Setting Global Customer Defaults

Customer Defaults control how Biller Genie behaves for your customers by default: what payment methods are allowed, whether autopay is required, whether late fees apply, and how reminders go out. You set the defaults once and they apply to every customer on your account. For a different setup on a specific customer or group, see Customer Type Defaults and Per-Customer Overrides.

How customer-level settings stack

Biller Genie uses a layered model. From most-general to most-specific:

1. Global Customer Defaults (this article) — the baseline for every customer.
2. Customer Type Defaults — overrides for groups of customers based on their QuickBooks customer type.
3. Per-Customer Overrides — overrides for a single customer.

The most-specific layer wins. So if global says "autopay off" but a customer-type or per-customer override turns it on, the override applies for that customer.

Where to find Customer Defaults

Open Control Panel > Customer Defaults. The page has three tabs: General, Invoice Messenger, and Reminders.

General tab — payment methods and policies

• Allow Credit Card Payments — your customers can pay with a credit or debit card. Off means card isn't offered on the payment screen, even if your gateway supports it.
• Allow ACH Payments — your customers can pay by ACH (bank transfer).
• Allow APM Payments — Alternative Payment Methods. Today this is primarily PayPal, where supported by your gateway. As Biller Genie adds more alternative checkout options, they'll flow through this toggle.
• Allow Partial Payments — customers can pay any amount up to the invoice total instead of paying in full. This is a useful tool for overdue and extending invoices: when a customer can't pay the full balance right away, partial payments let them chip away at it instead of going silent. See Allowing Partial Payments on Invoices for the customer experience.
• Charge Late Fees — Biller Genie automatically applies late fees per your late-fee policy. Requires the Late Fee Manager add-on. Configure the policy details under Late Fees.
• Allow Payment Plans — your customer can request a payment plan from the customer portal. The merchant must approve the request inside Biller Genie before it takes effect. Useful when a customer asks for help breaking a large balance into installments. Requires the Payment Plans add-on.
• Enable Receipts — Biller Genie automatically emails a receipt when a customer pays.

Customer-portal checkout behavior

• Require Stored Payment Method at Checkout — at the customer's checkout, the "save my card on file" agreement (the terms-and-conditions checkbox) is forced on and grayed out. The customer can't complete the payment without agreeing to store their payment method. Useful for any workflow where you'll be charging the card again later.
• Require Auto-Pay at Checkout — this goes a step beyond Require Stored Payment Method. Not only must the customer save their card on file, they must also enroll in autopay, so all future invoices to this customer are automatically paid with that saved card. Best for subscription, retainer, or recurring-billing models where you don't want any future invoice going unpaid.
• Display Invoices with Parent in Customer Portal — for sub-customer setups, the parent customer's portal login shows the sub-customer's invoices too.
• Bill With Parent — for sub-customer setups, route the sub-customer's invoices to the parent customer for payment.

Email conflicts

Ignore Conflicts — this is specifically about the email conflicts report. When a customer record in Biller Genie is missing an email address and you don't plan to collect one (a walk-in customer, a paper-only account, etc.), turning Ignore Conflicts on for that customer's defaults stops Biller Genie from surfacing them as a conflict in your email conflicts report. The customer continues to exist normally — Biller Genie just stops nagging you to add an email you'll never have.

Invoice Messenger tab — how invoices get delivered

The Invoice Messenger tab controls how each invoice-related communication reaches your customer: by email, by paper mail, or both. It's organized as a matrix — each row is a message type, and the two columns are the delivery channels.

For each row you turn each channel on or off independently. Email is always available; paper mail requires an active paper-mail account on your Biller Genie subscription.

Message types in the Invoice Messenger matrix

• Upcoming Payment — a heads-up sent ahead of the invoice's due date, especially relevant when autopay is enabled so the customer knows the charge is coming.
• Payment Due — sent on the invoice's due date.
• Invoice Updated — sent when an existing invoice is changed (line item edited, amount adjusted, due date moved). Paper mail isn't offered for this one because it would arrive after the next update.
• Statement — a periodic statement listing all of the customer's open invoices.
• Payment Overdue — sent once the invoice is past due.
• Upcoming Late Fee — a heads-up before a late fee is applied, so the customer has a chance to pay before the fee posts.

These settings are the defaults. Once an invoice is created, an individual invoice can still be sent ad-hoc through the customer record. For broader cadence options, see Invoice Messenger and Using Reminders.

Reminders tab — the follow-up cadence

The Reminders tab uses the same matrix as Invoice Messenger — same six message types (Upcoming Payment, Payment Due, Invoice Updated, Statement, Payment Overdue, Upcoming Late Fee), same two channels (Email and Paper Mail) — but governs the repeating follow-ups that go out after an invoice has been delivered.

Think of it this way: Invoice Messenger covers the first touch — getting the invoice and any updates into the customer's hands. Reminders covers everything that follows — the cadence of nudges that keep the invoice top-of-mind until it's paid.

• Each row is the same message type as in Invoice Messenger.
• Each row has independent Email and Paper Mail toggles.
• Paper mail availability depends on your subscription having an active paper-mail account.
• On the newer Reminders Add-On version, Statements are email-only — there's no paper-mail toggle for Statements in that build.
• As with Invoice Messenger, when Bill With Parent is on, the customer inherits the parent's Reminders settings.

For the timing details, late-fee notification window, and customer-by-customer overrides, see Using Reminders.

Save and apply your defaults

Each tab saves independently. After you've adjusted the settings in a tab, you have two save options — and they behave very differently.

Save Defaults for New Customers

This is the everyday save. When you click it, the settings you just adjusted become the defaults applied to every NEW customer added to Biller Genie going forward (from accounting-software sync, manual creation, or import). Existing customers are not touched — they keep whatever settings they had before.

This is the right save for almost every situation.

Save and Apply to Existing Customers

This is the powerful one. It applies your settings to every NEW customer going forward AND overwrites every setting on every existing customer at the same time.

It's a very powerful feature. If you've already customized any specific customers (autopay off for VIPs, partial payments allowed for one client, late fees disabled for someone on a payment plan), Save and Apply to Existing wipes those customizations across the board. Use this sparingly. Typically it's only used:

• At the very start of an account, before you've made any per-customer customizations, to seed every customer with the same baseline.
• When you genuinely want to reset every customer to the same baseline — a rare, deliberate action.

The recommended workflow for established accounts

Once you've been on Biller Genie for a while and have per-customer customizations in place, the safest pattern combines all three layers:

1. For your day-to-day default changes — adjust the settings in each tab and click Save Defaults for New Customers. This shapes the baseline for future customers without touching anyone existing.
2. For a single setting you want to push to all existing customers — use the surgical option in the next section. It changes only that one setting and leaves every other per-customer customization intact.
3. For one-off customer adjustments — use Per-Customer Overrides on the individual customer record.

Think of Customer Defaults as the baseline that should reflect what's right for the big majority of your customer base. Use the surgical single-setting update and Per-Customer Overrides to handle everything else.

Updating a single setting across all customers

This is the surgical option — change one setting across all current customers without overwriting anything else they have.

At the top of the Control Panel > Customer Defaults page, expand the Update individual setting for current customers drop-down accordion. Pick the setting you want to change from the Setting Name dropdown, pick the new value, then click Set value to all customers.

Why this is the established-account move: after you've been working in Biller Genie for a while and have per-customer customizations in place, this lets you affect a change for a big set of customers without nuking those customizations. Compared to "Save and Apply to Existing," which overwrites every setting on every customer, this only touches the one setting you pick. Everything else stays as it was — including all of your per-customer overrides on other settings.

Example: you want to turn on autopay for everyone, but you don't want to change anyone's late-fee policy, reminder cadence, or partial-payment settings. Use this drop-down accordion, pick "Autopay", set value to On, apply. Done.

What happens after Save

Save Defaults for New Customers takes effect immediately for any new customer added after the save. Save and Apply to Existing rolls out immediately to every customer. Either way, behavior changes affect future invoices and reminders, not invoices already in flight.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between Customer Defaults and Invoice Defaults?

Customer Defaults control behavior (what payment methods are allowed, whether autopay is on, etc.). Invoice Defaults control how the invoice itself looks (which columns show, what footer text, which template). You'll typically configure both before your first invoice goes out. See Setting Invoice Defaults.

Can I see what my customer defaults are doing without applying them?

Open a customer's record. The settings shown there are the ones currently in effect for that customer (after global, customer-type, and per-customer overrides have been resolved). Use that view to confirm what each layer is doing.

I want a single customer to have different settings. How?

Use Per-Customer Overrides. Find the customer record, open Advanced Options, and override the specific settings you want different. The customer keeps the global defaults for everything else.

Related articles

• Setting Invoice Defaults — the look and feel of the invoice itself.
• Customer Type Defaults — apply different settings to different QuickBooks customer types.
• Per-Customer Overrides — override defaults for one specific customer.
• Your First Invoice in Biller Genie — the new-merchant orientation that walks through these settings in order.