Subscriptions

10 min

Note

In roadmap communications, Order Management is referred to as the CSR Portal.

A subscription allows for recurring orders and payments to be spread over time, providing flexibility in how you sell your products. Use subscriptions for large and complicated orders, orders that need to be shipped in sequence, magazine or grocery subscriptions, or expensive items.

A Customer Service Representative (CSR) sets up a subscription to generate recurring payments. Subscription processing is handled through the Subscription payment plans scheduled job.

View subscriptions

Click Subscriptions on the Order Management page.

Choose the subscription you want to view. The information is displayed in the following tabs:

Summary – General information, such as market and currency, order number, created date, items, shipping, and discount information.

Form Details – Shipping address and method, line items, discounts, and payments.

Contact Details – Customer name and email address. You can view and edit customer information by clicking Edit next to Customer Information.

Settings – Information about the subscription, such as cycle length and start date.

You can filter carts by search, Created On timeframe, or Market.

Use the Columns icon to choose what columns to display in the table.

Filter by customer name or email

You can search for subscriptions by customer name (partial match) or email address (exact match). Go to the Search box and begin entering the customer's first name or exact email address. Use % to search for any consecutive string of letters or numbers. Press Enter to execute the search.

For example, if the customer name is Bryan Stephens, enter B, Br, or Bry. If you want to search for the last name, you can type %ste, and you will start to see results with that string of letters. The results become more refined as you enter more characters.

Filter by Created on

You can also filter the Order Management screen using the Created On filter.

This filter gives you options to filter by a specific Start Date and End Date, or you can use one of the default options. Click Apply to see the results with your filter.

Filter by Market

Note

You can also filter the carts by market. You can select Any (default), Default Market, or a specific market such as USA, Australia or Germany.

Create a subscription

From the Order Management screen, click Subscriptions.

Click Create Subscription.

Choose the subscription market.

Choose an existing customer or create a new one.

To find an existing customer, enter any part of the customer name or email address. A list of matching customer names appears. Select the customer.

To enter a new customer, click New Customer. The Create Contact dialog appears. Enter the customer's name, email address, and customer group.

Click Create Subscription.

Select Edit from the options menu (...).

Enter the subscription shipping address and shipping method.

Click Save.

Click Add Line Items in the Line Items section.

In the Product Variant field, enter a search phrase of three or more characters. Examples:

The entire SKU, for example, 44477844.

All or part of the item name or description, for example, boot.

Search results appear. Select the line item you want to add.

Tip

To view detailed information of the line item, click More Details. The respective product page on your ecommerce website opens in a new tab.

Choose a quantity and price. The default placed price appears, but you can change it.

Click Add Line Item.

Open the Settings tab and set the cycles and parameters for the subscription.

Last Transaction Date – Logs the last transaction date. Leave the date and time fields as is when you create the subscription.

Completed Cycles – This tallies the number of completed cycles since the subscription was created. When initially creating the subscription, set this field to 0.

Cycle Length – Entering a value of 1 or higher determines the unit of time for the Plan Cycle. For example, if the Plan Cycle is Daily, and the Cycle Length is 3, a transaction occurs every three days. If the Plan Cycle is Monthly and the Cycle Length is 1, a transaction occurs each month.

Plan Cycle – (Cycle Mode) You can choose from the following plan cycles, which determine how often the customer is charged.

None – No recurring payment is created. The customer is charged once when the initial purchase order is created.

Days – Recurring payment happens daily from the start date.

Weeks – Recurring payment happens weekly from the start date.

Months – Recurring payment happens monthly from the start date.

Years – Recurring payment happens annually from the start date

Custom1/Custom2 – These are placeholders for developers to create custom cycles.

Max Cycles – Determines the maximum number of cycles for this subscription. For example, if the Max Cycles is set to 2, the subscription stops after two transaction cycles. If you want the plan to go on indefinitely, set Max Cycles to 0.

Start Date – Set the start date and time when recurring transactions begin.

End Date – Set the end date and time when recurring transactions end.

Is Active – Select the checkbox to enable the subscription. Leave the checkbox empty to create the subscription and enable it later.

Click Create Subscription.

Subscription orders

After you create a new subscription, the Orders tab displays on the Subscription Details screen. The Orders History shows all processed purchase orders from this subscription.

The subscription begins when the first purchase order is generated. You can create the purchase order manually or by running the subscription scheduled job (requires administration access).

Create the first purchase order manually

Click Subscriptions from the Order Management screen.

Choose the subscription you want to create the first purchase order for.

On the Subscription Details screen, open the Form Details tab.

Click Add Payment.

Select a billing address and payment method.

Click Save.

Click Create First Purchase Order. The Create First Purchase Order button disappears after creating the first purchase order manually or if the subscription scheduled job runs and generates the first purchase order.

The generated purchase order number includes the parent ID of the subscription. For example, if the subscription parent ID is 35, subsequent purchase orders are numbered as PO35XXX.

When a payment is added to a subscription, the customer is not charged. The subscription simply collects payment information until converted to a purchase order. The customer is charged once the purchase order is generated for the first time (and through subsequent orders).

Edit a subscription

Click Subscriptions from the Order Management screen.

Click the subscription you want to edit and make your changes. You can add and edit line items and change the subscription settings and shipping information.

Cancel a subscription

Click Subscriptions from the Order Management screen.

Click the subscription you want to cancel.

Click Cancel Subscription on the Subscription Details screen.

Convert a cart to a subscription

A shopping cart is typically converted to a purchase order when a customer proceeds to checkout and finalizes the purchase. You can also convert a cart to a subscription for further processing. For example, you want to generate recurring payments for the products added to the cart.

Select Convert To Subscription in Cart Details to convert a cart to a subscription.