---
updatedAt: 2025-11-03T21:14:49.000Z
agentTools:
  projectIndex: https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/llms.txt
---

# Billing Engine 

# Overview

Pelcro’s billing engine is the core system that manages how subscriptions, invoices, payments, and revenue recognition are handled. It automates recurring billing, ensures accurate accounting, and provides flexibility for different subscription models.

# Why It Matters

* **No Fees**: Pelcro’s billing engine runs at 0% transaction fees, so you keep every dollar you earn. Stripe Billing, on the other hand, takes a **royalty-style** percentage of your revenue — a cut that grows as you do. With Pelcro, your costs stay predictable no matter how large you scale.
* **Faster Processing** Experience faster API response times and reduced latency across the entire billing workflow. Eliminate delays caused by syncing data into other billing systems such as Stripe Billing. With transactions processed directly in the billing engine, invoices, payments, and reports update instantly.
* **Full Control:** Gain precise control over how revenue is organized and how customer balances are applied to invoices — helping you automate and eliminate many of the manual tasks that slow down your accounting and finance operations. These are just examples of what we will now be able to fully control with our billing engine.
* **Future-Ready** Pelcro Billing lays the foundation for a fully automated, AI-driven finance stack. With Pelcro’s AI Billing Agent and AI Usage Agent, you can instantly create invoices and usage-based billing rules from simple natural-language prompts — eliminating a lot of manual work and un-locking complex usage billing scenarios.

# Changes To Consider

Moving billing from **Stripe** to **Pelcro** shifts the source of truth for subscriptions and invoices. Here’s what changes:

## On Pelcro

* **Invoices**: All invoices are generated and branded directly in Pelcro, using Pelcro’s own numbering sequence.
* **Subscriptions & Balances**: Subscriptions, invoices, and customer balances are fully managed in Pelcro.
* **Customer Balance**: Balances can be applied across both subscription invoices and e-commerce invoices.
* **Branding & Consistency**: Pelcro’s PDF generator ensures unified invoice design and branding.

## On Stripe

* **Payments Only**: Stripe continues to act as the payment processor but no longer manages invoices, products/plans, or subscriptions.
  * Along with each payment, Pelcro will still sync:
    * Subscriptions: subscription\_id, plan\_id, plan\_nickname, product\_id, product\_name
    * eCommerce: pelcro\_invoice\_id, pelcro\_order\_id
* **No Sync for Billing Objects**: The following are no longer synced into Stripe: Products, Plans, Subscriptions, Invoices, Customer Balance, Credit Notes, Coupons & Discounts, Accounting, and Settings.
* **Subscriptions Migrated**: Existing Stripe subscriptions are canceled to prevent autorenewal. All renewals are managed natively in Pelcro.

# Step-by-Step Guide:

This guide provides a step-by-step walkthrough for transitioning your Stripe payment and billing configurations to Pelcro. The core idea is to replicate your existing Stripe functionality within the Pelcro platform, especially since invoices and subscriptions will no longer reside in Stripe.

For each section below, **In Stripe** shows you where to locate your current settings, and **In Pelcro** explains how to apply the equivalent configuration in our platform.

<br />

## Invoice & Receipt Branding

* **In Stripe**: Log in → Settings → Account settings → Business → Branding and review your logo, colors, headers, and footers.
  All branding for invoices and receipts configured in Stripe (logos, colors, headers, footers) will no longer apply.
* **In Pelcro**:

  1. Log in to Pelcro.
  2. Go to **Settings → Invoicing**.
  3. Enable the **PDF generator** checkbox.
  4. In the Invoicing section, customize your invoice and receipt branding (logos, headers, footers).
  5. Save your settings — all future invoices and receipts will use Pelcro’s PDF generator.

  <br />

  <Image align="center" border={false} width="450px" src="https://files.readme.io/29a96ec02ebe7800a57c7426b076c3ad5ed64cbdab393283c089f7dd582876e6-Screenshot_2025-09-29_at_5.33.12_PM.png" />

## Customer Emails & Notifications

* **In Stripe**: Log in → Settings → Account settings → Business → Customer Emails. Note which notifications (payments, refunds, renewals) you’ve enabled. Please note, these must now be replaced by our email integrations.
* **In Pelcro**:

  1. Disable Stripe’s customer emails.
  2. Set up an email integration ([Marketing Integrations](https://docs.pelcro.com/docs/integrations-marketing)) — or skip if you already have an ESP connected to Pelcro.
  3. Go to **Settings → Notifications** in Pelcro.
  4. Enable and configure webhooks to match your old Stripe emails:
     * `invoice.payment_succeeded` → triggers when a payment succeeds.
     * `charge.refunded` → triggers when a refund is processed.
     * `invoice.payment_failed` → triggers when a payment fails.
     * `subscription.trial_will_end` → notifies when a subscription trial is ending.
     * `invoice.upcoming` → notifies before a subscription is scheduled to create an invoice.
     * `source.expiring` → notifies when a card is expiring.
     * `invoice.payment_action_required` → notifies when payment confirmation (e.g., 3D Secure) is required.
  5. Map each webhook to your ESP so customers receive branded emails.
  6. You can find the full list of webhooks here: [Pelcro Webhooks](https://docs.pelcro.com/docs/webhooks#/).

  <br />

  <Image align="center" border={false} width="500px" src="https://files.readme.io/17a1b3efd86c4c3ac0b563e6705a9f8e136d4b68791237d119290ec101685646-Screenshot_2025-09-29_at_5.34.23_PM.png" />

## Accounting

* **In Stripe**: If you used Stripe’s accounting or revenue recognition features.
* **In Pelcro**:
  1. Log in to Pelcro.
  2. From the left navigation bar, go to the **Accounting tab**.
  3. Track financial metrics, transactions, and ledger accounts.
  4. Generate detailed reports for revenue recognition and financial tracking.
  5. See more in [Pelcro Accounting Docs](https://docs.pelcro.com/docs/accounting).

## Billing Rules & Automation

* **In Stripe**: Log in → Settings → Product settings → Billing.
  Review trials, renewal reminders, failed payment retries, card expiry emails, and payment confirmations.
* **In Pelcro**:

  * **Trials & Renewals**

    1. Go to **Settings → Notifications**.
    2. Enable the `subscription.trial_will_end` webhook to send trial-ending emails.
    3. Go to **Settings → Billing** and enable **Upcoming Invoice Notifications** to trigger the `invoice.upcoming` webhook.

    <br />

    <Image align="center" border={false} width="500px" src="https://files.readme.io/6740bf46d59a4c4a84d282f60c1c3e5622a99e5f202f676d55b649493b1b78f6-Screenshot_2025-09-29_at_5.37.20_PM.png" />

  ## Expiring Cards

  1. Go to **Settings → Billing**.
  2. Enable **Payment Method Expiration Notifications**.
  3. This triggers the `source.expiring` webhook, which you can use to notify customers of expiring cards.

  <br />

  <Image align="center" border={false} src="https://files.readme.io/ee2275b325239ca3a289caa956a520ebc7ef340a64c8ade3eebd77b675609e9c-Screenshot_2025-09-29_at_5.37.55_PM.png" />

  ## Failed Payments & Retries

  1. Go to **Settings → Billing**.
  2. Locate the **Failed Payment Retries** setting.
  3. Recreate your Stripe retry schedule:
     * Choose retry frequency (e.g., every 3 days).
     * Set maximum attempts (e.g., 3).
     * Choose subscription action after retries (e.g., leave past due).
     * Choose invoice action after retries (e.g., mark as uncollectible).
  4. Enable the `invoice.payment_failed` webhook to trigger failed payment emails.

  <br />

  > **Note:** The **Failed Payment Retries** setting will only be available after your account has been migrated to Pelcro’s billing engine.

  ## Disputed Payments

  Currently, Pelcro does not offer a specific setting for managing disputed payments. However, by default, when a dispute is marked as lost on Stripe, Pelcro automatically takes the following actions:

  * Updates the payment status to "refunded" or "partially refunded" based on the dispute amount.
  * Creates a credit note to document the reversal of revenue.
  * Generates a refund record specifying the reason as "Credit Card Chargeback" and the type as "Full" or "Partial" depending on the amount.
  * Adjusts accounting ledgers to reflect the reversed amounts.

  ## Payments Requiring Confirmation (3D Secure)

  1. Go to **Settings → Notifications**.
  2. Enable the `invoice.payment_action_required` webhook.
  3. When triggered, notify the customer with a link to confirm payment.
  4. Invoice remains open until confirmation is completed.

  <br />
* ## Invoices & Past-Due Handling

  1. **Invoice Creation:** Enable the `invoice.created` webhook to notify customers when a new invoice is generated.
  2. **Handling Past-Due Invoices:** Go to **Settings → Billing → Automatic** and enable **Automatic Uncollectible**:
     * Past-due invoices will automatically be marked as uncollectible.
     * Related subscriptions will be canceled immediately.
     * For more details, see [Automatic Uncollectible](https://docs.pelcro.com/docs/invoices#automatic-uncollectible).

# Next Steps

Ready to unlock a smoother, more personalized billing experience?

* **Get Personalized Support** – Our team is here to walk you through the setup and ensure everything is tailored to your business — just reach out at <support@pelcro.com>.

# Sibling pages

* [Account vs Site](https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/docs/accounts.md)
* [Collaborators](https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/docs/collaborators.md)
* [Automated emails](https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/docs/automated-emails.md)
* [Logs](https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/docs/logs.md)
* [Identity](https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/docs/identity.md)
* [Import tool](https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/docs/import-tool.md)
* [FAQs](https://docs.pelcro.com/v2.4/docs/faq.md)