Pause Subscription

Introduction

For the below given reasons your customers may desire to pause their subscription for some time instead of canceling it:

  • Customers might want to stop the service for a short period.
  • Customers might not be available at the location for some time.

In case there is any problem in getting payments from your customer and you want to keep the subscription on hold until the problem is solved, for that purpose you can pause the subscription.

There is a possibility that your customers may desire to pause their subscription instead of completely cancel it occasionally. So having the feature to pause the subscription at the place of canceling it is the best way to evade voluntary churn and also reduce the marketing dollars to get customers back. If subscribers are requesting to pause their subscription, it remains active until the end of their current billing period, at that point the subscription will switch to a paused state. While most of the subscriptions are paid in advance, this helps the subscriber to utilize the service that they’ve paid for already. In addition to this your finance or accounting department doesn’t have to be anxious about issuing credits for the unused time-period, prorating refunds or other billing complexities that are happening due to the mid-cycle changes.

With the help of API or from your ChargeMonk site you will be able to pause the subscription. The other way by which your customer can pause the subscription is through Customer Self-serve Portal.

In case the resume date/time is known, the subscriptions can be turned to pause for a defined period, else can be turn to pause forever. Credits will not be provided by the ChargeMonk for the unused billing period. Though, you can choose to provide credits to your customers manually, if needed.

Configure Pause & Resume Subscription

To enable pause subscription in your ChargeMonk site go to Settings > Configure ChargeMonk> Pause Subscription > Enable.

For the configuration of the default settings like ways to manage the subscriptions, invoices and charges at the time of pausing or resuming :

Select defaults for Pause:

Action Select a default
At the time of raising the Pause Subscription You will be able to choose to default, Pause immediately or Pause on Next renewal.
How long shall subscription be paused You will be able to choose to default, Pause indefinitely or pause till a particular date/time.
In case of unbilled charges Maintain the current charges as unbilled charges or invoice them
In case of Dunning invoice You can continue Dunning or Stop Dunning

Select defaults for Resume:

Action Select a default
At the time of raising the Resume Subscription You will be able to choose to default, Resume immediately or Resume on the Next renewal.
In case there are charges You select what will happen to the charges invoked for a subscription after the current billing period that is resumed.
In case there are unpaid invoices from earlier terms You can select what will happens to the unpaid invoices from the earlier terms of the subscription. All the existing term invoices will be collected on resumption.

Note

Through the ChargeMonk site or API, you can allow overriding the default settings, once a subscription is paused/resumed. Whenever overriding is protected, changing the settings will not be allowed to the users.

Pause a Subscription

Subscriptions that are in the ACTIVE state can only be paused.

Via UI

When Pause Subscription is enabled for your site, then you can pause an active subscription by:

  • Go to the details page of the subscription.
  • Hit the Pause Subscription button on the action pane placed on the right. The defaults that are defined in the ChargeMonk settings will be preloaded and the required options can be overridden if permitted.

  • Select when you desire to pause the subscription:

  • Immediately: Pausing the subscription will be done immediately. Once the subscription is paused, prorated credits will not be provided.
  • End of term: Pausing the subscription will take place at the end of the current billing term.
  • Scheduled: With the help of this option the subscription can get scheduled to pause on a given date.
    In case the subscription is scheduled to get paused, it'll supersede other changes that were already scheduled for the subscription and will avoid further changes as well. Assume that an upgrade is scheduled by you and then scheduled a pause. In such a case, the upgrade will not happen and will get paused instead.
  • Set Resume Date: To resume the subscription as per your requirements, you can set the date/time with the help of this option, otherwise you can resume later. In case there is no resume date mentioned, the subscription will get switched to pause indefinitely.

Via API

Subscription can get paused through the Pause Subscription API.

Via Self-Serve Portal

If the settings permit, the subscription can get paused and resumed by your customers using the Self-serve Portal:

In case you use ChargeMonk Hosted Pages Portal for your customers:

If the settings permit, subscriptions can get Paused or Resumed by your customer from the Hosted Pages Portal.

To pause the subscription on an immediate basis or at the end of the current billing term can be chosen by your customers. Additionally they can also choose to manually resume a paused subscription or on a particular date.

Renewals and Charges

  • In the paused state subscription renewals will not take place.
  • During the paused period no subscription renewal reminder emails will be sent to the customer.
  • Unbilled charges associated with the subscription will get invoiced once the subscription is resumed before prior to the billing term.

Billing Cycle

  • Once the subscription is resumed, the billing cycle will remain integral.
  • Managing the billing cycle of a paused subscription depends on the plan's integral subscription period. In case of a monthly plan, the subscription's billing cycle will not get affected if the subscription gets paused for 2 months. Though, if you are pausing the subscription for 2 months for a yearly plan, this means that your customer loses the service period of 2 months.

Subscription Changes/Cancellation

  • When the subscription is paused, a change subscription will not be permitted. You have to wait to make changes until the subscription is resumed.
  • If a subscription is paused or is scheduled to be paused, scheduled subscription changes will be removed.
  • Cancellation of subscription will take place even though the subscription is on pause or is scheduled for a pause.
  • On paused subscriptions, Advance invoices cannot be raised. Credits will be generated for the advance invoices revoked on a subscription that gets paused later.
  • For a paused subscription, the next billing date/time cannot be changed. In case pausing of the subscription is scheduled to get paused at the end of term, the next billing date/time can get changed to a date/time that lies within the resumption date/time.
  • On past invoices that are associated with paused subscription can perform Record payment, write-off or void.

Unbilled Charges

Below given are the factors by which you can manage unbilled charges while pausing the subscription:

  • Invoice now: To invoice the unbilled charges associated with the invoice right once the subscription is paused. In case the Auto Collection of the subscription is ON, the collection of the payment will be done by ChargeMonk. If Auto Collection is OFF or payment fails, an invoice will get closed and marked as Unpaid.
  • Retain as Unbilled: In case you select to hold on to the unbilled charges, this charge will be invoiced once the subscription is resumed and the charges will be included in the next invoice invoked - on resumption (if out of term) or the next invoice invoked prior resumption or can be manually invoiced. Resumption charges can be retained as unbilled by the user.

Dunning

Once the subscription is paused, you can select to continue or stop dunning for related invoices.

  • For a paused subscription, in case you select to continue dunning, the final action will supersede.
  • In case you have activated Consolidated invoicing and select stop dunning for a paused subscription, ChargeMonk will ensure if at least one active subscription is listed in the invoice, and dunning will not get stopped for the said invoice. Though, said subscription will get paused.

Reporting/Analytics

  • Paused subscription's MRR will be considered as $0 and will be recorded on resumption only.
  • Scheduled subscriptions for the resumption and/or pause will be recorded in CMRR.
  • In reports, paused subscriptions will not show up as churn. Paused subscriptions can get filtered.

    • Discounts/Coupons

    In case a discount is imposed on a paused subscription, the duration of coupon will not be extended and the coupon may expire even for a paused subscription.

    Resume a Subscription

    A subscription that is in the paused state can get resumed at any instance.

    In ChargeMonk, you can resume the subscription in case your customer has requested for it or payment problems have been solved, or any other reason by which the service/product should start to get delivered.

    • Immediate: This option means that you can resume the subscription at once.
    • Scheduled: Subscription can be resumed on a particular date/time. In case of a scheduled resumption, the date/time of resumption can be updated even for a paused subscription.

    In case the date/time of resume is given at the time of pause, the date will get preloaded and you can select to do modifications in it. But if the date/time of resume wasn't mentioned, then the subscription will get paused indefinitely. You can select a new date/time of resume or resume immediately.

    Via UI

    On a particular date/time or immediately, you can resume a paused subscription.

    You can invoice the charges immediately or include it to unbilled charges.

    Via API

    Through the Resume Subscription API, you can resume a paused subscription.

    A subscription can resume within the billing term or not, below given is the calculation for the:

    1. In-term Resumption
    2. Out of term Resumption

    Via Self-Serve Portal

    In case you have activated Portal v2 for your ChargeMonk site, the subscription can be resumed by your customer from the portal (immediately or on a specific date).

    In-term Resumption

    When a subscription is resumed or paused within its billing term, it is referred to as In-term Resumption.

    Assume that, the renewal of the subscription takes place on the 1st of every month. In case the subscription gets paused on 15th and then gets resumed on the 25th, this is referred to as an in-term resumption.

    Once a subscription resumes in-term, no new charges will get created.

    • For an unpaid invoice of the current term on resumption, ChargeMonk will attempt and collect the payment (in case the dunning is not underway for the invoice).
    • ChargeMonk will keep the subscription on hold, in case the payment does not go through.

    Out-of-term Resumption

    It is when resumption takes place for a paused subscription after the date/time of renewal, it is referred to as an out-of-term resumption.

    Assume that, the renewal of subscription takes place on the 1st of every month. And the subscription gets paused on the 15th and gets resumed on the 10th of the next month, this is referred as an out-of-term resumption.

    On the 10th of March, a new invoice will be generated (in this case.)

    • The subscription will resume in case the payment goes through otherwise it will remain paused.
    • On the 1st of Feb, the collection of an invoice generated will get scheduled once the subscription resumes.
    • In case Calendar billing is activated, the subscription term will line up with the charges and the billing date will be revoked accordingly.
    • In case Calendar billing is not activated, the date/time of renewal will be set as date/time of resumption. For a moment, in case a subscription that renews on the 1st of every month was resumed on the 10th of the next month, the renewal date of subscription will now be updated to 10th.

    Disable Pause Subscription

    In case you disable the pause subscription feature,

    • After disabling the subscription feature you will not be able to pause subscriptions anymore.
    • Paused subscriptions will resume as scheduled, or can be manually resumed.

    FAQ

    1. In case the subscription will get resumed before the end of a billing term, what will be the scenario of the non-recurring charges?

    In this case the non-recurring charges will not be invoiced instantaneously. Said charges will be included to the subscription renewal's invoice.