Renew subscriptions¶
The foundation of any subscription business model is recurring payments. This is when customers reliably pay a regular amount at specific intervals, in exchange for access to a subscription product or service.
Subscription renewal is the process customers follow when they willingly choose to continue participating in, and paying for, a subscription product or service.
Subscribers experience the renewal process at different intervals – weekly, monthly, annually, etc. – depending on the duration of the agreed-upon contract.
Most companies that offer subscriptions prefer to automate the renewal process for customers. However, manual subscription renewals are still used in some cases.
With the Odoo Subscriptions application, a company can manage all of its subscriptions in one place. Renewals can be processed automatically, or manually, include additional products or upsells per renewal order, and be filtered in batch views to quickly locate customers who need to renew their subscriptions.
Subscription renewals¶
In order to renew a subscription, a quotation with a subscription product must be confirmed, with a configured Recurring Plan selected.
To open a subscription quotation, navigate to , and select the desired quotation from the list. Or, create a new one by clicking New to open a new quotation form.
Note
Only a singular product is required.
A subscription service counts as a product, as it is considered a recurring product.
Subscription quotations must be confirmed, and payment from the customer for the initial subscription must be invoiced and registered in order to successfully open a Renewal Quotation.
See also
For more information on the above process of confirming quotations and invoicing payments, see: - Create quotations - Online payment order confirmation
Once the payment from the subscription quotation is confirmed, the quotation turns into a sales order. An In Progress tag is applied to the sales order form, and a series of buttons also appear at the top of the sales order, including a Renew button.
When the Renew button is clicked, Odoo instantly presents a new renewal quotation, complete with a Renewal Quotation tag.
From here, a standard sales flow can occur to confirm the quotation. This typically begins by clicking Send by Email, which sends a copy of the quotation to the customer, by email, for them to confirm, and eventually, pay for.
Note
In the chatter of the Renewal Quotation, it is mentioned that this subscription is the renewal of the subscription from the original sales order.
Once the Renewal Quotation is confirmed, it becomes a sales order, and a Sales History smart button appears at the top of the page.
When that Sales History smart button is clicked, Odoo reveals a separate page, showcasing the different sales orders attached to this subscription, along with their individual Subscription Status.
Additionally, once the Renewal Quotation is confirmed, an MRR smart button also appears at the top of the sales order.
When clicked, Odoo reveals an MRR Analysis page, detailing the monthly recurring revenue related to this specific subscription.
Important
On rare occasions, automatic payment can fail, which results in a Payment Failure tag on the top-right of the sales order, if there is an error in the payment method.
This is done to prevent the system from charging the customer again the next time a scheduled action is run. Because the status of the payment is unknown, Odoo requests a manual operation to check if the payment has been made, before the payment can be used again.
To do this, navigate to . Click into the desired subscription, then check the Chatter to see if the payment was made.
If the payment was not made, first enter debug mode. Then, click the Other Info tab, and untick the checkbox next to Contract in exception. Reload the sales order, and the Payment Failure tag is gone.
If the payment was made, a new invoice must be made and posted manually. This automatically updates the next invoice date of the subscription. Once created, enter debug mode, and navigate to the new sales order. Click the Other Info tab, and untick the checkbox next to Contract in exception. Reload the sales order, and the Payment Failure tag is gone.
The contract in exception` option selected with the payment failure tag shown.¶
In both cases, once the Contract in exception option is no longer selected, Odoo handles renewals automatically again. If the subscription remains in payment failure, it is skipped by Odoo until the sales order is closed.