounts

To be able to make use of the car sharing service, a user needs to have a billing account. A billing account is an internal checkings account which is used for all chargable actions the user does for this service.

Note: the system can be configured not to use billing and only use the reservation system. In this case the organizaton is responsible for charging the end user. This can be done by connecting to the platform through our REST API.

Depending on how the user gets access to the app the creation of the billing account is handled by the platform itself.

Transactions

A billing account collects all the chargeable actions a user does on the platform. This includes, making a reservation, using a vehicle, etc. Each such action is recorded as a transaction that the user can consult in the transaction overview in the app.

Transactions are charged in the internal currency credits. The platform can be configured so that concept of credits is not shown to the user. The user will see all chargable actions in the equivalent monetary currency. By default the platform is setup to not show credits to the user. 1 credit = €0.01 in this case.

Prepaid and subscription

A billing account can be prepaid or have an active subscription.

Prepaid

When prepaid, the account first needs to be topped up with credits. This can be done by buying a bundle in the in-app shop or an administrator can manually add credits to the billing account. Once charged with credits, the user will be able to make reservations and use the cars until he/she has run out of credits and will need to buy credits again.

Subscription

A subscription can come with included credits or it can be completely postpaid where the user collects a negative debt for their usage on the billing account and this is billed at the end of the billing cycle. A combination of both is also possible.

With a subscription the billing account has a certain billing cycle. Every billing cycle the user will be charged according to the subscription. More elaborate information in the chapter below.

Recalculation of future reservations

When the billing account changes from prepaid to subscription, from subscription to prepaid or from subscription A to subscription B, the billing of all future reservations is recalculated so the new tariff applies for these reservations. If there is an active reservation, also the billing of this reservation will be recalculated. If the platform would notrecalculate the current active reservation the create and update step could be according to the old tariff, while the end usage billing step would be according to the new tariff. Still applying the old tariff when the active reservation ends, is not possible.

Subscriptions

A subscription has a certain billing cycle. Every billing cycle the user will be charged according items that make up the subscription. The payment can be done automatically through a SEPA payment or via credit card. SEPA payments are only supported with Mollie.

SEPA

SEPA mandates can be added through control center or can be obtained through a first payment. More information about this can be read here in the Mollie documentation.

When a subscription's billing cycle ends the user is charged according to the subscription items, we call this the subscription renewal. The user sees a transaction in the app. 15 days after this renewal the platform will send a SEPA payment to Mollie. In the orders overview of Control Center as well as in the Mollie dashboard the status for every payment can be seen.

Usually the SEPA payment is obtained through a first payment. This is the initial payment the user does when they activate the subscription in the app. This payment acts as a signature for future SEPA incasso's.

Note: It's the members responsibility to follow up on the SEPA mandates. Especially for mandates added manually through control center. A written agreement with the end-user might be legally required. When the user cancels the mandate the SEPA direct debit transaction will fail. Mollie charges costs for this.

Note: the platform can be configured that an email is send to the user when the subscription renewal happened and that the due amount will be charged via SEPA incasso from their bank account.

Billing cycle

The billing cycle for subscription renewal can be:

monthly starting on the date the subscription was activated
yearly starting on the date the subscription was activated
every first of the month, for the ongoing month the fraction of the subscription cost is charged.

Types of subscriptions

A subscription can consist out one or more of the following items:

a subscription fee: payed every billing cycling
an activation fee: only payed once with the activation of the subscription
a deactivation fee: only payed once with the deactivation of the subscription
included credits: a fixed amount of credits that's added every billing cycle
consumed credits: the amount of consumed credits during the billing cycle
discounts/surcharges/custom: custom items can be configured.

Duration of the subscription

A subscription can run indefinitely or end after a certain amount of months. For subscriptions with an end date it's possible that the platform reactivates the subscription automatically again. The difference with the billing cycle is that the activation fee will be charged again and it possible to give the user time to cancel the reactivation.

Subscription management in the app

Users can manage their subscription through the app. They can activate a subscription. When a subscription is active they can see when the subscription started, when it will end and when the next subscription renewal is. For subscriptions with automatic reactivation users can cancel this automatic reactivation.

Example subscriptions

Included credits, user is not allowed to consume more

The user receives every month €100 worth in driving credits. The €100 is payed for automatically via SEPA incasso. When the user consumes their €100 completely within the month the user will not be allowed to collect a negative debt and will have to top-up additional credits with a prepaid bundle. If the user did not consume the €100 driving budget the remainder is carried over to the next month.

Included credits, user is allowed to consume more

The user receives every month €100 worth in driving credits. The €100 is payed for automatically via SEPA incasso. When the user consumes their €100 completely within the month the user will start to collect a negative debt on the billing account. These additional credits will be billed at the end of the billing cycle. If the user did not consume the €100 driving budget the remainder is carried over to the next month.

Fixed monthly fee and consumed credits for usage

The user pays every month a fixed fee of €50. The driving credits they consume as they use the vehicles in the month collect as a negative debt on the billing account. At the end of the billing cycle the €50 and the consumed credits are billed via SEPA incasso.

Fixed 3 monthly fee and consumed credits for usage

The pays an activation fee of €250. The subscription is active for 3 months. Every month the consumed driving credits are billed via SEPA incasso. At the end of the 3 months the subscription is automatically reactivated and the user is charged the €250 again. Unless the user has chosen in the app to not have this reactivation.

Invoicing

The platform can be connected to invoicing services. See the section about integrating a 3rd party service.

For every purchase and subscription renewal the platform creates an invoice in the invoicing service.

Personal and shared billing accounts

Personal billing account

A personal billing account is configured on the level of the person. A personal billing account can be linked to a single person or it can be shared by multiple persons (e.g. users of the same family). This way they have separate logins and a separate list of reservations in the app, but there billing is shared without the need of setting up a group.

You can add a 2nd person to the personal billing account of a 1st person in control center.

Group shared billing account

A group shared billing account is configured on the level of the group. A group shared billing account is automatically used by all members of that group. This is typically used in case of a company. All employees are added to the group and the billing account bundles all billing for reservations done in that group.

There is the possibility to define a group shared billing account admin. This admin can see all transactions on the billing account. Normal members cannot.

Multiple billing accounts

A billing account is linked with the group membership or service contract of the person. In other words, when a user is member of multiple groups or has access to multiple service, he can have a separate billing account for each of those groups/service. For example, he can have a personal billing account for personal trips and use a shared billing account of his company for work related trips.