#Snoodle - Billing Date
heady brook
hi!
I spoke with Stripe support, but what they told me didn't work and I wasn't able to get to where I needed there. They led me to use subscription schedules, but it's ending up the same, with the 4/22 billing dates instead of 3/31
At best this is where I'm getting.
spring echo
Okay so let's break this out to be a bit more easy to read:
- You have a customer with an annual subscription.
- You need to back-date the billing cycle anchor
- All current approaches create a new subscription
heady brook
yes yes and yes, though that third point is okay, I'd prefer to modify their existing subscription, but if I need to cancel that one and issue a new one with the correct dates, that is acceptable.
spring echo
Yeah, reviewing the docs on billing cycles: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/subscriptions/billing-cycle
And I don't think we have a good work around for resetting the billing cycle to a date in the past. Only now and in the future.
heady brook
yeah on existing subscriptions I don't think there is a way, but for new subscriptions it seems that you can set it as a date in the past. Problem is that it's not then setting rebill as a year from that date in the future (annual plan).
spring echo
So you would be trying to create a new subscription with a backdated start date and mark it as already paid for the current billing cycle? That's what it sounds like to me.
heady brook
yeah - though they're paying via credit on their account, so the marking it paid part doesn't super matter. Mostly just that I need them to have a subscription that has those dates, ideally their existing, but since it's established that it can't be done on existing, then on a new one.
spring echo
Well the setting it as paid out of band is more so Stripe doesn't try to collect.
heady brook
fair
spring echo
Question: Can you recreate this scenario in Test mode so you can validate the expected behavior?
Especially for something like a subscription with an annual billing cycle, it's easy to think you know how everything will work and then get surprised 11 months later.
heady brook
Yes, but I'll need to get our Admin to generate a test key, which he'll do, just takes some time.
fair enough
spring echo
Well your account has Test API keys and I would highly recommend anyone contemplating reconfiguring subscriptions test out how it will work to ensure the behavior is what you want for your customers.
We have a pretty cool feature called Test Clocks that can simulate time stepping forward so you can check how subscriptions behave without having to wait a year: https://stripe.com/docs/billing/testing/test-clocks