Understanding our monthly statements and billing

Hosting is a regular fee you pay to keep your website online, typically monthly. Domain fees are charged typically yearly. Please learn about how we bill you and how we account for your fees and receipts.

Monthly Statement / Invoices

We send monthly statement / invoices. This is sent on about the 1st of each calendar month, and relates to all the activity on your account from the previous calendar month.

If you are on monthly hosting plan, then you would likely see a b/f balance from last month, a receipt for last month, then the hosting fee for this month, plus any miscelaneous charges (if any), and then 2 totals, an invoice total, and a final balance owing. 

Each hosting fee will show the period (date range) in which it applies. 

The final balance owing, is the running total of all your fees and receipts, including b/f from last month. This is the amount you should pay. 

The invoice total is what you should enter on your accounting system, or you may wish to itemise each relevant line from the statement. 

You should read your statement a bit like a bank statement. We do not apply your receipts to individual invoices, because often, our customers pay odd amounts, or pay several invoices together. Therefore, we apply all receipts to the statement balance, and your balance to pay, is the remainder. 

Receipts

As soon as we receive a payment from you, by whatever method, we will send you a receipt within a day. This receipt only confirms the customer account to which it was applied. 

A receipt for a domain renewal may not actually have produced the domain renewal. The receipt simply records that we have received the money. If you have paid by credit card, it is likely your domain renewal occurred. If you paid by online banking, then you are depending on humans to make sense of the reason for your payment, and to be sure the right domain is renewed. You should therefore confirm that your domain is renewed within 2 business days of making a deposit. 

Aniversary Date

Your aniversary date is the day of the month on which you started your website hosting, eg made your website live. For example, you started hosting your website on the 10th of February. Therefore, on the 10th day of each month, we roll over your hosting, and put a fee on your account, that covers you through to the 10th of the next month. We do not send the statement/invoice until the end of the calendar month. Therefore, if you login to pay your previous month account, you may find your account balance due is more after the 10th of the month. You are only obligated to pay the balance of your last statement. Even though the current balance is not due immediately, it is due eventually.  If you have more than one website, you may have different aniversary dates for each website. 

If you change your hosting plan at any stage, your aniversary date will change to that date. Your account will show a credit for the period from today until the date previously billed until. Then a full month charge is applied from the current date. For example, if your aniversary date was the 3rd of the month, and you changed from a $25 plan to a $40 plan on the 17th of the month, then you would likely see on your monthly account an initial $25 fee then on the date of change, a $12.50 credit then a $40 monthly fee shortly after. The total for the month becomes $52.50 which looks like more, but consider that your aniversary date is changed. It is correct that you paid the old hosting rate until the change, and the new hosting rate thereafter. We do not try to protect the original aniversary date, because some people change their hosting plan to annual or 6 monthly. 

Current Balance

We send monthly statements on the 1st of each month. Therefore, when you login mid month, your may find that your current balance will include any new hosting fees, credits and receipts applied. It's much simplier if you pay your current balance, but you are only obligated to pay your invoiced balance, 

Final Account

Please read about aniversary date above. If you cancel your website hosting after your aniversary date, you should expect to receive a final invoice balance at the end of the calendar month (even though you had cancelled your hosting). eg your aniversary date is 10th of the month. You cancel hosting on the 25th day of the month. Not only do you need to pay last months invoice, but you will also receive an invoice for the current month from 10th onwards, at the end of the calendar month.  

Hosting Fees 

Hosting fees are put on a customers account on their aniversary date. This is the day of the month they first went live. 

Domain Fees

Domain fees are charged at the moment they are renewed. Typically we require our customers to pay for their domain renewals live with credit card, or prepay their account by direct bank transfer. A receipt for a domain does not mean that your domain was renewed. Your statement would usually contain your receipt and then a fee for the domain renewal itself. However, for some customers, we renew domains on request, and they may pay for their domains + hosting in full at the end of the calendar month. 

The confusion of invoices, subscriptions and time. 

Some people struggle to understand their statement / invoices. We deal with customers who have several websites hosted, or lots of activity on their invoice, and they only want to receieve one invoice a month. Therefore we only send 1 invoice a month. Our invoices are always for a calendar month. We do not adjust your hosting term to match calendar months, so you should take note of your aniversary date, as being the date on which each hosting period renews. This might be mid month. 

The statement/invoice is the true position of your account on the 1st of each month. However, by the time you receive, consider and pay your statement invoice, then your underlying account may already have incurred additional costs, receipts, and credits. If you login to look at your account, you can look at the current month charges. 

A typically confusing example

A customer starts hosting on the 3rd of February. They pay their first hosting fee in advance. At the end of february, they receive an invoice statement for $0, because they have already paid the first account. On the 3rd of March, their second hosting month begins, and a fee is applied to their account. The customer decides to cancel their hosting on the 25th of March, which is actioned as requested. On the 1st of April the customer receives another invoice, and disputes the invoice. The invoice is for hosting from 3rd March until 3rd of April. The final invoice is valid. The customer has received 7 weeks of web hosting, and therefore needs to pay their second invoice. There is no refund for partial month hosting.  

Overdue hosting fees

We require customers to pay their invoices on time, typically allowing payment on the 20th of the calendar month following receipt of the invoice. If payment is not received, we will send overdue reminder notices. If the account is not paid, we will assume you still want your web hosting to continue because you are busy, sick or on holiday. We will rollover your hosting for 1 additional month, but we charge an overdue service fee of $5. If the account remains unpaid, we our system will eventually take the website offline. 

Refunds To Bank Accounts

If you have overpaid your account, we can issue a refund. We do however charge a service fee. This is either $5 or 10%, whichever is more. It takes administrative time to process refunds, and care needs to be taken not to refund amounts to the wrong person. Refunds need to be authorised by a bank signatory, so cannot be completed by a single admin person. You can alternatively leave your overpayment on account to apply to future web hosting, domain renewals, or request the amount be applied to another customers balance.