#steven-gauerke_api
arctic lindenBOT
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surreal garnet
Hello, I think your two main options would be to use a subscription schedule to schedule the subscription start on that date
https://docs.stripe.com/billing/subscriptions/subscription-schedules/use-cases#start-subscription-future
Or you could issue credit notes to your customers to cover their first month of these new subscriptions
cyan belfry
ok but I have metered items that I needs to be in this subscription.
So if I give them credit notes, then it will create the subscription and charge those credits? But on the 10th, it will bill card on file?
or will I need to change payment methods?
Or I could do a trial for 2 days. And then will it bill them for metered usage from the start date?
surreal garnet
We don't bill metered usage that happened during a trial period as far as I am aware. You can test this in test mode but I believe that we create the events but don't charge
cyan belfry
ok so then how can I set up everyone's subscription today, to charge on the 10th for their metered usage (which I will use API to add here in a second)
surreal garnet
I believe so yes
cyan belfry
so would start date be in the past? Or July 10th?
no I can't set a start date on a subscription...in subscription schedules I Can....
surreal garnet
Right, when directly creating a subscription, you can backdate it. To have the subscription start in future, you would need a schedule, but if you do that with a schedule, we won't be charging for usage before the 10th because there won't be a subscription to charge for
cyan belfry
so when a subscription comes due on such and such day, and there are metered items, does it include those for the previous....cycle (month)?
surreal garnet
If the subscription was running during that time, yes
So it sounds like you may want to create the subscription now and then apply credit to zero out any monthly fee that you don't want to get charged when backdating.
cyan belfry
yes but I still want to charge my people on the 10th which is in 2 days. And it needs to include metered usage from the start date of June 10th
should I maybe set the start date to May 10th and billing_cycle_anchor_config to the 10th so it will make next invoice the 10th? Or will it "pay off" usage from may 10th to current?
surreal garnet
Apologies I think I may be jumping to conclusions on how you want to charge here. Can you give me a quick example of what you would want the charges to look like for a subscription set up right now?
cyan belfry
ok so I have a flat rate item called Monthly Subscription for $350. There's 3 other metered items (only one that current will have usage is property_lookups). So on July the 10th, we would bill our customer for property_lookups during June 10th to July 9th. Along with the flat rate monthly subscription.
We've been just using the create Charge API and custom item name for the TOTAL. But I wanted to automate it using subscriptions and line items
surreal garnet
Gotcha, and the $350 is a standard flat rate price in Stripe, so it bills at the beginning of the month, and you don't want that to be charged for these backdated subscriptions because that amount has already been paid?
cyan belfry
One of the other reasons I don't want to bill everyone now, is some of our customers are on a special price for the Monthly Subscription. But we want to talk to them before the 10th to see if we can get them to go to the new price of $350.
cyan belfry
Gotcha, and the $350 is a standard flat rate price in Stripe, so it bills at the...
correct
Looking at schedules, looks like it would work but it also seems like it would try to charge right now too and count that as one of its iterations.
in that document you sent me it says "release will end the subscription schedule and keep the underlying subscription running. "....but in the example given, WHAT underlying subscription is it saying will still run? There's only 1 phase and no other items
cobalt prawnBOT
surreal garnet
Subscription schedules manage a specific subscription object, you can create a schedule on an existing subscription, in which case that is the underlying subscription. Otherwise, once the schedule's phases start it will create a subscription
So you can backdate meter events but as mentioned you will need an active subscription to charge them when the subscription cycles. So I think you will want to create subscriptions, cover the $350 flat fee with a credit note, and then backfill your meter events since June 10, that should cause the proper amount to be billed when the subscription's cycle https://docs.stripe.com/api/billing/meter-event/create#create_billing_meter_event-timestamp
I would highly recommend testing this in test mode with test clocks to double check that though https://docs.stripe.com/billing/testing/test-clocks
cyan belfry
ok so if I create a credit note, will I need to tell the subscription to use that first? or is that automatic?
I cant do test clocks. It says You can’t run a simulation on this subscription because the customer has too many records.
cloud cairn
Hi there
Test clocks is the best way to test this (unless you want to wait for the next "real" billing cycle) so I recommend creating a brand new customer to test this specifically
cyan belfry
Ok so here's the issue....this is in test mode....I put a credit of $350 on the test customer, but it still charged $9.62 I guess as "prorated" amount? Can you look at this invoice? Or do you need the request ID?
in_1PaOjsA4M1Qr14F6nNsduPSE
ill just turn prorated off for this initial setup.
cyan belfry
Im assuming that was a prorated rate? So I turned off proration and removed the $350 credit. But now it doesnt charge anything on creation but it also says next month has a $350 applied balance
ok im going to create a new test customer and record a video walking through all of this
cloud cairn
Ah, no you're right, there is a proration
cyan belfry
ok so turning off proration works. I have to wait until AFTER I create the subscription and backdate some metered events. Then it works great!