corinne-subscription

[unreal snow]

hey! so you would use billing_cycle_anchor yes (https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/billing-cycle) . I don't really follow what you mean or what you would like the anchor date to be exactly, could you explain a specific example of what you're looking for?

[warm sandal]

We have tried this. Basically, our invoices are going from end of the month to end of the month and we need them to go from the beginning of a month to the end of the same month.

[unreal snow]

I don't really understand how that would be different.

can you share some examples like screenshots and example Invoice IDs in_xxx that show the problem?

Ultimately, I would simply set the billing_cycle_anchor to the UTC timestamp of the start of the next month, e.g. 1661990400 for Sep 1. Not sure why that doesn't work for you use case.

[warm sandal]

Our finance team say that the billing cycle needs to cover from the 1st day of the month to the last of the same month, to make sure we are compliant

[unreal snow]

hmm, I mean it would? There's never any discontinuity in Stripe subscription cycles, it can't happen.

you're probably talking about some sort of display behaviour in the Invoice PDF or something, but it's hard to say without concrete examples from you about what is not what you expect and what you want to see instead.

[warm sandal]

yes, it is the pdf of the invoice. Can we adjust the display behaviour in the invoice to be from say 01 Sep - 30 Sep, and then the next one from 01 Oct - 31 Oct?

and with discontinuity - this means we cannot pause a subscription for a day at the end of each month, to ensure that invoices are correct?

[unreal snow]

can you show me a screenshot of the PDF you're looking at and the ID in_xxx?

[unreal snow]

I just mean that the billing period goes from the set anchor to the next natural date of that anchor with no gaps inbetween. Like it can't go from 1->30 then have a gap until the 1st of the next month.

[warm sandal]

ok - please bear with me as I get these and do not close this thread

OK - so I can send a screenshot but the key is, we wish to do the following:
invoice date: 1.10.22
billing period: 1.09.22 - 30.09.22
but we are unable to actually do this.
If we set the billing anchor to 23.59.59 on the last day of the month, we get an invoice date of 01.10.22 and a billing period of 31.08.22 - 30.09.22.
If we set the anchor to 0000 on 01.10.22, we get the invoice date of 01.10.22 and billing period is 01.09.22 - 01.10.22.
What do we have to set the billing anchor to, in order to fulfill this requirement:
invoice date: 1.10.22 (first of the month)
billing period: 1.09.22 - 30.09.22 (full calendar month of previous month)

[unreal snow]

unfortunately I can't really work with just that description and need specific examples. I think what you want is just not how Stripe works.

If we set the billing anchor to 23.59.59 on the last day of the month, we get an invoice date of 01.10.22 and a billing period of 31.08.22 - 30.09.22.
yep seems entirely normal to me. You're telling us, invoice for this subscription at the end of every month.
If we set the anchor to 0000 on 01.10.22, we get the invoice date of 01.10.22 and billing period is 01.09.22 - 01.10.22.
seems normal, you're telling us to invoice at the start of each month.
billing period: 1.09.22 - 30.09.22 (full calendar month of previous month)
I mean, 01.09 -> 01.10 includes the 30.09, and you have the time set to the very beginning of October, so to me I don't get it, seems the same to me and the customer is charged the same amount. Ultimately there aren't any other options, this is just how Stripe works.If the text in the PDF is not matching your requirements you can generate your own PDF and displays based on your interpretation of the data in the API responses, and/or raise product feedback to our support team with clear examples of what you need and why.

[warm sandal]

Could we achieve an invoice with the dates we want, if we create the invoice manually using api calls?

ok - sorry, wrote this at the same time

[unreal snow]

no, since then they're not recurring invoices and don't have Start->End periods

[warm sandal]

hang on, you just said we could create our own invoices but then said we cannot as they are not recurring invoices?

[unreal snow]

I said you can create your own PDFs

[warm sandal]

OK - when I said invoices, I meant pdfs of the invoice. My apologies for not being specific

[unreal snow]

like you can have our recurring invoice, look at the subscription.current_period_[start|end] and decide to render your own PDF or display to the customer that presents it with your own intepretation of the billing date

[warm sandal]

thanks