As a shop owner I can see the money owed by a subscriber when their payments fail but succeed again in the future (missed payments, erratic payments, outstanding balance)

chrisjsimpson commented 2 years ago

TBD == To be documented.

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

Verbatim from user:

What I take from this is:

    The need to know when payments are missed via some sort of notification.
    The need to know when retries will occur. (Can I decide what intervals they happen?)
    The number of retries isn't important to me but the timeframe in which they occur is.
    To have both these points 1 & 2  provide data in the transaction export csv. 

The export is my easiest way of tracking all the information because it can hold all of my subscribers. I really don't think I can see too much information there, so I have added some things below that I'd like in there, or something akin to it.
Heading for the transaction export:

(The transaction export is not currently (and may never be) the best way of assessing missed payments)

Refactored into user story / problem statement

Problem: As a shop owner I need to know if subscribers owe me money. Subscribers may owe money when repeated attempts to collect payments ultimately fail, despite future subscription charges which may succeed.

As a shop owner, I care more about knowning about overdue payments than I do succeeded payments.

Things to know and example scenarios:

Real-world scenario example 1: Imagine you're a football club committee member responsible making sure nobody is behind on their membership fee.

Real-world scenario example 2: Imagine you sell monthly software licenses with access to your web application, as an owner you want to make sure nobody is behind on their membership fee, if they are then you might disable their access.

Real-world scenario example 3: Imagine you're a wine club subscription seller, and a payment is overdue, you're happy to post wine to a customer who's been with you for 10 years because you know you can contact them, but not a new customer who's only been a subscriber for 4 months because there's a stronger risk you'll loose money.

Things to know:

A subscription can be 'active' even if payments are overdue (for example, a sports club, where a player fails to pay one month- they may not be excluded from the club , but their subscription is still active)
Recall that failed payments are automatically retried according to retry rules up to a maximum of x times until the payment is marked as void or uncollectible.
At each billing cycle (e.g. monthly), a new charge is raised for that cycle
Recall that a Subscription can been paused/stopped and restarted (e.g. amout owed is not simply "£10 X 6 months"- a Subscription may have been paused on month 3, for example)
Recall that a Subscriber can have multiple subscriptions, money owed should (probably) firstly calculated per subscription (e.g. "Hey, your subscription is £x amount underpaid, but your subscription is OK :heavy_check_mark: ")

Happy path

Consider a monthly subscription for £10.

Over a period of 5 months, a subs

Month 1: £10 Charge succeeds
Month: 2: £10 Charge succeeds
Month: 3: £10 Charge fails on 1st attempt (not enough funds) but succeeds on 2nd automatic attempt
Month: 4: £10 Charge succeeds
Month: 5: £10 Charge succeeds

Total amount collected: £50 Missing payments: £0

Un-Happy path 1

Consider a monthly subscription for £10.

Month 1: £10 Charge succeeds
Month: 2: £10 Charge succeeds
Month: 3: £10 Charge fails on 1st, 2nd, and all other retry attempts (not enough funds) and is never collected
Month: 4: £10 Charge succeeds
Month: 5: £10 Charge succeeds

Total amount collected: £40 Missing payments: £10

The above examples do not cover all scenarios (for example when a subscription gets paused, or a subscriber with multiple plans.

Describe the solution you'd like

[x] #805
[x] #783
[x] #784
[x] #785
[ ] #786
[x] #815

TBD

How might missed/overdue/oustanding payments be communicated efficiently to the shop owner?
- What might this look like? How is it automated?
- TODO: What are the correct words to use (missed/overdue/oustanding)?
Consider the notion of a 'balance'
- What does having a balance mean?
- How might it be useful to a shop owner?
- What actions would I want to take or happen (either automatically or manually) based on this balance?
- If automatic, what advantages and risks are there (responsibility, contractual, compassion, reputational)

Describe alternatives you've considered TBD. A clear and concise description of any alternative solutions or features you've considered.

Additional context

elliottmotson commented 2 years ago

First look UX design of proposed feature pictured here: Outstanding payments workflow scroll [Download diagram source file]

Things to work on/improve:

Displaying "Balance" (If negative)
Investigate more functionality (Button to recharge after {{ x }} days?)

chrisjsimpson commented 2 years ago

First look UX design of proposed feature pictured here: [Download diagram source file]

Things to work on/improve:

Displaying "Balance" (If negative)

Investigate more functionality (Button to recharge after {{ x }} days?)

Consider putting payment issue alerts on the admin dashboard homepage, because they're important to bring to attention
Terminology is still in flux , be prepared for wording to change through this discovery process

Subscribie / subscribie