Tiana-invoice-tax

[autumn dagger]

Hey there 👋

When using one off invoices you'll need to ensure the customer location information is complete: https://stripe.com/docs/tax/invoicing#set-up-customer

[vernal flax]

So the user can't fill his information at payment time like in a checkout session ?

[autumn dagger]

You can check if the information is sufficient and handle error if they arise:
https://stripe.com/docs/tax/customer-locations#handling-errors

No, the customer address used by an invoice is set by you via the dashboard or API before issuing the invoice

[vernal flax]

In that case, I must rollback to the checkout session, which brings back my old issue : how to replace an existing subscription with a new one when the customer completes a checkout session ?

[autumn dagger]

what do you mean by that, can you say more about this scenario?

[vernal flax]

• A new user registers in the app
• The app creates a Stripe customer belonging to the app user
• The app creates a trial subscription for this customer
• At the end of the trial period, the user chooses a different product
• The app creates a checkout session for that product, which will create a new subscription
  At the end of that session, the initial subscription must be deleted and never invoiced.

[autumn dagger]

hey sorry coming back to this

Ah, well, if you do things that way you'd listen for the checkout.session.completed webhooks after the checkout session, and remove the trial subscription for the same customer

Alternatively, you could consider using the Billing Portal to let them change the plan on the existing subscription after the trial: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/integrating-customer-portal

[vernal flax]

Okay, how can I prevent the trial subscription from being invoiced even if it expired for some time already ?

[vernal flax]

Not an option because my boss says each product's features must be displayed to the user when choosing once the trial expires.

[turbid jacinth]

@vernal flax I'm not sure I follow what you mean by that. Do you have a concrete example I can look at?

[vernal flax]

What do I mean by what ?

[turbid jacinth]

You seem to say we charge an invoice when we shouldn't and I'm not really following your explanation. So I'm asking if you have a clear example in your account about the behaviour that you think is incorrect and then I can look and try to explain

[vernal flax]

When the trial expires, an invoice is generated. The dashboard says "Trial ends Oct 15", "Next invoice on Oct 15 for €34.99". Even if the user does not pay before the trial expires, we need that invoice not to exist.

[turbid jacinth]

What would the user pay before the trial since the trial is usually free?

[vernal flax]

Yes, the trial is free.
What I mean is, even if the user is a few days late after the trial expires, we need the invoice not to be generated.

[turbid jacinth]

That's not how Stripe works unfortunately.

There isn't a concept of anyone "being late" so I don't follow the words you use just yet

1/ October 1st, trial is created, invoice for $0 is created, trial will end on October 15th
2/ October 15th, trial ends, Subscription cycle starts, new invoice for $10 is created for October 15 - November 15
3/ 2 hours later, invoice is finalized, payment method on file (if any) is attempted

that's how the flow works today, I don't see how you could have an invoice not created at the end of the trial

[vernal flax]

My boss says invoices aren't supposed to be generated during trial according to accounting's legal requirements.

[turbid jacinth]

I think there's a misunderstanding somewhere. There's no invoice during a trial, there's an invoice at the end of the trial when the subscription starts. That's just how I've always seen it done and I've talked to thousands of businesses with recurring payments

Does that make sense?

[vernal flax]

There's no invoice during a trial
Actually there is. Its amount is 0, but it was generated.
there's an invoice at the end of the trial when the subscription starts
My boss want the subscription not to start until the customer gives his payment method.

[turbid jacinth]

it's generated, at the start, not sent to the user

Really I think you're approaching this wrong at the moment

But there's no way to avoid this unless you cancel the subscription at the end of the trial

[vernal flax]

not sent to the user
I never said it was.

But, my boss says there should be no invoice generated when a trial either starts or expires.

[turbid jacinth]

In your case you might get more value by not creating the Subscription until you're ready to accept the first payment

[vernal flax]

• My boss.
  I'm just following orders

[turbid jacinth]

I understand that's what your boss says, but it doesn't work like this in our product and we designed it this way on purpose, that's what all businesses I know of do.
I know it's your boss, but that doesn't mean you can't offer alternatives and explain how it can work

[vernal flax]

His problem is that the invoice number increments. He says it should not increment unless the user starts paying.