Using order and cutoff dates with subscription plans

Outline

• Overview
• What is an order day?
• How to enable order days?
• Flexible order day strictness
• Strict order day strictness
• What is a cutoff day?

Overview

• Skio allows subscriptions to be configured with order dates so that the order processes on a set day of the month or a specific day of the week.
• Cutoff dates and missed order day allowances are designed to prevent subscribers who checkout with a new subscription from being double billed in close proximity.
• There are two order day modes: Flexible and Strict. This determines how the first recurring order date is calculated.

What is an order day?

Typically subscriptions are set to recur based on the frequency selected by the customer on the product page of a merchant's storefront. If a subscriber checks out with a 30-day subscription, their next order will process 30 days after they initially checked out.

Using an order day allows merchants to have specific subscriptions (or all of them) process on a specific day of the month for monthly frequencies or specific days of the week for weekly frequencies. 

How to enable order days?

Configuring set order dates and cutoff dates is done on the subscription plan for each variant in Skio. On the subscription plan, choose "order day of month" (for monthly frequencies) or "order day of week" (for weekly frequencies). For monthly frequencies, a merchant can setup a cutoff date of the month (1st, 15th, etc.) and for weekly frequencies, a merchant can configure a cutoff day of the week (Monday, Tuesday, etc.).

Flexible order day strictness

The flexible mode is appropriate if you are fulfilling the initial order on the day it comes in. It will calculate the recurring order by rounding the date of the initial order to the closest Order day.

What is a missed order day allowance?

A missed order day allowance overrides the rounding behavior of the flexible order day. If the initial order is placed before the missed order day allowance, then the next billing date is calculated as if the initial order was placed on the previous order day.

If a merchant wants all subscriptions for Product A to recur on the 15th of the month, they may want to set a missed order day allowance on the 20th of the month so that any subscribers who checkout between the 15th and the 20th of the previous month (January in this example) to get their recurring order placed on the 15th of this month (February in this example).

In this same example, if I checkout with Product A on January 22nd, my next order date will be on March 15th since the 22nd is after the missed order day allowance.

Common applications of charge dates with cutoff dates are subscription boxes that alternate content each month. If I check out with January's box on January 2nd, I would not want to receive the same box on January 15th. This is the most common use case, but set charge dates and cutoff dates can be used for many other applications.

Flexible Order Day Examples

Strict order day strictness

The strict mode is appropriate if have a subscription business which only fulfills orders on the order day.

The next billing date of the first recurring order is calculated by assuming that the initial checkout order is fulfilled on the next order day and then adding one subscription interval to that.

For example, if I have the order day set to the 15th and an order is placed on the 20th of the previous month (January in this example), then the first recurring order will be made on March 15th since the initial order is fulfilled on February 15th.

What is a cutoff day?

A cutoff day can be useful if you need time to prepare the initial order and want to fulfill it on the following order day from the one coming up. In this example, if we set a cutoff day on the 10th, an initial order placed on February 12th would be after the cutoff day and be fulfilled on March 15th. That means the first recurring order's date should be on April 15th.

Strict Order Day Examples