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Flat-rate Subscription billing- Set Up / Prorate/ Change / Cancel / Pause & FAQs
Flat-rate Subscription billing- Set Up / Prorate/ Change / Cancel / Pause & FAQs

Subscription Billing Setup, Prorate, Change, Cancel, Pause & FAQs

Mica Manson avatar
Written by Mica Manson
Updated over a week ago

Choosing a flat-rate billing method is perhaps the simplest path to never sending another invoice or chasing another payment...Fons makes it a snap! The number of appointments scheduled within the subscription time period is up to you.


Subscription Billing FAQs

Note subscriptions do not count appointments and make adjustments to the subscription cost. If you need to count lessons you may want to consider pre-paid package billing or Per-Appointment Subscriptions.

  • Subscriptions can be set to start at any date you choose and will run that day unless that date doesn't exist. For example if the subscription is set to run on the 31st, the charge will occur on the 30th.

  • You can prorate subscriptions at any cost you would like including $0

  • Failed charged subscriptions will continue to automatically charge the client on the anniversary of the original start date, unless cancelled by the provider or client

    • Automatic Retries

      • 3 days after the first failure

      • 5 days after the second failure

      • 7 days after the third failure - then the subscription will cancel and a new one will have to be setup

      • Manual retries will always be available

      • Subscriptions charged via ACH will not automatically retry to avoid excessive bank fees

  • Subscriptions can be setup for weekly, monthly, 3-month, 4-month or 6-month intervals

  • You can easily refund full or part

  • Subscriptions include as many appointments as needed. All appointments within the subscription range are covered by the subscription.

  • You can use subscription billing to setup single appointments or recurring appointments

  • If you have a subscription in place you can still charge for an appointment, so if they want to take a group class or you have a special session outside of what their subscription covers, no problem

  • Stripe charges a .4% additional fee for billing per subscriptions


Setup Subscription How To Video

Setup a Subscription Step-by-Step

  1. Navigate to Client's tab, select the proper client, scroll down to the 'Appointment Setup" section select click the blue arrow beside the family member you are wanting to setup.

    Note: The subscription must be sold under the client (family member) that the appointments are going to be scheduled under for it to automatically deduct.

    Additional Family Members Example 1: A client wants to share one subscription amongst all family members. The setup is to:

    • Setup the subscription only under the Family Manager account

    • All Appointments should be created under the family manager and the appointment title can be changed to the name of the student attending the lesson.

      • Pro Tip: To reduce confusion delete the additional family members and simply add them to the notes section of the family manager.

    • Additional Family Members Example 2: A client wants each family member to have their own subscription simply setup each family member and choose the subscription of choice. See the steps below and repeat for each family member

  2. Either click "Skip" to skip this step or enter the client's credit card

  3. Choose the typical appointment length for the person taking the lesson ->Next

  4. Select Subscription->Next

    • Fill in your Rate, Interval and Bill Date when you would like the subscription to bill every month.

    • Prorate - if you would like to start the subscription before the regular bill date check the "Prorate" box. Start date will be the date you want the subscription to actually start and prorate days is how much you would like to charge, you can charge $0 if you don't want to charge them for lessons starting before the subscription start date.

      • ex: Its June 20th and a new student starts. You bill all subscriptions on the 1st of every month but you would like to start the client appointments and subscription immediately, by selecting "Prorate" you can start the subscription and bill for the 10 days in June and then July 1st would bill the whole amount of the subscription.

  5. Click "Next" to preview the email the system sends your client inviting them to enter their payment info. If their payment info is in the system they will have a button to view it instead or entering their payment.

  6. The subscription will start on the "start date" you set.

Note:  

  • The subscription will start on the date you set it to start and will keep trying to run the charge until either the payment method is set and the charge has been successful or the retry period is over. The subscription will show as "past due" until there is a successful payment.




Change the Cost of the Subscription - One or in Bulk

Note: The change will notify the client of the change, they do not have to do anything. The new rate will not be billed until the next billing cycle.

  1. Click on the "Client" tab,

    1. To change one client navigate to the client.

    2. To change bulk from the client tab drop down Actions->update subscription rate

      • Save, Skip Step 2

  2. Scroll down to the Appointment Setup section, click on pencil icon, select "edit rate", change the cost, click save. I


Refund Full or Partial

1. Click either on the "Payment" tab in the client details or the "Billing" tab, "Transaction History" and scroll to the bottom

2. Find the subscription payment you would to refund, click on it

3. On the next screen on the top right click the "issue refund" button and choose the amount to refund, click the next "issue refund" button


Change the Billing Date of a Subscription

  • The only way to change a subscription billing date you must cancel and create a new one


Pause/Resume a Subscription

Pause FAQ's

  • You can run the subscription report under reporting->reports this report will show you the status of subscriptions, paused with the billing period and past due subs

  • Pausing a subscription will not cancel a previous failed charge only cancelling a subscription will do this.

  • When setting a resume date, the sub will charge on the next period start date, NOT the day you set it to resume in other words it will not change the billing date.

    • ex: Sub is set to run March 1st and you pause it February 5th and set a resume date to March 2nd the sub will not charge until April 1st.

  • When resuming a sub it will not charge a past period only future

  • Paused subscriptions do not cover any appointments set to charge a cost because a paused subscription is not considered active. So if your client is scheduled for an appointment and it is set to a cost, they will be charged the cost of the appointment.

  1. To pause a subscription navigate to the client and in the Appointment Setup section click on the pencil. Select Pause Subscription. You can pause a subscription billing indefinitely or toggle on a resume date.

  2. Click Save

To unpause just click on the pencil beside the sub and select "resume subscription"


Cancel a Subscription

You can cancel a subscription either immediately or at the end of the subscription period.

Cancel Sub FAQs

  • Any past due failed charges will not cancel. You must stop collection

  • If there are existing appointments you will need to cancel them or change their appointment cost. If an appointment is set to accept a subscription and a client does not have a current subscription the appointment will fail the charge sending you and your clients an email. See change the Appointment Cost

  1. To cancel a subscription navigate to the client and in the Appointment Setup section click on the pencil. Select Cancel Subscription. If you need to cancel subscriptions in bulk navigate to the Clients tab->Action->Cancel and follow steps below.

  2. On the next screen you can choose to end the subscription immediately or allow it to run through, and cancel all appointments associated with the subscription or not.

    • Note: if you select "End Immediately" and have appointments in the future that are set to bill to the client subscription, the appointments will fail to charge because there is not an active subscription, so you may not want to "End Immediately"

  3. Click Save

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