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Purchase Subscription and Purchase Drop-In texts are now configurable
Introduction
Subscription billing lets you regularly bill your customers. You can bill weekly, monthly, or yearly, or you can create your own schedule. You can set an expiration date, or you can let it to never expire.
Administrators can suspend and resume billing as needed.
Getting Started - Configurations
There are several configurations related to recurring billing. Log into your administrative console, go to Settings -> Setup -> Configuration, and search for "recurring."
Below are descriptions of the configurations:
Number of attempts to bill a recurring payment source before it is considered to not be in good standing: Recurring billing is ran nightly. If a payment does fail, like a credit card is declined, it will be re-attempted the next night. This setting allows you to determine how many attempts are made until it goes into bad standing.
If the product provided a benefit, such as access to a membership level, and if the payment source is in bad standing, then the customer will lose access to the benefit.
The number of days prior to the billing date before creating the recurring option: Once a recurring option is built, your customer will see a notification that a payment is due. You can determine how far out from the due date the system will build the option, and thus how far out from the due date the notification will be shown.
Allow the shopping cart user to delete a recurring credit card: You can choose to allow your customers to delete a credit card that is used for their recurring billing.
Require Credit Card for Recurring payments: You can choose to require your customers to use a credit card when purchasing a product with recurring billing.
The number of calendar days to show on a recurring schedule: Controls the amount of subscription days displayed in the drop down of a subscription product.
Recurring Billing Legal text: Legal information for customers to agree to when purchasing a product with recurring billing enabled.
Detail page recurring amount text: Text displayed on a product detail page for the recurring billing.
The number of days prior to the billing date before creating the recurring option: Once a recurring option is built, your customer will see a notification that a payment is due. You can determine how far out from the due date the system will build the option, and thus how far out from the due date the notification will be shown.
Allow the shopping cart user to delete a recurring credit card: You can choose to allow your customers to delete a credit card that is used for their recurring billing.
Require Credit Card for Recurring payments: You can choose to require your customers to use a credit card when purchasing a product with recurring billing.
The number of calendar days to show on a recurring schedule: Controls the amount of subscription days displayed in the drop down of a subscription product.
Recurring Billing Legal text: Legal information for customers to agree to when purchasing a product with recurring billing enabled.
Detail page recurring amount text: Text displayed on a product detail page for the recurring billing.
More configurations can be found by searching for "Subscription" and looking under Shopping Cart: Product Details Page and Terminology.
Description to customer for purchasing a one time class to try out a subscription: If you allow your customers to drop-in to a single session, this message will appear on the details page.
Description to customer for purchasing an entire subscription in one purchase: This message appears on the details page of subscription products.
Subscription add to cart button text: Add to cart button label for subscriptions.
Subscription Drop In add to cart button text: Add to cart button label for subscriptions.
Turn on to allow a subscription to take up a Hold spot: If a product allows drop-ins and has hold inventory, this can be used to allow subscriptions to take up the hold inventory.
Description to customer for purchasing an entire subscription in one purchase: This message appears on the details page of subscription products.
Subscription add to cart button text: Add to cart button label for subscriptions.
Subscription Drop In add to cart button text: Add to cart button label for subscriptions.
Turn on to allow a subscription to take up a Hold spot: If a product allows drop-ins and has hold inventory, this can be used to allow subscriptions to take up the hold inventory.
Account Dashboard Subscriptions Term: Text seen on the account Dashboard for Subscriptions.
Consumer To Consumer Subscriptions Term: Text displayed to consumer on the cart side in relation to subscriptions.
Price tag display text for subscription products that are free: If you don't have a price on the product, then this text will appear in the price tag instead of something like "Free"
Creating the Product
Go to Products and select the Add New button. Choose either event or merchandise, enter a name, and select the Create button. (The example below is an event.)
Note: Recurring billing can be added to other types of products, however this isn't recommended. Please contact our Support Team if you are considering adding recurring billing to other types of products.
Begin creating the product using the Products: Main Tab <- Use article as a guide. If you are going to allow for Drop Ins, be sure to enter the price of a single session. As you can see, the event has a date range of 6/18/2018 to 8/31/2018. This creates a schedule of sessions (This setup makes sense for a subscription, as the customer will be purchasing ongoing access to those sessions)
Fill out the desired fields on the advanced tab, see the Advanced Product Tab article as a guide. (This example is a single participant event, it allows for drop-ins for everyone, and has single page) checkout.
Note: You can also choose to not allow drop-ins or to just allow drop-ins for admins. If drop-ins are just for admins, then it will only appear when impersonating an account.
Enabling Recurring Billing
The Advanced tab has a Billing section. Select Enable Recurring Billing. Select Subscription.
Description of Options below:
Recurring Amount
The Recurring Amount that's charged based on the schedule.
Payment Frequency Types and Frequencies
You can select "From Date of Purchase" payment frequency type. It has the following options: Weekly, Monthly, Every 90 Days, Every 6 Months, and Yearly. For greater flexibility, you can use a Custom Schedule <- See article for more information
Expiration
Recurring billing can expire a certain number days after the purchase date or the event's start date. It can also expire on a specific date of your choosing.
You can also choose the option "Never Expires" You might choose this when using a merchandise product. (The billing will continue until an administrator cancels it)
Payment Cycles to Charge Upfront
You can charge your customer their first x number of cycles at the time of purchase.
For example, if you are billing monthly, you may enter "3" for customers to pay the first three months during checkout. After three months, they will be billed monthly.
You can also enter a value of "0." In this case they'll be charged the product's price at checkout and regular billing will start immediately.
Prorate
If your event has multiple sessions per billing period, you can prorate the initial charge to include partial month sessions.
Prorate price per session: The amount the customer must pay per session if prorating.
Max sessions to prorate: The maximum number of sessions to prorate in a given billing period. (Leave "0" if not relevant)
Max prorate amount: The maximum dollar amount to add as a prorate charge. (Leave "0" if not relevant)
Prorate Frequency: The schedule for prorating.
Example: You have a weekly event that you charge $120/month for a customer to attend. If a customer attends a session before a new billing cycle starts, you want to charge them $50 per session, up to $120. You would set the recurring amount at $120 on the schedule you choose, then check Charge Prorate Amount. The Prorate price per session would be $50, and Max Prorate Amount would be $120. (Max sessions to prorate is not needed for this example)
Note: Prorate is only available on Custom Schedules.
Event Calendar
In this example, the sessions occur on Tuesdays and Thursdays. See the Calendar article for detailed instructions on this area.
The Customer's Experience
Your customers will go to your shopping cart and find the product. They will select to view the details page.
If single page checkout is checked, they can select or create a participant on the detail page. If an event with a schedule, they can select their starting date and select the Purchase Subscription button.
If drop-ins are enabled, they can alternately select a single session and than select the Purchase One Session button.
They will checkout as normal. They can then go to the Participant Schedule screen to see a calendar with their sessions.
