Willow credits are our main way of charging for Willow services
The customer buys a certain amount of credits for their organisation and they are spent by all organisation users when files are processed by the workflow.
Additional credits may be bought at any point and they get added to the organisation credits count
The credits don’t expire, they don’t have to be spent until some deadline. The customer owns the licence to use Willow as long as they have credits.
Initially, Willow organisations are created in the trial mode with trial credits they can spend.
The trial period lasts for 3 months.
When the user buys some credits, the organisation is no longer in the trial mode. Newly purchased credits are added to the remaining trial credits.
If the trial expires, the organisation status becomes Licence expired and only administrators may access the organisation and only the Organisation Settings screen
90 days after the expiry date, we delete all organisational data
Still, if they buy credits, the organisation will become active again so the members can use it as usual.
When the licence expires, only admins can access it and they can only access the Organisation Settings screen (so they can buy credits and reactivate it).
Other users are rejected on sign in
Every Friday at 14h (UTC time), our Customer Support is warned by email about the organisations whose trials are about to expire (less than 14 days before expiry)
For customer organisations acquired through the dealer network, we don't offer online payment, we show dealer contact information instead.
In this case, credits can be bought only outside of Willow by a dealer contacting iTS Support
Please note that all related warnings (i.e. for low credit and no credit) are sent to the dealer
Credits
The current organisation credit count can be found on the Organisation Settings screen
Every workflow has its cost. This is how many credits are spent when one file is processed by the workflow.
The workflow cost is calculated based on the actions used in that workflow
The base workflow cost is 1 credit
The workflow cost is calculated as the base cost plus the sum of all action costs
Most actions cost 0 credits, so typically the workflow with simple actions only costs 1 credit (the base cost)
Some premium actions cost more. For example, the WillowSign action costs 3 credits. These actions are displayed with the action cost on the Add New Action modal dialog (the list of all actions).
When a batch of files is added to a workflow, the whole cost is calculated as the [number of files] x [workflow cost]
If there is not enough credits, the whole file group is rejected
As soon as files are allowed to enter the workflow, the credits are reserved, deducted from the total number of credits.
The credits are actually spent only after the file is processed by the action. So, for example, in the aforementioned scenario Approve (0) - WillowSign (3) - OneDrive (0), if the file is deleted before the Approve action is finished, only 1 credit (base workflow cost) will be spent. Previously reserved 3 credits for WillowSign action will be returned to the organisation credits.
By reserving credits, we ensure that all files that enter the workflow will finish successfully, credit-wise
Please note that Credit Audit doesn't record reservations, just the credits that are really spent by performing an action
If the files are restarted after the workflow change, they are treated as the new files that are added to the workflow and therefore deducted from the credit count.
When a file fails without Retry option, credits spent for that file will be returned. Also, if some credits were reserved for that file (for future workflow actions), those credits will be released.
When there is less than 10% of the total credits (including additionally bought) left, we send an email warning to the dealer and all the admins of the organisation
Then we don't send the warning email for 7 days. In case someone adds more files after these 7 days, we will repeat the email (and wait for another 7 days).
When there are 0 credits left, we:
Send a notification email to the dealer and all the admins in the organisation
Then we don't send the warning email for 7 days. In case someone tries to add files after these 7 days, we will repeat the email (and wait for another 7 days).
Show a “Zero credit” bell notification to all the admins that leads to the Edit Organisation Settings Screen
Show a “No credits left” pop-up after every login to all the admins and workflow creators
Payment
Credits can be purchased online in the Credits panel under Organisation Settings.
Only administrators of the organisation are allowed to buy credits.
The process of purchasing credits looks like this:
User clicks Buy credits button in Credits panel.
There are several credit bundles users are allowed to pick from. When a credit bundle (also referred to as a Willow product) is clicked, the payment screen is opened in another tab and the user can proceed with the purchase by entering the necessary credit card information. For the payment, we use Stripe third-party service.
If the user buys credits for the first time:
They choose the preferred currency when they click the Buy Credits button. Preselected currency is determined based on the customer's country (filled in when their organisation is created). Usually people will opt for the preselected currency. Once they pick the preferred currency, their choice is saved and they can only change it by contacting iTS. From then, all the prices will be shown in the chosen currency.
They will be asked to provide their email (which will be used to receive payment receipts) and address details. Later on, they will be allowed to change these details only through the Customer Portal (Manage Payment Account link).
Once the purchase is made, the “Payment successful” message is presented and the number of credits shown in the Organisation Settings > Credits Panel is automatically increased.
Stripe will also send the invoice to the buyer's email. Please note that the invoice will always be in English as it's our company's resident country.
If for some unlikely reason, we fail to update the credit count automatically, the email is sent to Customer Support so they can update it manually and we show the message to the customer (to all organisation's logged in admins) that their credits will be updated soon.
During the payment, the user can opt to purchase as a business by checking the checkbox near the bottom of the payment form and provide their VAT to get the return of the tax money.
The user can also opt to save their credit card details for future use. In this case, Stripe will use the Link third-party service that will allow managing user's credit card details.
The Manage Payment Account link will open Stripe's Customer Portal for that organisation, where the user will be able to change their payment details, email, name, address, VAT number and also to see all their invoices for all the payments they made.
Additional Payment Options link will let the user manage some payment settings:
Warn when credits drop below - lets the user specify the threshold when a warning email is sent to notify them that the remaining credits are lower than the specified amount.
The detailed report about the credits spent can be retrieved using the Export Credit Audit feature