I tying to test out (and understand) the recurring billing features and I have setup a few plans with short durations.
Recurring plan: Test - weekly on Tuesday
Recurring period: Weekly
Recurring duration (months): 2
Recurring start duration: 1 days
I placed a sample order, and when I view Subscription events I see two items. See screen grab.
Processing those events produces 2 emails, that are confusing, it says it will be charged on 4/20/2010 (tomorrow) yet the next email states “The subscription must be paid manually.”
I must be doing something wrong.
Subject: Payment is approaching
Dear Marc,
Payment for the subscription is approaching.
Subscription #5 will be charged on 04/20/2010
Thank you for using our shopping cart.
Subject: Payment required
Dear Marc,
The subscription must be paid manually.
Subscription #5
Thank you for using our shopping cart.
It’s been a while since I have done any testing with the recurring billing option but as I recall the recurring start duration only effects how long an introductory price is applied (e.g., you bill weekly but they get the introductory price for the first 4 weeks)
I know that I have commented elsewhere that the new subscription appearing in multiple categories in “Subscription events” is confusing (and results in multiple emails if the storeowner is not careful) . One thing you can do is change the notification period for the different events (in the “Notification” tab of the Recurring billing options in Addons). I think if you set the “manual paying” days to something like 5 and the “future paying” to 0, the “manual paying” email will always be sent first and hopefully paid before ever appearing on the “future paying” list. I may have these reversed.
The implementation still feels a bit clumsy to me but will hopefully improve as people voice their opinions.
Bob