Change the Next Billing Date

In Short

The date a customer is invoiced and the date a subscription renews are two different dates, and only the first one is meant to be shifted. Moving the billing date delays the invoice without changing what is billed; moving the subscription’s term date extends the current period and gives that period away.

How It Works

A subscription renews on its term date. At that moment the charges for the new period are written to the customer balance, whether or not an invoice is issued.

A customer is invoiced on their next scheduled invoicing date. At that moment the balance is read and its lines are gathered onto one invoice. The two dates are independent: a subscription can renew on the 5th of each month while its customer is invoiced on the 15th.

Moving the invoicing date therefore moves the invoice, not the subscription. A billing date moved from 1 July to 1 August leaves the renewal of 1 July untouched: the July charges are written to the balance as usual and wait there, and on 1 August a single invoice covers July and August together. Nothing is lost and nothing is given away.

From that date on, the customer is billed on that day of each month: a date set to 10 December makes the 10th the billing day of every following month.

Caution

Extending the subscription’s term date instead is not the same operation. It tells ProAbono that the current period is longer, so the period is not billed — the customer receives it free.

Steps

Change the date in the back office

1. Open Invoicing and search for the customer.
2. Open the customer’s Next invoice section.
3. Open Update → Update settings.
4. Enter the new date in Next scheduled invoicing.
5. Save.

Change the date with the API

1. Call the payment settings update route — Update payment settings.
2. Set DateNextBilling to the new date, in ISO 8601 UTC.

Specific Cases

• The first invoice after the shift is an aggregated one. It carries every period that renewed while the balance was waiting, which makes it larger than a usual invoice without anything being billed twice. For a subscriber to the Premium offer at 379.00 € a month, renewing on the 5th and invoiced on the 15th, the invoicing date moves from 15 July to 15 October. The renewals of 5 July, 5 August, 5 September and 5 October each write their charges to the balance. The invoice of 15 October gathers the four: 1,516.00 € on one document, where four invoices of 379.00 € would otherwise have been issued.
• Nothing is prorated. Only the invoicing date moves. The amounts stay the same, and no credit line is created.
• Billing on a day the customer asks for. A customer who wants their invoice on the 10th of each month is served by this setting, and by nothing else: the invoicing date becomes the 10th, and the subscription keeps renewing on its own term date.

See Also

• Subscription Renewals
• Invoicing customer’s balance
• Balance Lines
• How to update a subscription
• Automatic payment delay