Products, Services, Orders & Invoices

These four objects are the heart of PNLCS. Understanding how they relate is the single most useful thing you can learn.

Product — what you sell

A product is an entry on your price list. It defines:

• A name and group (category)
• Which server + module it provisions on (or Custom / None)
• Auto-setup — when the account is created (on order / on payment / manual)
• Pricing per billing cycle (monthly, quarterly, annually, biennially…)
• Optional configurable options, add-ons, welcome email, and stock limits

A product is a template. Nothing is billed or provisioned until a customer actually orders it.

Order — the act of buying

When a customer checks out, PNLCS creates an order. The order:

• Records who bought, what, and at what price
• Generates an invoice for the total
• Creates a pending service for each hosting/VPS item and a pending domain for each domain item

Order statuses:

Status	Meaning
Pending	Placed, waiting to be accepted (usually waiting for payment)
Active	Accepted — services have been activated/provisioned
Cancelled	Called off; related services cancelled
Fraud	Flagged as fraudulent; services suspended

Invoice — the bill

An invoice is generated for the order and later for each renewal. It carries line items, tax, credit applied and a status:

Status	Meaning
Unpaid	Awaiting payment
Partially Paid	Some money received, a balance remains
Payment Pending	A customer reported an offline (bank transfer) payment, awaiting your approval
Paid	Settled in full
Overdue	Past its due date, still unpaid
Cancelled	Voided
Refunded	Money returned

Paying an invoice is the trigger for almost everything: it accepts the order, activates and provisions the service, credits affiliates, and sends the welcome email.

Service — what the customer owns

Once an order is accepted, each hosting item becomes an active service — the live account. A service has:

• Its own status: Pending, Active, Suspended, Terminated, Cancelled
• Its own billing cycle and next due date
• A link to the server it lives on and the username on that server

The service is what renews. As the next due date approaches, PNLCS generates a renewal invoice; if it goes unpaid past your grace period, the service is suspended, and eventually terminated.

How they flow together

Product (your price list)
   │  customer orders
   ▼
Order (Pending) ──creates──▶ Invoice (Unpaid)
                                  │  customer pays
                                  ▼
Order (Active) ──activates──▶ Service (Active) ──provisioned on──▶ Server
                                  │
                                  │  each billing cycle
                                  ▼
                             Renewal Invoice ──unpaid too long──▶ Suspend ──▶ Terminate

Common questions

Why do I have both an "order" and a "service"? The order is the one-time purchase event. The service is the ongoing product the customer owns, which keeps billing long after the order is history.

Why is my service "Pending" and not "Active"? The order hasn't been accepted yet — usually because the invoice is still unpaid, or the product's auto-setup is set to manual. See The Billing Lifecycle.

A customer paid but nothing was provisioned. Check the product has a server + module assigned and auto-setup is on payment. See Provisioning failed.