Introduction
Each subscription has an associated Subscription renewal day field. This is set by default and can be customized to only renew on set dates. Cutoff Days can be used to avoid double charging customers who purchase a subscription too close to the custom subscription renewal day.
Subscription Renewal Days
In this example, a monthly subscription is setup for a product and a customer purchased the subscription on October 20th. By default, the subscription renewal day option is set to "The same day of the month as when the initial order was made".
This sets the customers renewal day to the 20th of every month based on the purchase date of October 20th.
If you wish to combine all of your orders to renew on the same day, for instance, the 1st of each month, you can select the 1st from the drop down menu. This will set the renew day as the 1st of every month for all your subscriptions.
Please note that only recurring subscriptions will have their renewal days mapped to this setting. The initial order will still be charged the day of the purchase while reoccurring orders will start being charged on the selected date.
How to Use Cutoff Days to Avoid Overcharging
Due to the nature of initial and custom renewal days, there are some instances where a customer can be double charged. For example, a customer may have purchased a subscription with a renewal day of the 1st, on the last day of the month. This will result in the initial charge being billed and then again on the 1st.
You can avoid this by making use of the Cutoff Days field. Cutoff days will restrict subscription purchases within a chosen time frame so that double charges are less likely.
Using Cutoff Days
The example pictured above uses a Cutoff Days value of 30 days before the next billing cycle and a set renewal date of the 1st. This means that only purchases made on the 1st of each month will be processed towards next month's renewal. Orders placed on any other day of the month will be pushed to the next renewal.
If a customer purchased a subscription on October 1st, which falls into the 30 day cutoff period, their renewal date would be set to the 1st of each month.
If another customer tried to purchase a subscription on October 15th, the order would fall outside of the cutoff period to be fulfilled on November 1st, and would automatically be skipped and fulfilled December 1st instead.
Final Note
Keep in mind that cutoff days can also be used in weekly and yearly order frequencies, with the interface automatically updating to accommodate the selected frequency.
Weekly: Select a specific day of the week for renewal, then select the cutoff day.
Monthly: Select a number corresponding to a specific day of the month, then select the cutoff day.
Yearly: Select a month in the first dropdown, then a day of the month in the second, then select the cutoff day
