How to set up service plans and recurring jobs
Sell a maintenance plan once and Pillar books the repeat visits and raises the invoice every billing period. This guide builds the package, sells it to a customer, activates it, and shows where the visits and the money turn up.
Build the plan once as a package
Where to clickAdminService PackagesCreate Package
A service package is the reusable template behind every plan you sell. Press Admin at the bottom of the left sidebar, pick Service Packages from the admin menu, then press Create Package.
Name it, then fill in Pricing Defaults so every plan sold from this package starts with the right Default Billing Amount, Default Billing Cycle, and Default Job Frequency.
Sell the package to a customer
Where to clickService PlansCreate AgreementCreate Agreement
Press Service Plans in the left sidebar. The page is headed Service Agreements and counts how many plans are running across the top, next to your monthly recurring revenue.
Press Create Agreement, then pick the Customer and the Service Package. The package fills in the pricing and scheduling fields, and you can change any of them for this one customer.
Choose the Agreement Type (Maintenance, Subscription, Warranty, or Contract), then the Start Date and an optional End Date.
Set Job Frequency, Billing Cycle, and Billing Amount. Tick Auto-renew at end of term if the plan should keep going past its end date, then press Create Agreement.
Activate the plan
Where to clickService Plansopen the planActivate
A new plan is saved as a draft and does nothing on its own. Open it from the list and press Activate at the top of the page, then confirm.
Activating builds the repeating visit from the package template and creates the first job straight away, so you can see it on the calendar. It also starts the billing cycle from the start date you set.
Getting paid every period
Where to clickService Plansopen the planAuto-Pay Status
Pillar checks every hour and raises an unpaid invoice when a plan's billing date comes around, due in 30 days. It lands in Invoices and under Billing History on the plan itself.
Customers switch on auto-pay themselves in the portal under Service Plans, where Enable Auto-Pay takes them to a secure page for their card. From then on each period is charged automatically and recorded as a paid invoice on the plan, so nobody has to chase it.
Owners get a Lock Auto-Pay button on the same card, which stops the customer switching auto-pay off. It is worth using when the plan was priced on the understanding that it pays itself.
Check the visits, pause, or stop a plan
Where to clickService Plansopen the planVisit Schedule
Each plan page carries a Visit Schedule card showing how often visits happen, the next one due, and whether the schedule is Running or Paused. Booked visits appear under Job History and on the calendar like any other job.
Press Suspend on the plan to stop the visits and the billing together, and Resume to start both again. Cancel ends the plan for good and asks you for a reason.
Once a plan is active, Edit is limited to its notes and the auto-renew tick. That is deliberate, so the money already agreed with the customer cannot drift.
Common questions
What is the difference between a service package and a service plan?
The package is the reusable template you build once under Admin, carrying the default price, billing cycle, and visit frequency. A plan, which the app also calls a service agreement, is one customer’s copy of that package with their own dates and price.
Can the visits and the billing run on different schedules?
Yes, and they are separate fields on purpose. Job Frequency sets how often you turn up and Billing Cycle sets how often the customer is charged, so quarterly visits billed monthly is a normal setup.
What happens when a plan reaches its end date?
With Auto-renew at end of term ticked, Pillar extends the plan by one more billing cycle overnight and the visits carry on without anybody touching it. Without it, the plan moves to expired and its visits stop.
The plan is active but no visits were created. Why?
The repeating visit is built at the moment you press Activate, and only when the package has Automatically create recurring jobs ticked and a Default Appointment Template chosen. Correct the package first, then cancel the plan and set it up again so the schedule gets built.
Can I stop the price on a plan being changed?
Owners can press Lock Agreement on the plan, which freezes the billing amount, billing cycle, and job frequency until the lock is lifted. The lock can carry an expiry date, and an owner can still cancel a locked plan.