Subscription Summary
Each time a customer purchases a product you have, a new subscription entry will be created. The subscription summary is where you’ll perform all tasks necessary to manage your customer’s purchase through Chargify. It contains an ever changing snapshot of your subscriber’s current financial data.
The subscription summary page contains information about each subscription. The summary is broken down into 12 categories and are detailed below.
Activated At
Activated At displays the date the subscription was first activated. In the event that you created a subscription that bills in the future (had not billed yet), this date will reflect the day the subscription entry was created in Chargify.
Activity
Activity is a window into the recent changes to a subscription. It is a replica of what is displayed in site activity. Please review the site activity documentation for a summary of each entry.
Billing Portal Access
When viewing a subscription, you can see the current status of their access to the Billing Portal.
Disabled
Enabled
Billing Portal Management Link
View the customer’s Billing Portal directly, or access the link to send to your customer via email. Viewing the management link is also a very useful way to view how your customers are presented the information in the Billing Portal.
View pop-up of Billing Portal Management link
Pop-up view of Billing Portal Management link
Billing Portal Resend Invitation
If your subscriber is unsure of how to locate the Billing Portal, use this option to resend the invitiation to your subscriber.
Billing Portal Revoke Portal Access
On a per subscription basis, you may need to revoke access to the portal. Select “Revoke Portal Access”. Once you revoke access, Billing Portal Status will display Portal Not Enabled for this subscriber.
Select “Enable Portal Access” to reverse re-enable the portal for your subscriber. Once you select this option, you’ll be presented with the following pop-up:
You can choose to simply enable Billing Portal for this customer, or enable Billing Portal and send them an emailed invitation.
Billing Portal Status
If the Billing Portal is enabled, a subscription will include information regarding:
- Added To Portal: The date that the customer was first given access to the portal.
- Last Invite Sent: The last date in which the customer was invited to the portal.
These two dates can be drastically different in the event that manual invitations are sometimes used. For more information on manual Billing Portal invites, please see our documenation here.
Change Product
The current product shows the subscriber has purchased. This section of the summary gives the merchant the option to “Change Product”, or change the product price point.
When you change a subscriber’s product, you will immediately change the current subscriber to a new product and/or product price point. No proration is done. For more information on product changes, please see our documentation here.
If you wish to have proration, then perform an upgrade/downgrade migration.
Change Product - Delayed
Chargify also gives you the option of configuring a subscription to change to a product at the end of the current billing cycle. In this case, we term this as a delayed product change.
When the next billing time arrives, the subscriber will be charged for the cost of the product that they are set to change to as a result of the delayed product change.
Example:
- Suzie is on the basic product @ $10/month
- Another product exists: the plus product is $20/month
- Her current renewal date is the 31st of the month
- She has a pending delayed product change to the plus product at the end of her billing period
- On the 31st, her current product will change to the plus product
- She will be charged $20
- Up until the time of the product change, her current product will reflect the basic product
Change Product - Cancelation
If a subscriber has a delayed product change, you can cancel this easily in the subscription view. Select Cancel next to the name and date of the scheduled product change.
Components (Line-Items)
If your subscriber selected components during signup, or you need to record components manually, select Components (Line Items) from the summary menu.
Each component associated with the product your subscriber has purchased will be displayed in this tab. Even if your subscriber has not purchased any components, all components will be displayed.
This tab will display the following information about each component:
- Name: The name of the component as it is displayed in the product family.
- Type: Indicates type of component. Please see types of components for more information.
- Date Added: Indicates the date that the component was added to the Chargify site.
- Current Usage: Specifies the amount of component used. Keep in mind metered components reset monthly, while quantity based stay in use into the future.
- Cost: The current cost associated with the amount of component purchased.
- Actions: Selecting Actions allows you to view the history associated with a Subscription, toggle on/off (for on off components), record usage (metered components), update quantity (quantity-based components)
For more information on configuring components to appear in Public Signup Pages, please see our documentation here.
Coupons
Since coupon application is a broad topic, we’ve created an entire section dedicated to applying coupons to a subscription. Please see our coupons documentation for more information.
Current Balance
Current balance is the outstanding current amount due on the account. However, if there is a credit on the account, this will be represented as a negative balance on the account.
For more information on adjusting balances, please see our adjustments documentation here.
Customer Details
The customer details specifies a few crucial pieces of information about the purchaser of your product or service.
- ID: The customer ID of your subscriber. not editable
- Email address The address on file of the customer
- CC emails Any cc email address on file. All emails will be CC’d to the following addresses. Separate multiple emails with a comma.
- Phone The phone number on file of the customer.
- Organization The organization/company on file for the customer.
- Reference ID (for your app) Optional
- Customer Since The day that your customer signed up for your product. not editable
- Shipping Address The shipping address on file for your customer.
Pay close attention to the screen grab below. The screen grab below the information provided is from the Customer Details of the subscription.
Custom Fields
If your site contains a custom field, you can view which fields are applied to each subscriber. Enable your subscribers to enter custom field information via Public Signup Pages.
You may manually enter or change custom fields per subscription here. Edit or delete custom fields associated with a subscription here.
Delete Customer Details
Select Delete to remove the customer entry. You may not delete a customer if they have a Subscriptions associated with the customer entry. To read more about deleting a Subscription, please see our documentation here.
Edit Customer Details
To edit any of the details of the customer, select Edit from the Action drop down menu. Pay close attention to this screen grab below, as well. You are able to edit the customer entry directly from the customer details view.
Email Archives
If you have enabled to send your Subscriber notifications via email settings, you’ll be able to view the past 95 days of communications in email archives. Emails do take a few moments to generate and appear. Please be patient as they will appear within 1-2 minutes of generation.
Chargify gives you the option to download the text or HTML of the email. Download the HTML file and drag it into a browser to see a fully rendered HTML version of your email if you have created an email with HTML contents.
Expires At
If your subscriber has purchased a product that expires, an expires at date will appear as part of the subscription data. The expires at date indicates the day that the subscription will transition to expired, which is a dead state.
You have the option of altering the expires at date if needed. Select change next to the expires date to select the new date of expiration.
For more information on subscription states, please see our documentation here.
Invoices
When a subscription has invoices associated with it, you will be able to view current and past invoices in the subscription summary. Click the invoices on the side of your subscription summary to view existing invoices.
If you do not have access to the invoicing feature, based on your plan level, the invoice option will not appear.
Please see our section on invoices by subscription, for more information on how Invoices work within subscriptions.
Net Terms
Net Terms gives you the ability to set a number of days after a subscription renews before that subscription’s automatic payment will collect. This gives your clients time to review their Invoices prior to the payment being collected. You can set this as part of the subscription creation process OR update it on new and existing subscriptions via the Subscription Summary pane.
For grouped subscriptions, note that you may only set Net Terms on the parent subscription and all child subscriptions will adhere to the parent’s Net Terms. Un-grouping a child subscription will result in it re-setting to the Site Default.
Net Terms Options
There are 3 options for Net Terms:
- Due Immediately: Subscription’s created with a Net Terms of “Due Immediately”, have 0 Net Terms and are automatically paid when the subscription renews (if on automatic billing) by the primary payment profile.
- Site Default: You can customize a default value for new subscriptions by visiting the Settings page. This default value will be pre-selected when creating new subscriptions and unless over-ridden, the newly created subscriptions will have a due date of that number of days after Invoice issue.
- Custom: You can customize the Net Terms on a per subscription basis as part of the creation process. Acceptable values are between 1-180 days from Issue.
Next Billing Amount
Next Billing indicates the day/time that the subscription will be charged for the next assessment period. This amount will include the following:
- Product cost
- Component cost
- Taxes cost
Coupons
If there is a coupon applied, the discount will be calculated and factoered into this cost. Discounts will be applied and shown correctly.
Taxes
If taxes need to be applied to a subscription’s cost, the indicator of (plus taxes) will be noted in the next billing amount if you are using the Avalara Managed Tax service.
If you are using the custom taxes, supplied by Chargify, the next billable amount will be displayed into the billing amount. (Plus Taxes will not be shown if using custom taxes)
Components
Metered, on/off and quantity based components will be factored into the next billing amount. Please pay special attention to metered components, which charge at the end of the billing period.
Next Billing Date
The timestamp that indicates when capture of payment will be tried or retried. If the subscription is past due, it will be replaced with a next retry date. By contrast, the “Period Ends” date indicates when their current billing period will end.
Note that if net terms are applicable to an open renewal invoice, and that invoice is due before the next renewal, then the next billing date will reflect the due date of that invoice.
Next Billing Date - Editing
You can edit the next billing date of a subscription by selecting “Change Billing Date” from their summary. From here, you can change any or all of the date attributes. After saving, the new date will be applied to the subscription.
Next Billing Date - Calendar Billing
If a subscription has a snap day for calendar billing, you can edit the day that the subscription will snap to in Chargify. Select “Adjust Subscription Calendar Billing Date to Reflect Change in Next Billing Date” and your subscription will snap to the date set after the next scheduled renewal date.
If you deselect the box, the billing date will be changed for one recurring period to the new date. After this date arrives, the subscription will snap back to the original calendar billing date.
Editing the snap date and billing date
- Edit the snap date by selecting to “Adjust subscription calendar billing date”
- Choose the new snap date of the month
- Save
- Re-edit the next billing date to the desired next billing date by deselecting the “adjust subscription calendar billing date checkbox”
- Selecting the next billing date
- From here, the next snap date and the next billing date will reflect a new schedule.
Notes
Notes are strictly optional. We encourage our users to make accurate timely notes on recent activity, phone calls, payment plans etc. Within the main summary page, the most recent note will be displayed. You can select the notes tab to display all of the notes associated with a Subscription. Important notes can be flagged and marked with an asterisk next to the entry.
Paid Through Date
Paid Through Date displays the date through which the subscription has been paid for in Chargify.
For example, if you pay for a 7-day subscription to a weekly newspaper subscription that begins on Sunday, the 1st of the month, you are paid through Saturday’s delivery.
Payment Method
The Payment Method for a subscriber can be either automatic or invoice billing/remittance.
You can change the payment method associated with a subscriber by selecting “Payment Method” in the subscriber’s summary.
When you elect to change the payment method, you are given the option to switch to the available alternate payment methods for the Site. However, if the subscription is prepaid, this button will be hidden as it is not possible to change to automatic or remittance. Similarly, an automatic or remittance subscription cannot convert to prepaid. Prepaid subscriptions are available in our Relationship Invoicing architecture.
As a reminder:
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Automatic billing: the customer is automatically charged when the subscription renews.
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Invoice/Remittance Billing: the subscriber is not automatically charged when the subscription is renewed. At the time of renewal, an invoice is created and optionally sent to the customer. You may record the payments manually against the invoice when you receive payment from the subscriber.
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Prepaid Billing: the subscriber prepays a certain amount, and usage they record is drawn against that prepayment balance.
Payment Details
A subscription can contain many payment methods. Browse to the payment details portion of the subscription summary to view all of the subscriber’s payment methods.
If a customer has a payment method attached to their account, you will be able to view some information about the card itself here. We mask all secure information, therefore displaying only the last 4 digits of the credit card number.
The address attached to the payment is the billing address for the subscription. This is the same as the information entered in the billing address in the Public Signup Page.
Some payment profiles may be marked as disabled. This happens when the payment gateway is unable to locate the information corresponding to the credit card information Chargify has stored for that profile. Typically this occurs when auto card update functionality is enabled on your gateway and it cannot update a given account. When the gateway cannot update the account, it simply deletes it. Disabled payment profiles can only be deleted.
Payment Profile - Activate
If you have more than one payment profile attached to a subscription, you may toggle the current active card on the subscription easily. The new active card will be the payment method used to process all charges in the future.
If a subscription shares the same customer ID across many subscriptions, they will share the payment methods. In this case, different subscriptions can have differing active payment methods. For more information on the relationship between customers and subscriptions, please see our documentation.
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You may toggle between credit cards and ACH accounts with no issues. To find out more about using ACH with Chargify, please see our documentation.
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Updating the active card will not affect refunds in the future. For questions about refunds, we encourage you to read our FAQ on returning funds back to the original payment method.
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When a subscription is past due, activating a new card will cause any of the scenarios to occur:
- If there is a current balance, the newly activated card will be charged the amount due.
- If the attempt to charge the current new balance fails, the newly activated card will be the current active card on the subscription
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You cannot select a payment profile if it has been disabled by the payment gateway.
Payment Profile - Add New
If you have full credit card information for a subscriber enter a new card by selecting Add New Credit Card. Billing address information is option
If you have ACH enabled and are an Authorize.Net user on US soil, you’ll be able to edit/add ACH information here. Please see our documentation on ACH here.
Payment Profile - Edit
This will allow you to edit the billing address of the subscription. This link will not allow you to edit a customer’s credit card. It will only allow you to edit the information about the credit card itself as shown below:
If you’d like to edit a customer’s credit card number, we suggest adding a new card, per instructions below.
Payment Profile - Delete
To delete a payment profile, click the gear next to the payment profile you would like to delete and select “Delete credit card”.
Payment Profile - Request Payment Update
This is a powerful tool used specifically to instruct a customer to update their credit card securely via self-service pages. Select Email Customer to Request Payment Update to send an email directly to your customer.
Preview Proforma
On Relationship Invoicing sites, you have the option to preview what the renewal invoice will look like once it is generated by clicking the button labeled “Preview Proforma” on the Next Billing line. This preview is generated on demand based on the subscription’s current product, components, service credits, prepayments, and coupons, and allows you to quickly review what the customer would see at renewal if nothing changes.
If you would like to save the proforma preview or send it to a customer, you may generate a proforma invoice from the corresponding tab on the subscriptions page. For subscription groups, please visit the subscription group page.
The proforma preview will reflect any current invoice settings as well as translations applicable to the customer’s locale to provide. For example, if the site is configured to hide the “unit price” column and not display a shipping address on invoices, then the proforma invoice will reflect these settings as well.
While the proforma preview will mirror what the customer will see once the final invoice is generated at renewal for the most part, a few changes have been made for clarity. For example, whereas the renewal invoice will have a payments section, the proforma preview will have an anticipated prepayments section to indicate whether any prepayments are expected to apply towards renewal. It will also have a title of “Proforma Invoice” rather than “Invoice” and an invoice delivery date, which reflects the day when the final invoice will generate.
To customize the language of any proforma-specific fields, such as the title and expected delivery date, please visit the Language Settings tab under Config > Settings.
The proforma preview is not available for grouped subscriptions, subscriptions in an end of life state, or prepaid subscriptions. That said, consolidated proforma invoices can be created from subscription groups.
Reset to $0
Resetting the balance will add an adjustment that will result in a $0 balance.
Retry/Reactivate
If you manually reset the balance through Actions –> Adjust balance, use this method to make a past due or unpaid subscription active as long as it’s not on the remittance payment collection method. Alternatively, if the subscription still has a balance, this method will attempt to automatically collect the amount due.
Remittance subscriptions are incompatible with the concept of automated retries, since Chargify does not automatically collect any payments from a remittance subscriber. The retry button will consequently be hidden. These subscriptions will instead become active automatically once all their open invoices are paid off, provided they have not been canceled.
When you attempt to retry a past due or unpaid subscription, the following will occur:
- This subscription will be immediately retried
- The customer will be charged their current balance
- If payment is successful, the subscription will be activated
- If the subscription is currently in Dunning, the attempt count will increment
- There is no “undo” at this time, so please be sure before you press the “Retry Subscription” button
Reference Field
The default way to identify a unique subscription is by the Chargify-generated subscription ID.
However, you may also provide a string value to the “reference field” to identify each subscription using a value of your choosing. You might choose to match this value to an account or user ID in your own app.
The reference value may be added or edited within the admin UI (see below) or in the API (both create and update). In the API, subscriptions may also be located via reference using lookup.
Referral Code
Once referrals have been enabled, a unique referral code will be created for every subscription. You can obtain the referral code by visiting the subscription summary page for the subscription, or by fetching the subscription from the API.
For more information on referrals, please see our documentation here.
Statements
Statements can be located within each subscription. Click on the left side of the subscription summary to access a list of current statements for a subscription.
Please see our section on Statements, for more information on how statements work within subscriptions.
Status
The current state of the subscription. Please see the documentation for subscription states.
Send Statement/Invoice Emails
You can manually choose if you want customer to receive Statement and/or Invoice emails.
Send Statement/Invoice Emails - Edit
This will allow you to edit if you want customer to receive Statement and/or Invoice emails.
Subscriber Since
The date of creation of the subscription. In the event that you have created a subscription that begins billing in the future, this date will reflect the date that the subscription was created.
Tax Exempt Customer
You can manually designate a subscription tax exempt from the subscription summary. If a subscriber purchases a product that is taxable, they will not have to pay the tax on the product or components if they are marked tax exempt.
To change a subscriber to tax exempt, select change next to Tax Exempt Customer and you will be directed to the customer entry. Select the dropdown under Tax Exempt and change this option to yes.
For more information on tax exempt subscribers/customers, please see our documentation here.
Total Payments
The total payments made to the subscription since the time of signup, including from paid invoices, paid statements, taxes, one time charges, and component costs.
Transactions
The transactions tab gives you insight into the recent activty on the subscription.
Each transaction contains a wealth of data that will help you and your subscriber understand why charges were assessed, etc. Transacations are
- ID
- Date
- Type
- Memo
- Amount
- Sub-balance
- Status
Selecting Actions from the drop down menu will allow you to view the details on each of the transactions. For more information on transactions, please see our documentation here.
Verified for ACH / eCheck Payments
If you are connected to Authorize.Net or the Chargify Test Gateway, you will need to manually approve your Subscriber to submit ACH (eCheck) as a payment option. To do this, select change in the Subscription Summary. You will be directed to the customer entry, where you can enable ACH payments.
For more information on ACH payments, please see our documentation here. Note that some gateways, such as Stripe, don’t use this flag; instead, they make small test deposits into the submitted bank account for the customer to verify.
