Advanced Settings

Under Settings > Processing > Recurring Billing > Options, you can determine whether you would like to automatically retry failed transactions and whether proration will apply to subscription price changes.

Automatic retries

When a transaction fails (transaction status = FAILED), there are three built-in automated retries before we mark the subscription as Past Due. You may have to wait up to two days before all three retries have finished executing and the subscription shows as Past Due. If the transaction has been PROCESSOR*DECLINED or GATEWAY_REJECTED, the subscription status will change to Past Due immediately. After a subscription is marked Past Due, we will try billing the subscription at least two more times. These two retries would occur whenever recurring billing runs but you can choose to specify the interval after which to retry in the control panel. The default plan after these two retries fail is retrying the subscription once per billing cycle. This default backup plan can be changed in the control panel to one of these options.

Setting up retry logic

To find the options for automatic retries:

1. Log into the Control Panel
2. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner
3. Click Processing from the drop-down menu
4. Scroll to the Recurring Billing section
5. Next to Recurring Billing, click the Options link
6. Check the box next to Automatically retry failed transactions
7. Make your selections; learn more
8. Click the Save Recurring Billing Options button

Retry logic options

After a subscription is past due, retry the subscription after…

Here’s where you can specify how long you want to wait to retry the charge after it initially fails or is declined. You must choose a value between 1 and 10 days.

If above retry fails, try again after…

Same idea as above. Again, you must choose a value between 1 and 10 days.

If above retries have failed…

This is where you have the most flexibility. You can choose to:

• Cancel the subscription
• Continue retrying the subscription
• Leave the subscription past due

important

If Leave the subscription past due is selected, the past due balance will continue to accrue each billing cycle without any additional retries or transaction attempts. You will need to contact your customer to update their payment information and to collect the past due amount.

The first and second retries above will only apply during the billing cycle in which the subscription becomes Past Due. If you choose to continue retrying the subscription, we will only retry it once per billing cycle, on the subscription’s usual billing date.

The balance on Past Due subscriptions will continue to increase every billing cycle—either indefinitely or until the number of cycles in the subscription is reached. If a subscription remains Past Due for multiple cycles and you don’t want to bill the customer for the full amount owed, you can manually retry the subscription for any amount. If the retry is successful, regardless of the amount of the transaction, it will reduce that subscription’s balance to $0.

note

Any time you manually retry a subscription charge via the API or in the Control Panel and the transaction fails, it will not count as an automatic retry attempt. This means that your automatic retry logic will still run as scheduled.

Handling declines

It is important to note that our retry logic will not automatically retry every transaction that is declined by the processor. Some decline codes are not retried because they suggest that it's unlikely the transaction will ever be successful.

Proration

You can use proration to charge or credit a customer if a change is made to the subscription price in the middle of a billing cycle. Enabling proration adjusts the price based on how many days are left in the billing cycle, and charges the customer the newly-calculated rate immediately. Without proration enabled, any changes made to a customer’s subscription mid-cycle will go into effect at the beginning of the next cycle.

note

The number of days that have passed in a billing cycle is updated each day at 12am in the time zone specified in your Control Panel. The time zone for your account was established during the application process; to see your current time zone settings, navigate to Account > Merchant Account Info > Time Zone.

When you make a change to a subscription’s price, it is either considered an upgrade or a downgrade. An upgrade includes editing the subscription price to a higher dollar amount or applying an add-on. A downgrade includes editing the subscription price to a lower dollar amount or applying a discount.

Proration with add-ons and discounts

In order to adjust a subscription’s price, you can either use add-ons/discounts, or directly update the subscription and change the price. When you make an update to the subscription, the price change will be reflected for the remainder of its billing cycles or until another change is made. Alternatively, when you use add-ons/discounts, you must define how many billing cycles should be adjusted.

If you have proration enabled, use caution when applying add-ons or discounts mid-billing cycle to an existing subscription. Doing so will not only adjust the price for the specified number of subsequent billing cycles, but will also charge (or discount) your customer for the prorated amount left on the current billing cycle.

The best way to avoid this scenario is to do one of the following:

• disable proration on the specific subscription update
• create a separate transaction outside of the subscription
• disable proration for your entire gateway
• only apply add-ons/discounts on the first day of a new billing cycle

note

When creating or updating a subscription via the Control Panel you will see an option to Prorate subscription amount (subscription price, add-ons and discounts). This option will override any proration settings you have established in your general Recurring Billing settings.

Enable proration on upgrades

If you edit the subscription price to a higher dollar amount or apply an add-on, it is defined as an upgrade. To enable proration on upgrades:

1. Log into the Control Panel
2. Navigate to Settings > Processing > Recurring Billing
3. Click Options
4. Check the box next to Enable proration on upgrades

If the price of a subscription increases in the middle of the billing cycle and you have enabled proration on upgrades, then the gateway will immediately charge the customer a prorated amount to cover the remainder of the billing cycle. We’ll do this each time the subscription price increases.

If the charge for a prorated amount fails

Once you enable proration on upgrades, you can choose how to handle failed charges for prorated amounts by checking or unchecking this field in the Options under Settings > Processing > Recurring Billing:

If the transaction for a prorated amount fails, don't update the subscription or the balance.

If this is checked and the charge fails, we will not add the prorated amount to the subscription balance and the subscription itself will remain unchanged. Using the example above, if the $18 prorated charge were to fail, the subscription price wouldn’t change; the customer would be billed the usual $30 on October 1.

If this field is left unchecked, we’ll add the prorated amount to the customer’s subscription balance, and on the next billing date, we’ll charge them this amount plus the next cycle’s full price. In this case, if the $18 prorated charge were to fail, the subscription price would increase to $50, and we would bill the customer $68 on October 1.

Enable proration on downgrades

If you edit the subscription price to a lower dollar amount or apply a discount, it is defined as a downgrade. To enable proration on downgrades:

1. Log into the Control Panel
2. Navigate to Settings > Processing > Recurring Billing
3. Click Options
4. Check the box next to Enable proration on downgrades

If the price of a subscription decreases in the middle of the billing cycle and you have enabled proration on downgrades, then we will subtract the prorated amount from the customer’s subscription balance. A customer’s balance should be $0 if they pay their bill on time, so you should see a negative balance for them in the gateway.

On the next billing date, the customer will be charged for any positive balance on their subscription. If the downgrade gave them a negative balance, their payment method won’t be charged until their balance exceeds $0.

note

Prorations on downgrades will always be applied to the subscription balance in the gateway—we will not issue a refund to the customer’s payment method. If you would like to issue a refund instead of applying a credit, you will need to create a separate transaction outside of the subscription.