#marie.schutte
woeful merlin
crystal merlin
Hello! To clarify, are you using Stripe Subscriptions or your own subscription logic on your end?
tired kayak
We are setting up a Stripe Subscription, but then will have to modify and execute an upcoming invoice via the API.
(We're using Subscriptions so that we can leverage the customer portal, but have to execute authorization and capture based on external events)
crystal merlin
Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. Where are you setting capture_method for these Subscriptions? Or are you specifying that a hold should be placed with later authorization some other way?
tired kayak
Hmm, good question. When the subscription is created, we are setting collection_method: "charge_automatically"
But then later, when an external event happens, we want to modify the upcoming invoice via the API, to add a line item, and authorize the card immediately (and then capture manually a day or two later)
crystal merlin
To my knowledge there's no way to use Stripe Subscriptions and have them place a hold that you manually capture later.
If you want to do that you would need to use your own subscription logic on your end and use Payment Intents directly.
The other approach would be to not place a hold at all and instead refund if needed.
Can you tell me more about your use case? I might be able to suggest additional alternatives.
tired kayak
Without getting too specific in a public thread, we are taking over a customer's recurring bill (think internet, cell phone, water bill) and adding an additional subscription charge on top of that for our service. So rather than the user paying us a monthly subscription for our service, and also paying their other service provider, we are consolidating the bills.
We are using a third party service that then remits payment to the recurring service provider. In order to be in compliance with money transmitting regulations, the flow can't go Customer > Us > Third-party Remitter > Recurring Bill provider. It has to go Third-party Remitter > Recurring bill provider, then Us > Third-party Remitter, then Customer > Us. So we need to be able to authorize the customer's payment method before allowing that process to be kicked off, but we want to avoid capturing payment until the other steps have occurred.
Essentially, we want to utilitze stripe subscriptions for the setup/customer portal management, but be able to modify the upcoming invoice later via the API
crystal merlin
You can't modify the Invoice to do separate authorization and capture, that's just not something we support unfortunately.
Stripe Invoices and Subscriptions always charge and capture immediately when it's time for them to be paid.
The only thing I can think of that would come close to what you want is setting collection_method to send_invoice on the Subscription, but that may include behavior you don't want: https://stripe.com/docs/api/subscriptions/create#create_subscription-collection_method
tired kayak
Ok shoot. I appreciate your help!!
crystal merlin
No problem, sorry I didn't have better news!