Subscriptions Manager

INTRO Hello and welcome. In this lesson, we’ll be discussing the Subscriptions Manager. In particular, steps and best practices you can take to make sure subscription payments are processed correctly. Let’s get started. EDITOR/EMULATOR To view and manage subscription payments, press Subscriptions in the Platfio Manager. The Subscriptions Manager displays the records of subscriptions created and users subscribed to them. You can click on the question mark icon on the top left to view the helper that explains each section of this page.

Your app is integrated with Stripe to provide seamless and secure payment management. Your app will always keep in sync with Stripe and flag potentially problematic payments. It’s important to keep an eye out for any issues in a day-to-day or week-to-week basis.

A quick way to check for payment issues is by using the Stripe Checker. It verifies each subscription transaction in your app against those in Stripe and lists subscriptions that may have expired, been canceled, or are overdue, prioritizing the ones with issues. This tool is especially helpful if you have a large number of subscribers to manage.

Now that the Stripe Checker has completed its check, let’s take a look at how to verify a successful payment and subscription. Transactions with a green check mark indicate that there were no issues. Clicking on a transaction will take us to the subscription details. It will show details such as the subscription's name, status, price, and more. You can also pause or cancel the subscription on this page. You will see that the status is active, indicating that the user has been successfully subscribed.

Next, let’s check if the payment was successful. The profile icon on the top left will quickly take us to the User Manager. Then, click Subscriptions and go to the Payments tab. Look for the associated with the subscription and click it to view the details. You’ll notice that the user was able to successfully pay for the due amount.

Now, let’s take a look at how to check for a failed payment and subscription. The Stripe Checker will flag transactions with potential issues. Let’s check this one that says "canceled."

Go to the User Manager and check the subscriptions. You can see that this user is subscribed to two identical subscriptions, which could indicate that they might have purchased it twice by mistake. You’ll also notice that one is active while the other has already been canceled.

If we go to the Payments tab and check the payment associated with the canceled subscription, you’ll notice that the amount has been refunded to the user.

Let’s go back and check the one that says "incomplete." Go to the User Manager and check the subscription. You’ll notice that the subscription is active. Go to the Payments tab and check the payment details. You’ll notice that the user has not yet paid for the subscription. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The system will try to charge the user again after a few days. What you really need to watch out for is if the Stripe Checker shows "incomplete_expired." This error indicates that the system has tried to charge the user multiple times and has given up. At that point, you have to cancel the subscription and re-subscribe the user, following up with them and keeping an eye on their subscription.

You can use the POS to resubscribe the user and charge make-up payments if necessary. Check out our lesson video on the POS for more information.

OUTRO While it may be tempting to go directly to the Stripe portal to manage payments, it’s important to use the tools within the app instead. Otherwise, the app can become out of sync with what’s happening in Stripe.

For example, if you unsubscribe a user in Stripe, and it doesn’t sync with the app, that user may still be in a segment that entitles them to a discount. They could continue using the discount because the subscription was canceled in Stripe, but the app wasn’t informed. To prevent this, always cancel subscriptions through the app, which will then notify Stripe. You should see the changes reflected in Stripe immediately after you cancel the subscription in the app.

Similarly, if you need to refund a single payment from a subscription, you can do this in the app as well, and the changes will be reflected in Stripe right away. Thank you for watching this tutorial on the Subscription Manager. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact our team for support.