Setting a subscription to auto-renew
When creating a new subscription product (e.g. individual annual membership), tick the option for Auto renew. You also need to make sure that the subscription product is published, and the relevant price option for the subscription product is published.
You can change a subscription product to "auto-renew" by editing the subscription and ticking the option for "Auto renew". Once this box is ticked, any current members' subscriptions that have not yet expired, and new subscriptions purchased will auto-renew when they reach their expiry date (with 2 exceptions - see Which subscriptions will auto-renew section below).
Which subscriptions will auto-renew and when
Once you have set the subscription product to auto-renew (and published), this triggers a job that runs every night looking for subscriptions for that subscription product that:
- have the renew option ticked; and
- expire that day
It will then attempt to auto-renew those subscriptions, and will report (see below) the outcome.
As well as "fully published subscription products", the auto-renew process will also renew subscription products which have Visible to non-admins set to "no" (but have "published" and "auto-renew" ticked). These subscription products will not be visible to normal (non-admin) members but they will be processed by auto-renew.
What happens when a subscription auto-renews?
The first thing that the system checks is whether there is a pending renewal order for that subscription (ie the member has already manually placed an order to renew the subscription, which has not yet been paid for). If there is a pending order, the system skips the subscription, and reports in the automatic subscriptions renewals report in the Skipped Section with the explanation: "Pending Renewal Order Exists".
The auto-renewal process always uses the same payment method to auto-renew, that was used for the previous subscription. So, the next thing that the system checks is whether the previous subscription was purchased using a payment method that allows for auto-renew. If a member has more than one subscription expiring the same day, these are auto-renewed together. What happens next depends on which payment method was used for the previous order:
- Online Direct Debit (GoCardless). The system checks whether the member has a current valid online direct debit set up. If so, the system creates a new order on behalf of the member to renew the subscription(s) and sends a request to GoCardless to debit the amount of the order from the member's bank account. The system will automatically send an order confirmation email to the member summarising the subscriptions in the order and the amount to be taken. GoCardless will also send an automatic email to the member telling them that amount that will be debited to their account. Once the payment is taken (usually a few days later), the order will be automatically updated in WebCollect to "Payment Received".
- Cheque, bank transfer. The system will automatically create a new order for all the subscriptions that are auto-renewing on that payment method. The member will receive an order confirmation email, asking them to make the payment. In the case of bank transfer, it will provide the member with the organisation's bank details and their unique reference for making the payment.
- Recurring payment offline. The system will automatically create a new order for all the subscriptions that are auto-renewing on that payment method and will update their order status to Payment Received. The member will receive an order confirmation email notifying them that the subscriptions have been renewed, and a further email confirming that the payment has been taken.
- If there was no previous order (e.g. where the subscriptions have been imported), or the direct debit authorisation is no longer valid, or the previous order used Paypal, credit/debit cards or cash as the payment method, then the subscription will not be auto-renewed. This will be noted in the automatic subscriptions renewals report in the Failed section with the explanation: "No suitable last order found".
Once the order is updated to order status Payment Received, the end date of the subscription will be extended by one period (a month or a year in the case of fixed end date subscriptions).
Automatic Subscriptions Renewals Report
Click here for details.
