#blackarcanis-subscriptions
real obsidian
hi! the incomplete status only happens with charge_automatically subscriptions.
for send_invoice, the subscription is active and then will change status if the invoice is not paid within the days_until_due.
civic blade
Oh ok, that's good to know. However, if for example I set 2 days until due, the subscription has already started while not paid yet. How can I change the subscription date/period to start when the payment has been made? For example start the 01 and be paid the 02 should now set the billing period to 02 and not 01
real obsidian
you can't really, the API doesn't work that way
you could listen to the invoice.paid webhook event and only start provisioning access to your service when that happens instead of when the subscription object is created(it doesn't change the billing period on the Stripe subscription, but that seems like what you want)
civic blade
Hum I see and yes, however for the user he will lose one day of access by doing this and will be billed again the 01 instead of 02 :/
Maybe can I update the "billing date"? So that way, I will be able to set the correct date when received the invoice paid event for example
real obsidian
you could but I think it's really messy and like I said isn't really how Stripe works
but you could do https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/billing-cycle#using-a-trial-to-change-the-billing-cycle to add a trial period to the subscription to push the billing date out after the invoice is paid
civic blade
I will check that, thank you!
real obsidian
another point about this is what happens if the next invoice also has a delay in being paid. Like next month, now the invoice happens on the 2nd, and the customer only pays on the 4th. Do you then change the billing cycle again for future payments to be the 4th?
civic blade
That's a good point, you're right :/
real obsidian
it's better to go with how this is modelled in Stripe, which is that the service is active by default, and if the invoice passes the days_until_due without being paid, at which point you can cancel their service
civic blade
Yes for sure, but some customers could always say they have missed a day or two for example (the time we received the payment) of the monthly access. That's not an issue if the user keeps his subscription but else, that could be. Not sure if so many users will write about this but...
real obsidian
to be clear, I mean not doing what I said above(waiting until invoice.paid to provision the service(though it is an option which is why I suggested it to you since you seemed to want it). Generally it's simply, you create the subscription today, the customer has access immediately, if they don't pay the invoice within the days_until_due, then they lose access. That's generally the business model this API is designed around.
civic blade
Yes, however, we can't deliver the access without payment (as some of our features can be used immediately and so the user will have no need to pay for the month if he already got what in need in a few minutes). And yes I understand, we are more trying to study if we can accept "ideal" etc easily for our subscriptions (in additions of cards). But your API with invoice process seems more tailored for "b2b" than "immediate" access
real obsidian
the send_invoice mode is designed for B2B I would say, that is fair! charge_automatically might be a better fit?
civic blade
Yes but charge_automatically will only work with a card easily. For "ideal" for example, from our perspective, sending the invoice to the customer which will pay on a "stripe" hosted page is a great alternative and easy to set up. But I have to deal with this "period off" as long as we are not receiving the real payment :/
real obsidian
I see! iDEAL payments do work with charge_automatically , though it can be a little difficult to set up. Right now we don't support iDEAL in Checkout for Subscription mode, which does make it very manual to accept. It's actively planned though and something we will plan to launch this year. Do you use Checkout to create the subscriptions today?
In my opinion, the best way to proceed here is to stick with charge_automatically and get the actual modelling of the subscription billing periods and access to your product set up the way you want them(a lot easier here than with send_invoice) and just accept Cards for now, and revisit for future payment methods when it's easier to integrate on Stripe.