Creating and Using Expiring Subscriptions

Overview

The Expiring Subscription feature enables you to introduce time-limited products and discounts to your accounts. This functionality allows for temporary benefits, such as offering new customers a 10% discount for the first 12 months or setting up fixed-term instalment plans for equipment purchases.

Throughout this document, products and discounts are collectively referred to as subscriptions.

How Expiring Subscriptions Work

The expiration is determined by the number of times a subscription appears on a recurring invoice, based on the value inputed during its creation.

For instance, setting the count to 1 means the subscription will apply only once before it expires and is removed from future invoices.

Find below some scenarios where a subscription's count might increase, or stay as is:

A Few Additional Notes:

• Only subscriptions with a recurring product strategy can access this new expiry setting.

• Existing subscriptions currently applied to an account cannot be updated to include an expiry; new subscriptions must be created instead.

• In this first release, you cannot update the expiry settings for existing products or discounts. You will need to create new ones.

• Fees cannot be configured to expire in this initial release.

• By default, subscriptions are created without an expiry. You must actively enable this setting.

Creating an Expiring Subscription

Subscriptions can be configured with set expirations. To enable this, each subscription must first be established in the product catalogue, where the expiration details are specified.

When configuring a new subscription, the Recurrence Limit section will appear, allowing you to set the expiration terms. From then on, whenever this subscription is added to an account, it will automatically inherit the expiry settings from this designated field.

For more information on the basic of creating new subscriptions, read Product Catalog Module

Using an Expiring Subscriptions

Adding expiring subscriptions follows the same procedure as setting up any other type of subscription. However, we've included additional notifications to make users fully aware of the established parameters.

Below are some images that demonstrate what users can expect when manually adding a subscription (please proceed with caution!), and after it has been activated on an account.

A Note on Proration & Cancellation:

Typically, when a non-expiring subscription is added mid-billing cycle, its cost is prorated for that month before charging the full price in subsequent full billing cycles.

However, due to the specific characteristics of expiring subscriptions, we do not prorate them, even if added during a mid-billing cycle.

Similarly, if an account cancels their services, we do not prorate the remaining portion of the subscription. During our feature evaluation, we determined that such situations are best handled on a case-by-case basis.

If necessary, manual adjustments can be made through a one-time debit or discount to achieve the desired result.

A Few Additional Notes:

• If you need to update a current account's subscription to one that expires, you must un-assign the existing subscription and assign the corresponding expiring one.
• Once applied, the expiration cannot be modified (in the initial release).
• The expiration settings cannot be adjusted at the time of application; they are strictly determined by the settings in the product catalogue (in the initial release).
• Owing to the specific nature of expiring subscriptions, they cannot be shared between accounts. Each subscription will only apply to the account to which it was originally added.