Subscription User Guide

This guide is to walk a Chargezoom user through the process of setting up a recurring subscription.

What is subscription invoicing?

Subscription invoicing on Chargezoom allows businesses to automate and streamline the process of invoicing customers on a recurring basis. Whether you're offering monthly, annual, or customized subscription plans, Chargezoom helps you manage billing cycles, payment collections, and invoicing, all from a single, unified platform.

We will overview…

• Building a new subscription template

• Starting a new subscription

• Building a dunning process for overdue subscriptions

To start a new subscription, you will first need to create a subscription template. 

A Subscription Template is a pre-configured set of rules and parameters that define how a subscription will be billed and managed. Before you create a subscription for a customer, you must first create a subscription template, which acts as the blueprint for recurring billing. This template outlines key details such as:

Building a subscription template

To build a new subscription template, we will start by navigating to the subscription tab on the navigation bar. This should be visible in the Chargezoom platform no matter where you are currently.

From the subscriptions dashboard, we want to navigate to the template tab and click.

Then navigate to the “+ Add New” button and click.

This will open up the subscription template editor. Where we can add a new template for easily setting customers up on a subscription without having to fill in all of the fields every single time.

Configurable Options

Configurable options for a subscription template include…

1. Template name

• Template name is a unique identifier for your subscription template, allowing you to easily reference and manage different billing configurations within Chargezoom.

2. Frequency

• How often new invoices will be created

3. Recurrence

• How many cycles that this subscription will run. The time period that this subscription will be active for.

4. Free trial recurrence

• Not required, free month or promotion

5. Automatic Payment

• Bill card automatically

6. Email Receipts

• This toggle will decide if you would like to send a payment receipt with a subscription invoice.

7. Auto Rebilling

• This toggle will allow you to automatically collect payment according to the cadence set for the subscription

8. Payment processor

• This is where you will decide what processor you will be using to process payments

9. Tax

• This is where you can decide the tax rate (If any) for your subscription recurring charges.

Products and Services

The products and services section is where you will add the line items that the subscription will carry. These are added just like you would add a Product/Service on a normal invoice.

To select a previously created Product/Service, click the drop-down on the far left and scroll to the one you would like to add to this template. It will populate with the pre determined description and price from when you have created the Product/Service in Chargezoom. For more information on how to create a new Product/Service CLICK HERE

If you would like to add more than one line item then you will need to click the “+ Product or Service” button in the top right of the module. Then follow the instructions above to add a Product/Service for your new line item.

You can also select if a line item is a “one-time charge” or if it will be a “recurring charge”. And also adjust the description, price, and quantity if needed.

With products and services added you will see that the subtotals are broken apart by “Recurring” and “One Time” charges with the total amount on the first invoice sent. All subsequent invoices will have only the recurring amount as the total due.

Note: One time charges will only apply for the first subscription charge.

Now we will customize our customer checkout page. This will be what the customer will see when they sign up and add a payment method for the subscription.

The “Require shipping address” toggle can be switched on and off. This will mostly be used for subscriptions with a physical product involved.

If you would like to add your subscription terms of service, you have the ability to toggle that on by clicking “Yes”. To use terms of service you will need to set this up in the features->branding tab. “Click here for more info”

Your template link will be the URL that the customer will receive to sign up for your subscription. You must use a unique identifier which is posted at the end of the URL. you can then use this link to send to possible customers for them to sign up.

If you would like a custom subscription confirmation page, rather than a receipt, you can add your custom url link in the text box.

After your subscription template is customized to your selected parameters don’t forget to click SAVE. If you were to click cancel, all progress will be lost.

Starting a new subscription for a customer

Customers can click your personal subscription template link and sign themselves up or you can sign them up using this methodology

To start a new subscription, we will first navigate to the subscriptions tab and click.

From here you will find a list view of your active subscriptions. Search for a specific subscription or If you would like to see inactive subscriptions you are able to do so by the search bar or dropdown menu above the list view.

To start a new subscription navigate to the “+ Add New” Button at the top of the section and click.

Create Subscription

Once you have entered the subscription  the top section will read “Create Subscription” from here you will be able to…

1. Add Customer

• This will be the customer that you would like to be invoiced for this subscription

2. Template

• This dropdown menu will display your previously created subscription templates. Setting the template will populate your subscription with the defaults specified.

3. Subscription name

• This will auto-populate to your subscription template name but should be customized to the individual customer.

4. Frequency

• How often new invoices will be created

5. Recurrence

• How many cycles that this subscription will run. The time period that this subscription will be active for.

6. Free trial

• (Optional) Free trial is an optional feature that allows merchants to offer customers a trial period before billing starts, with the duration customizable by the merchant.

7. Subscription Start Date

• This will determine the date that the first subscription invoice will be sent

8. Tax

• (Optional) Tax rate that you would like to charge with your subscription

9. Dunning

• Dunning is the process to collect on late subscription payments, this will be defined in the dunning tab.

• Here is where you can toggle whether you would like your preset dunning cadence to start

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Billing and Shipping addresses will be auto populated from the customer information that you have selected

Make sure to click “Save” so that progress is not lost. Once save is selected the subscription will be activated. You can deactivate the subscription in the actions tab from the subscriptions dashboard.

Dunning

Dunning refers to the process of managing overdue payments by notifying customers who have missed or failed to make payments for their subscription or service. It involves a series of automated reminders and follow-up actions aimed at encouraging customers to settle their outstanding invoices. Dunning is an essential part of subscription billing management, helping businesses recover lost revenue from failed or delayed payments while maintaining customer relationships.

On Chargezoom, the dunning process is fully automated, ensuring that reminders and follow-ups are sent promptly, reducing the need for manual intervention and helping maintain steady cash flow.

What Can Dunning Do for Me?

By implementing a well-designed dunning strategy through Chargezoom’s platform, you can significantly improve your revenue recovery process and maintain positive relationships with customers, even when they fall behind on payments

To access subscription dunning, navigate to the subscriptions dashboard. From there you will click the “Dunning management” tab above the active subscriptions list.

This will allow you to view your subscription dunning settings.

1. Dunning Period

• This is the period in days that chargezoom will try and collect payment for. At the end of the chosen timeline you determine what to do with unpaid invoices as set below.

2. Retry Date Sequence

• Intervals of time periods between reaching out to your customer for payment

• Chargezoom allows merchants to set a custom retry schedule for failed payments, with the option to retry at specified intervals (e.g., 3, 7, and 14 days), and escalate actions based on their preferences before considering account suspension or cancellation.

3. When dunning period ends, what happens to subscription

• Final action to be taken after the dunning period specified above

• You will have the option to deactivate the subscription, which will cancel the subscription in Chargezoom.

• You will have the option to set the subscription to remain as active, which will keep the subscription in an active state and will continue to invoice the customer.

4. At the end of dunning, what happens to invoice

• At the end of dunning you will need to decide what you would like to have happen to the invoice for the subscription

• Mark invoice as unpaid

• Mark the invoice as voided

Make sure to select Save at the bottom of the page to save your dunning changes.

Subscription Actions

From the actions dropdown you are able to view invoices from a subscription, duplicate, deactivate, and reactivate previous subscriptions.

View Invoices - The view invoices selection allows you to populate and view all invoices and history for a given subscription.

Duplicate Subscription - If you would like to duplicate a subscription and make minor modifications you can use the “duplicate” selection on the dropdown menu.The will take you to the subscription configurator when you can make the adjustments needed for your new subscription.

Deactivate Subscription - Deactivate subscription will stop the subscription invoicing process that you have set for the individual subscription. Don’t worry this will save the subscription for reactivating at a later time if needed. You can find your deactivated subscriptions by navigating to the middle dropdown.

Reactivate Subscription - To reactivate a subscription, navigate to your deactivated subscriptions. Decide the subscription that you would like to reactivate and in the action dropdown select “reactivate”.This will direct you to the reactivation subscription configurator where you can make any changes if needed.Then click save at the bottom of the screen.