Assist_Design/docs/how-it-works/billing-and-payments.md

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# Billing, Invoices & Payments
How billing data is shown, refreshed, and kept accurate.
## Data Sources
- WHMCS is the billing system of record for clients, invoices, payment methods, gateways, and subscriptions.
- The portal does not store payment details; it only reads payment methods already saved in WHMCS.
## Invoices
- Retrieval: invoice lists and details are pulled from WHMCS for the mapped client ID.
- Caching: lists cached 90s; single invoice cached 5m. WHMCS webhooks and write operations clear these caches to keep totals current.
- Paying invoices: the portal generates a WHMCS SSO link for the specific invoice so customers pay directly in WHMCS without re-entering credentials.
## Payment Methods & Gateways
- Payment methods are stored in WHMCS. Before an order is accepted we check that at least one method exists.
- Caching: payment methods cached 15m per user; payment gateway list cached 1h. Caches are cleared after changes or on webhook-driven invalidations.
## Address & Profile in Billing
- Billing address and contact fields shown in the portal are pulled from WHMCS and treated as authoritative.
- When customers edit their profile/address, the portal writes the change to WHMCS and clears the relevant cache so invoices immediately reflect the new address.
## If something goes wrong
- WHMCS unavailable: we show a friendly “billing system unavailable, please try again” and avoid showing partial data.
- Payment method missing: checkout/fulfillment stops and tells the user to add a method; Salesforce is updated with a clear error code.
- Invoice not found or access denied: we return “invoice not found” without leaking other user data.