Per-Customer Overrides are settings you change on one specific customer's record to make Biller Genie behave differently for that customer than your global or customer-type defaults would suggest. They're the bottom of the layered settings stack — the most-specific layer — and they always win.
The mental model — defaults for the majority, overrides for the exceptions
The cleanest way to think about Biller Genie's settings model: set your Customer Defaults to match the behavior you want for the greater customer base — the way you treat the majority of your customers, day in and day out. Then use Per-Customer Overrides to handle the exceptions.
A common example: charge late fees for everybody, but you have a handful of VIPs you don't want to charge late fees to. Turn Charge Late Fees on globally in Customer Defaults, then open each VIP's customer record and turn Charge Late Fees off for them individually. The default takes care of every other customer automatically; you only touch the records that need to differ.
This pattern keeps your account easy to manage. You don't have to remember to configure every new customer that syncs in — they inherit the right baseline automatically, and you only intervene when a real exception comes up.
The more you customize individual customers, the more cautious you need to be with "Save and Apply to Existing"
In Customer Defaults (and Customer Type Defaults), Save and Apply to Existing Customers overwrites every per-customer override on every existing customer. The more per-customer customizations you've made over time, the more damage that button can do. Once you have a meaningful amount of per-customer tuning in place, switch to Save Defaults for New Customers + the surgical "update a single setting" option for changes that need to propagate. Keep Save and Apply to Existing as a deliberate, rare reset action.
Where to find per-customer overrides
Open the customer record (Customers tab > click the customer's name). The edit page has these sections. Some of them override a Customer Default; others are per-customer-only features that don't have a global equivalent at all.
- Advanced Options — the General-tab equivalents that override Customer Defaults (payment methods, late fees, partial payments, etc.) plus the per-customer-only Waive Next Late Fee grace lever.
- Invoice Messenger — per-customer overrides of which message types reach this customer through which channels.
- Reminders — same matrix as Invoice Messenger, scoped to the follow-up cadence.
- Customer Portal — what this specific customer can edit when they log into the portal.
- Auto Pay — per-customer-only. Enrollment, type, threshold, and default payment method live only on the customer record; there's no global Auto Pay default to override.
- Stored Payment Methods — per-customer-only. Cards and bank accounts on file for this customer; there's no equivalent in Customer Defaults.
Per-customer fields look the same as the Customer Defaults version — they're checkboxes, toggles, or dropdowns. There's no visual "this is using the default" indicator. Whatever value you see on the customer record is what's active for that customer.
Advanced Options — the General-tab overrides
Every General-tab Customer Default has a per-customer override. The behavior is identical — see Setting Global Customer Defaults for what each setting does. Per-customer override means: whatever's set here wins for this customer regardless of what Customer Defaults or Customer Type Defaults say.
- Allow Credit Card Payments
- Allow ACH Payments
- Allow APM Payments (Alternative Payment Methods, primarily PayPal today)
- Allow Partial Payments
- Send Receipts
- Ignore Conflicts (email conflicts report)
- Charge Late Fees
- Allow Payment Plans
- Require Stored Payment Method at Checkout
- Require Auto-Pay at Checkout
- Bill With Parent (when this customer is a sub-customer of another)
- Display Invoices with Parent (sub-customer invoices show in the parent's portal too)
Waive Next Late Fee — the grace-period lever
Waive Next Late Fee is a per-customer-only feature with no equivalent in Customer Defaults. Set it to Yes on a customer's record and Biller Genie will skip exactly one upcoming late fee for that customer — then automatically reset back to No.
The classic use case: a customer calls in to say "I'm going to pay in three days, just got pulled into a fire-drill." You don't want to charge them a late fee for the short delay, but you don't want to permanently disable late fees for them either. Open their record, set Waive Next Late Fee to Yes. The next late fee that would have been charged is skipped, the flag flips back to No automatically, and from there on out the customer is back on your standard late-fee policy.
Waive Next Late Fee is single-use
It only waives the next late fee. After that one is skipped, the flag resets to No. If the customer is consistently late, either turn Charge Late Fees off on their record (a permanent change) or set Waive Next Late Fee again each time. The single-use design is intentional — it's a short grace, not a policy change.
Auto Pay (per-customer only)
Auto Pay isn't a Customer Default that gets overridden per customer — there's no "Auto Pay" toggle on the Customer Defaults page at all. Auto Pay enrollment is inherently per-customer, and the configuration lives only on the individual customer record. The Auto Pay section on a customer's record controls how Biller Genie auto-charges that specific customer:
- Auto Pay Enabled — whether this customer is enrolled in autopay at all.
- Auto Pay Type — pay the full balance or a partial amount.
- Default Payment Method — which stored card or bank account on file gets charged.
- Auto Pay Threshold — an invoice-amount cutoff specific to this customer (e.g. only auto-pay invoices under $500; anything bigger requires manual approval). Leave blank to auto-pay every invoice regardless of amount.
- Threshold direction — whether the threshold means "auto-pay invoices under this amount" or "auto-pay invoices over this amount."
The closest thing to a "global autopay setting" is Require Auto-Pay at Checkout on the Customer Defaults page — but that's a checkout-policy toggle, not the autopay enrollment itself. It forces the customer to save a card and enroll in autopay as part of paying their first invoice. After enrollment, the actual Auto Pay configuration (type, threshold, default payment method) is per-customer from there on out.
Invoice Messenger and Reminders — sending more or less to specific customers
The Invoice Messenger and Reminders matrices on the customer record look the same as they do in Customer Defaults — six message types (Upcoming Payment, Payment Due, Invoice Updated, Statement, Payment Overdue, Upcoming Late Fee) with Email and Paper Mail toggles for each. The per-customer version lets you decide which of those message types this specific customer receives.
This is the lever for messaging some customers more often than others, using the same "defaults = majority, overrides = exceptions" pattern:
- Send less to VIPs. A long-tenured customer who pays consistently doesn't need a Statement every month or a Payment Overdue follow-up that's redundant. Turn off the message types they don't need.
- Send more to chronically late customers. A customer who's repeatedly late might benefit from additional touches — turn on Paper Mail for Payment Overdue, enable the Upcoming Late Fee email, and so on.
- Match channel to customer preference. Some customers will tell you they only check paper mail; some will tell you to never send paper. Configure each one on their record to match.
Timing is global, channels are per-customer
The cadence of reminders — how many days before due date the Upcoming Payment fires, how soon after due date Payment Overdue fires — is set globally in Customer Defaults and can't vary per customer. What you CAN vary per customer is which message types are turned on and through which channels. Use the message-type-on/off toggles to send more or less to a specific customer.
Customer Portal overrides
These control what the customer can do when logged into the customer portal:
- Allow Customer to Edit Profile — can they update their own contact info, address, etc.?
- Allow Customer to Edit Payment Methods — can they add/remove cards and bank accounts on file?
- Allow Customer to Change Auto-Pay Settings — can they enroll, unenroll, or change their autopay configuration themselves?
- Receive Notification on Customer Edits — do you get notified when they make changes?
These settings only matter for customers who actually use the portal. For customers who never log in, leaving them at the default is fine.
Stored Payment Methods (per-customer only)
The customer record lists every card and bank account on file for this customer, and lets you designate the default for autopay. There's no equivalent in Customer Defaults — stored payment methods are inherently per-customer. See Save Cards on File for the full workflow.
Bill With Parent and what it does to per-customer settings
When Bill With Parent is turned on for a sub-customer, Biller Genie routes their invoices and communications to the parent customer. As a side-effect, several per-customer fields on the sub-customer's record get disabled — they inherit the parent's settings instead:
- Auto Pay configuration is taken from the parent.
- Invoice Messenger toggles are taken from the parent.
- Reminders toggles are taken from the parent.
If you change your mind and turn Bill With Parent off again, the sub-customer's own per-customer fields become editable again and Biller Genie goes back to using them.
How to "reset to default" on a per-customer override
Biller Genie doesn't show a "reset to default" button on individual fields. The per-customer record just stores the value — if you want this customer to behave like the default again, manually flip the setting to match what the default is right now.
The surgical "Update individual setting for current customers" option in Customer Defaults is the easier path when you want to reset a setting across many customers at once: pick the setting, pick the value, apply to all customers in scope, done. That works on every existing customer including the ones with overrides on other fields — it only touches the one setting you pick.
Frequently asked questions
Will my per-customer overrides survive a sync from QuickBooks?
Yes for most fields. A normal sync updates QuickBooks-sourced data on the customer record (name, address, customer type, etc.) and doesn't touch Biller Genie-specific settings like Allow Credit Card Payments or Charge Late Fees. The setting that WILL get overwritten is the customer's QuickBooks Type if it changes in QBO — and that can change which Customer Type Default applies. Per-customer overrides on the BG settings themselves remain unless you explicitly run Save and Apply to Existing Customers from Customer Defaults or Customer Type Defaults.
I just ran "Save and Apply to Existing Customers" and lost all my per-customer overrides. Can I get them back?
There's no undo. Save and Apply to Existing is the one button that's truly destructive in this part of Biller Genie — by design, it overwrites every per-customer setting to match the defaults. Once it's run, the previous values are gone. This is why we strongly recommend switching to Save Defaults for New Customers plus the surgical single-setting update once you have meaningful per-customer customization in place. Reach out to support if you need help reconstructing settings.
Can I see which per-customer fields are overrides versus inherited defaults?
No. The customer record stores actual values, not "uses the default" markers. If you want to see what the default WOULD be, open Customer Defaults (or Customer Type Defaults if the customer has a type) in a separate tab and compare.
A customer just got a new card. What's the right place to update it?
On the customer's record, under Stored Payment Methods, add the new card and mark it as the default for autopay (if you're using autopay). The old card can be deleted from the same view. Cards in the customer portal can also be managed by the customer themselves if you have Allow Customer to Edit Payment Methods turned on.