Manually renew subscription before date

[Marc LP]

Hi,

most of our users have registered using a PayPal or Stripe subscription button. The subscription time is for a full year.
We know that the system will try to automatically renew (pay) the subscription on a date, but we want our users to be able to update (pay) their subscription in advance.

Our question is, how that will affect their current subscription?
Will it be extended for another year or the new payment will be created as a duplicated subscription?

The buttons, configurations, plan ID, etc. are exactly the same.

Thank you.

[The Assurer]

This is a multi-part answer…

What you are selling are MEMBERSHIPS. Memberships can either be sold as either one-off “BUY NOW” payments, or recurring “SUBSCRIPTION” payments.

We know that the system will try to automatically renew (pay) the subscription on a date…

That’s not what really happens. When a (recurring payment) SUBSCRIPTION is created; PayPal (and Stripe) creates a “payment contract” between themselves and the subscriber. YOUR only role in the contract, is to maintain the subscriber’s MEMBERSHIP; for as long as the payment processor is able to collect a recurring payment from the subscriber. Whenever a payment is collected, or the subscriber cancels the “contract,” an IPN is sent to your system; and SWPM takes the appropriate action. In the absence of receiving a payment IPN, the MEMBERSHIP will expire on its own.
 

…but we want our users to be able to update (pay) their subscription in advance.

If a MEMBERSHIP is being paid for with one-off BUY NOW payments; they can renew at anytime and the MEMBERSHIP expiration date will be appropriately extended.

The same will happen if recurring SUBSCRIPTION payments are used to pay for MEMBERSHIPS; EXCEPT THAT A SECOND PAYMENT CONTRACT will be created. Depending upon whether or not the existing SUBSCRIPTION has a fixed term; conflicts may occur, in the form of double billing. The situation is kinda dependent upon how you’ve got eh membership levels and payment buttons setup.

Does this answer your question?

[Marc LP]

Thank you very much for your complete explanation.

The same will happen if recurring SUBSCRIPTION payments are used to pay for MEMBERSHIPS; EXCEPT THAT A SECOND PAYMENT CONTRACT will be created. Depending upon whether or not the existing SUBSCRIPTION has a fixed term; conflicts may occur, in the form of double billing. The situation is kinda dependent upon how you’ve got eh membership levels and payment buttons setup.

Let me tell you our configuration. The subscriptions expire after a year unless they are renewed by the contract on Stripe or Paypal (that is automatic). There are no “Buy now” payments.
So, by what you say, if the user of an active subscription pays for it using the same subscribe button again, that will generate another payment contract on that date, but the previous contract will still be valid, so on the renewal date of the first contract, he will be billed again.

Could you please confirm what I am telling is correct?

[The Assurer]

I think we are still not on the same page…   🙁
You said the MEMBERSHIP term is 1 year. Is is a one-time payment, or are the members making multiple “recurring” payments? If they are making recurring payments, how many?

[Marc LP]

Our membership “Access duration” expires after 12 months.
The membership is paid by a subscription button (stripe or paypal) associated to a payment plan in the gateway platform (recurring payment).

By this setup, I suppose Stripe/Paypal will try to charge the payment 12 months after the first subscription. On success, the gateway notifies the SM plugin and it extends the subscription for another 12 months.

Now imagine an user with an active subscription (already signed in and identified) clicks again on the subscribe button and makes another payment, say, 9 months after the first subscription.
For what I understand, the plugin could do two things:

a) ignore the existing user subscription and create a new subscription in the gateway platform, so the user will be charged anyway at the end of the first subscription

b) cancel the existing subscription in the gateway and create a new one, extending the subscription expiry time if the new subscription payment completes

Reading your documentation I think the second option is not possible, as programmatically you can’t cancel an active subscription, it requires a person to log in Paypal and cancel the old subscription.

So in my deduction, and reading your words on your first reply, what will surely happen is the first option.

Am I right or there is something wrong in my explanation?

Thank you very much.

[The Assurer]

Now imagine an user with an active subscription (already signed in and identified) clicks again on the subscribe button and makes another payment, say, 9 months after the first subscription.
For what I understand, the plugin could do two things:

a) ignore the existing user subscription and create a new subscription in the gateway platform, so the user will be charged anyway at the end of the first subscription

b) cancel the existing subscription in the gateway and create a new one, extending the subscription expiry time if the new subscription payment completes

Here’s what will happen…

1. A second payment contract is created.
    
2. The member immediately gets charged for another 12 months.
    
3. The existing membership gets extended another 12 months.
    
4. At this point TWO payment contracts exist.
    
5. If the member DOES NOT MANUALLY CANCEL the first payment contract, BEFORE ITS NEXT PAYMENT DUE DATE…
   Go back to step 2, ad-nauseam; except now the member must manually cancel the second payment contract

[The Assurer]

Question… has anyone been “stupid enough” to manually renew an auto-pay subscription yet, or are we just doing “thought experiments” here?

[Marc LP]

Well, we have a site with thousands of subscribers… It is quite possible that someone forgot if he has paid and tries to repeat the subscribe process. Maybe that already happened, who knows…

Anyway, thank you very much. All clear now.

[Jim]

Can I just add to this thread, as I have been confused too. There doesn’t seem to be anywhere where I can see an expiry date on a user membership. From what is said above it appears that if a user renews for 12 months after 9 months then their expiry is then 15 months from the payment date. Is that correct? If so, would it be possible to expose this somehow in the admin panel?

Likewise, if someone is taking payments manually and this same thing happens, how can they set the expiry to be 12 months after the current end date (for an annual membership)?

I hope this was clear… loving this plugin, just a few niggles 🙂

[admin]

The membership expiry is calculated dynamically based on a range of setup options that you have configured for your site. We have plans to add a new filed in the member’s profile (in admin dashboard) that will show the site admin the estimated expiry date of a member’s profile. This will be implemented in the next release or so.

In the meantime, the following page has some useful info that will be good to understand how the expiry is calculated.
https://simple-membership-plugin.com/manually-activating-expired-members-account/

The following is correct:

it appears that if a user renews for 12 months after 9 months then their expiry is then 15 months from the payment date. Is that correct?

[admin]

I have added a field in the member’s profile (in the admin dashboard) that will show the current expiry date of the member.

[Jim]

Awesome, thanks.

[Author]

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