Subscriptions
Operate recurring billing with clear renewal behavior, dunning assumptions, and exception handling.
#Purpose
Describes operational control of subscription plans, customer enrollment, renewal cycles, and delinquency handling.
#
- Plan catalog, billing intervals, and customer consent language are approved.
- Retry cadence and dunning communication policy are documented.
- Support team has access to subscription state and payment-attempt history.
#
- Create subscription plan configuration with interval, amount, and renewal rules.
- Enroll customer with explicit authorization and stored reference identifiers.
- Monitor lifecycle transitions: pending, active, past_due, paused, canceled.
- Apply dunning and retry policy for failed renewals within configured attempt window.
- Suspend or cancel subscription when retries exhaust or customer requests termination.
#Expected outcomes and confirmations
- Renewals post with traceable attempt numbers and timestamps.
- Failed renewals enter policy-defined dunning flow automatically.
- State transitions are reflected in customer access and finance reports.
#Common failure states
- Renewal attempt fails repeatedly due to insufficient balance or authorization issues.
- Subscription remains active after cancellation request due to delayed state update.
- Dunning notifications are sent out of sequence or not sent at all.
#
- Review attempt history and customer communication timeline before manual intervention.
- Run controlled retry only within policy and preserve idempotent operation references.
- Escalate unresolved renewal anomalies with subscription ID, attempt IDs, and webhook evidence.
#Risk and compliance notes
- Capture customer consent and cancellation records for audit defensibility.
- Avoid hidden retry behavior that differs from published billing terms.
- Ensure pause/cancel actions are permissioned and fully logged.