lazlo-invoice-checkout

[brisk mica]

hello

do you have an example?

[lavish stump]

Hi! Thank you so much for the reply. One second.

[brisk mica]

like what payment failed and then they tried to pay the Invoice

sure

[lavish stump]

This is a recent example. So the user had no funds on the card and it failed, they then paid but we had to create the new subscription manually and add credit to their account so it wouldn't bill again

We also tried creating a new subscription but then they have two and when the card comes back online it gets hairy.

Trying to stay hands off and let checkout handle everything and this is the only issue so far that's plaguing us. I thought about voiding the invoices via the api but that seems messy.

So here is the august payment that failed. We had disabled retry intervals since this is the primary reason why plans are cancelled. We would expect that when a user pays their plan would get reinstated and not just the invoice gets paid.

Hope that makes sense, sorry for the wall of text, just trying to explain as best as I can. 🙂

[brisk mica]

1/ that does help, can you share an Invoice ID of an Invoice for which the payment failed, then succeeded?

2/ and how is the payment succeeding? due to Stripe's retry rules or some other way?

[lavish stump]

1/ the invoice get set to uncollectible after the payment fails which is 5D90C50D-0017, when it's paid 5D90C50D-0018 is generated

2/ the user makes the payment again using checkout

3/ after the user makes the payment, they get billed but we have to create a new subscription for them as the old one is still set to cancelled

[brisk mica]

sorry that was the Invoice number, I can't look that up

The Invoice ID like in_123 would be helpful

2/ the user makes the payment again using checkout
hmm that doesn't sound right, Checkout doesn't allow paying an existing Invoice

[lavish stump]

in_1LcYNXKNTvHHbznV6SRV2pv9

in_1LehvSKNTvHHbznVRAHT0BLI

The only way to access stripe outside initially subscribing is checkout. I'm not sure the view a user gets when a payment fails and they make the payment. I had asked one time and they said they saw a button to "pay invoice"

Also this is our setting for subs

Aha

I just found one that failed and impersonated the user. Never thought about that until now, taking an image

So now if a user makes that payment, we get the $15 but they don't get back their sub

Followed that page and also when they make the payment using checkout, you notice that a new card gets added as the pay invoice screen is now asking for details again

in_1La24aKNTvHHbznVbjZR77aR

[brisk mica]

one thing to clarify, that "$15 pay Invoice" -> that isn't Checkout, that is the Customer Portal. That's why I was confused earlier!

[lavish stump]

Ah! Sorry

So yes, ideal behavior in my mind would be we cancel the sub once payment fails and they just resubscribe manually from the billing portal once funds are added?

[brisk mica]

checking

So yes, ideal behavior in my mind would be we cancel the sub once payment fails
that is what your settings are configured to, no?

You shared https://dashboard.stripe.com/invoices/in_1La24aKNTvHHbznVbjZR77aR

which is related to sub https://dashboard.stripe.com/subscriptions/sub_1KzmPMKNTvHHbznVCDRG7It0

that Subscription was canceled when all payments on the latest Invoice failed.

they just resubscribe manually from the billing portal once funds are added?
this cannot happen from the Customer Portal (the screenshots above). This has to happen from Stripe Checkout, to create new Subscription.

[lavish stump]

So in the past, that was kinda what we had. When the plan was cancelled, the billing portal wasn't shown, a fresh checkout session was created. What happened however was suddenly people had two subscriptions.

And back then we had retry on so when it did, they ended up having two active subscriptions and at one point we had to refund someone about 6 months worth of a sub.

I thought checkout could handle the resub flow.

[brisk mica]

to clarify, since we're mixing up terms

Stripe Checkout does handle creating new Subscriptions

Stripe Customer Portal handles managing existing Subscriptions e.g. changing a card on the Subscription etc

What happened however was suddenly people had two subscriptions.
so let's start here. What is an example of the two Subscriptions created?

that would help look into what happened causing the second Subscription to be created

[lavish stump]

Ok, will hunt for one, thanks for your patience so far.

[lavish stump]

I think I found one

in_1KcCO5KNTvHHbznVVEUDllCh

and then

in_1Kf63wKNTvHHbznVGfGvQ1wq

However I just looked at several and I think I noticed something that I didn't spot the first time. I think the duplication happens around trials!

[sweet veldt]

👋 I'm hopipng in since @brisk mica has to head out - let me just catch up

[lavish stump]

Thank you very much for your time @brisk mica

Have a good one

Hi @sweet veldt

I think I had mistakenly attributed the signup to creating a new sub when what was happening was the user subscribed, paid BEFORE the trial ended and ended up with two plans. One would think the trial should be cancelled if someone pays before it ends.

To catch you up.

1. Our users often lose their subscription because their cards have no money.

2. We are hands off with payment so we use Checkout, we also disable retries for reason #1.

3. When a user tops up their card and visits the billing portal, they get an option to pay their invoice. When they pay however, we get the money but their plan doesn't get reinstated, it just pays the invoice. I was wondering if that behavior could be changed.

4. Talking to hmunoz I realize that we actually need to create a new checkout session after the fact, I had mistakenly thought that the billing portal could create a new plan/resubscribe.

5. Now we used to have a fresh checkout session when a plan was cancelled but we noticed users would end up with two plans which is why we opted to move everything to checkout thinking it could do all that.

6. Now digging through customer history I'm realizing that what seems to have happened was that the user wasn't just given a new plan but rather it is related to trials.

So I'm wondering why checkout wouldn't cancel a trial when creating a new plan.

[sweet veldt]

Can you expand on that last piece a bit more about trials - what specific pieces of information/what objects are you looking at that's pointing towards trials being the issue

[lavish stump]

Can you see customer info if I share an id?

Let me send an image instead

I'm presuming that that's the case looking at this client.

To be clear, I'm now aware that the user cannot resubscribe using the billing portal, only change/manage plans.

[sweet veldt]

Yes, you can share the customer ID

[lavish stump]

this is one
cus_JyjvBP2bokNRyY and another cus_LM9VVynj9Y1Hn0 that had two subscriptions

[sweet veldt]

Let's back up for a minute - so from our perspective, it just looks like your integration is letting the same customer go through Checkout twice (which creates two Subscriptions for them). This would be something in your code/integration that's allowing them to go through Checkout twice, but it's not clear to me what exactly your code is checking/assuming so more detail about this specifically would help

[lavish stump]

Hmm

I never expected to end up here, I came in with something else in mind but this and what was discussed above has clarified a lot.

I will take a look at this again and gather my thoughts and observations properly before returning and what I've learnt here now will help in fixing this so hopefully you don't hear back from me.

Thank you very much for your time! Massively helpful because I was looking at this all wrong.