Key constraints to be aware of, plus recommended ways of working with SwiftFox Finance.
Limitations & notes
- Enablement — Finance must be enabled by SwiftFox, and plan/fee configuration changes are made on the back end. Contact your account manager or SwiftFox Support.
- Money flow — SwiftFox does not take or hold money; your payment gateway moves the funds. Placeholder methods (cash, cheque, bank transfer, payroll) record information only and trigger no automated action.
- Backdating — start dates before today must be typed, not chosen via the calendar.
- Refunds — auto-refund works only for supported gateway payments; otherwise the receipt is marked refunded and you return funds manually.
- Receipt editing — only manually created receipts are editable; gateway- and invoice-generated receipts are not.
- Voiding — you can only void an invoice with no payments; once any payment exists, write off the balance instead.
- Adjustments — can't be edited after creation; reverse with a new adjustment.
- Direct debit — a Pending status is normal for about 2–3 business days; longer than that, contact Support.
- Schedules — rolling generation shows only a limited number of future items; use Extend Schedule for longer payment plans.
- Reallocation locks — pre-migration (Version 1) subscription receipts cannot be unallocated, reallocated or have their owner changed; receipts created after go-live can.
- Xero auto-send — depends on settings configured in Xero via the Xero Integration.
Best practice
- Invoice a subscription via Receipts → Make a payment (Type = Subscription) so the invoice is linked to the subscription and carries the correct membership fee, rather than creating a standalone invoice.
- Pay the earliest invoice first. Because Paid To Date is derived from the first unpaid invoice, allocate (or reallocate) payments to the oldest unpaid invoice to keep members showing as financial.
- Verify pro rata by opening the first invoice from the Subscription view before confirming any manual payment.
- Set the Email Invoice setting at the right level — set the common case at System or Plan, then use Fee or Subscription for exceptions (e.g. suppress emails for payroll-deduction members).
- Enter next year's fees before any early-generation date. Early invoices use the fee valid for the period being generated; missing future fees produce wrong amounts. Add a recurring reminder a few weeks before your earliest generation date.
- Re-email after changes. The emailed PDF is a snapshot; re-send Email Invoice for an updated copy. The Pay Now link always reflects the live balance.
- Use adjustments with clear comments so every balance change is auditable; correct mistakes with reversing adjustments.
- Use Action Centres for reconciliation — filter, use Row per item for line-level detail, and View summary for filtered totals.
Migration (invoice-first go-live)
- On go-live, SwiftFox runs a background migration that converts existing Version 1 subscriptions to Version 2 (invoice-first). Plans, fees, contacts, payment methods and subscriptions are all carried across — no configuration changes required.
- Past payments and arrears are reconciled into invoices. New subscriptions created after go-live are Version 2 immediately.
- During the migration window, un-migrated subscriptions show: "This subscription has not yet been migrated. Check back in a few days." Direct debits continue and are queued and reconciled once migrated.
- Manual payments may need to wait until a subscription has migrated — confirm with SwiftFox Support if you need to take one during the window. If a specific subscription is urgent, contact Support to prioritise it.
- Before go-live: familiarise your finance team with the changes, confirm next period's fees are entered if you use Early Invoice Generation, and decide your default Email Invoice settings.