#angelctc_best-practices
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warm wind
hello! Sorry, I'm not sure I understand, what do you mean by After the consolidated invoice is paid, we need to handle the individual subscription invoices to prevent double-charging the customer. Can you elaborate on that?
vast ingot
Yes, so our company is SaaS, and for each account, it might have multple client with different subscription. For us, we want to only bill that account once a month for all the subscription that share the same billing cycle.
So our goal is to greate a single invoice for all subscription.
Our customer paid that single invoice that contain all the subscription item
Once that invoice is paid, it mean all the corrleated subscrption also been paid.
Therefor, we need to manage the independent invoice per subscirption into some sort of status so we don't double charge our customer
warm wind
What you mean by multiple subscriptions are likely just multiple Prices. Yes, that's possible to have multiple Prices on the same Subscription. I still don't quite understand what you mean by handling the individual subscription / invoice to prevent double-charging the customer though. For context, Stripe handles collection of the recurring payment on your behalf with Subscriptions so I'm not too sure where or why you would have double charges.
If you want to save the invoice details to your database, you can do so using the invoice.paid webhooks.
Some links that you may find useful :
- https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/webhooks
- https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/build-subscriptions or https://docs.stripe.com/payments/accept-a-payment-deferred?platform=web&type=subscription
- In case you haven't seen this yet, you can use test clocks to mimic the passing of time : https://stripe.com/docs/billing/testing/test-clocks
vast ingot
Some other context:
The reason why we dont' want to group those subscription into 1 subscription is because we want to allow our account owner to have control over each client subscription, so that can upgrade and cancel subscription per client base.
warm wind
ah I see, now I understand what you want by when you say one invoice for multiple subscriptions. No, this isn't possible. Each subscription will generate it's own invoice.
vast ingot
Okay, so I got some other question, can I create a invoice without subscription attached to that invoice?
I got 2 subscription that share the same biling cycle, however, when I get the upcoming invoice, it only return 1 of the invoice for 1 subscription, why's that
what event should I listen for in-order to get all the draft invoice?
warm wind
can you share the request id [0] for the request you made to get the upcoming invoice? it'd look like req_xxx
vast ingot
stripe invoices upcoming --customer=cus_QBhnYw77jl6ByW
warm wind
the request id looks like req_xxx
vast ingot
req_DAJlLZgkTeJQzC
So if you check the customer, it have 2 subscription with same billing date, so I would thought using invoices upcoming will return me 2 invoice
warm wind
ah, no it doesn't work that way. Upcoming invoice is for a single invoice. If you want to view all of the upcoming invoices for each subscription, you will need to implement a loop to loop through each of the customer's subscription : https://docs.stripe.com/api/invoices/upcoming#upcoming_invoice-subscription
vast ingot
Oh I see, thanks for clarify that
Is it possible to charege the client once for multiple invoice ? So let's say a customer with 3 invoice, each invoice is $50, isntead of charge that customer $50 three time, can we charge them $150 and settle that 3 invoice?
warm wind
To be clear, what you want is not possible with Stripe Billing (i.e. the Subscriptions API). If you want to build your own billing (subscriptions) logic, and only use Stripe to invoice the customer (i.e. the Invoice API), what you want is possible
vast ingot
If I build m own billing logic, does it mean I can't use the stripe checkout and customer portal to manage subscription?
warm wind
if you build your own billing logic, you can't use the customer portal. You could use maybe Stripe Checkout for the first payment. But subsequent recurring payments would require you to charge the customers either by creating a PaymentIntent, or using the Invoices API
vast ingot
Is the payment system correlated to the invoice system?
ie. can I have a payment record without a invoice?
warm wind
sure, you can have a payment record without an invoice also
i assumed that your customers would want an invoice, but if your app / customers doesn't need it, then you don't have to have an invoice
vast ingot
How do I create a charge without an invoice?
warm wind
you can take a look at this guide : https://docs.stripe.com/payments/accept-a-payment
vast ingot
Does it work with recurring payments?
warm wind
If you are not using Stripe's Subscriptions API, it's up to you to implement the logic for when (i.e. exact date and time) to charge the customer
you can charge the customer off-session with a saved payment method if that's what you're asking : https://docs.stripe.com/payments/save-and-reuse?platform=web&ui=elements#charge-saved-payment-method
vast ingot
Yes, that's what i'm thinking of. Thanks !
warm wind
actually, slight correction, you'll want to refer to https://docs.stripe.com/payments/save-during-payment instead since you need to save the payment method during payment so that you can charge it in the future
vast ingot
Okay here's my thought, what do you think if :
I keep Multiple subscriptions for a customer.
When those subscription generated a draft invoice.
I will collect all those invoice and create a new invoice that contain those invoice line item inside
Charge customer one-time with that one off invoice
then once that invoice is paid, I mark all thos orginial invoice as paid.
warm wind
you can try it out and see if that works for you
your original use case isn't supported, so it's pretty awkward to do it like what you've described, but you can try it out
vast ingot
Yea, it's a pretty complicated case, wish we can just charge them per subscription too 😅
Thank you for your help, is it possible I come back here if i get any issue related to my approach in the future?
warm wind
yep, feel free to reach out again if you need more help
vast ingot
Can I creaet a customer portal session with only 1 subscription in it. Even though the custoemr have 2 sbuscription?
The gaol is that it will be easier to track the invoice per subscription inside the portal
warm wind
No, that's not possible.
vast ingot
So customer portal must show all the sbuscription? It's really hard to find which invoices is for which subscription tho. Is there a better way to navigate that?
warm wind
yep, customer portal will show all the subscriptions. I don't know what you mean by if there is a better way to "navigate" that. There's no workaround for this. The only option is to build your own subscription management UI
vast ingot
Yea I think that's what we need