Subscription Plan
A Subscription Plan in ERPNext v16 saves all the fundamental settings you need to bill for a product or service regularly. It tells the customer what they are signing up for, how much it costs, and how often they will be charged. Subscription Plans are basically templates that you can use again and again to make sure all of your subscriptions are the same. They also make it easy to send out bills regularly and help you set up automatic billing cycles.
People often sign up for subscription plans to pay for things like software licenses, maintenance contracts, memberships, rents, or anything else they have to pay for on a regular basis.
To see the Subscription Plans list, go to:
Home > Accounting > Subscription Management > Plan for Subscription
From this list, you may access, create, update, and manage all of the subscription plans in the system.
How to Create a Subscription Plan
Before you can establish and activate a Subscription for a customer, you need to make a Subscription Plan. This is the billing plan that all subscriptions will follow.
- In the Subscription Plan list, click on New.
- This opens a new Subscription Plan form where you can choose how to pay for everything.
- Pick the item you wish to sign up for.
- This Item is the service or product that will cost you money over and over again. The Item should normally have a “Sales Item” label on it. It could be a service, a licence, or something that isn’t in stock. You can only connect one Item to each Subscription Plan.
You can set the price in one of two ways: either Fixed or Based on Price List.
- Fixed: The price is clearly stated in the Subscription Plan, and it doesn’t change even if the pricing list does.
- Based on the Price List: The price comes from the Price List you choose, thus you can alter the price without changing the Subscription Plan.
Because of this flexibility, businesses can employ both static subscription pricing and dynamic models that are based on a price list.
You can choose to be billed every day, week, month, or year.
The Billing Interval notifies the customer when they will recieve their bill. Most subscription-based businesses set this to Monthly or Yearly, however shorter time frames can be used for particular reasons.
Set a number for the billing period.
This tells you how many intervals must pass before the next bill is mailed out. For example:
- Once a month, the count was 1, hence the bill was sent once a month.
- Every three months, with an interval of three months, you will be charged.
- Interval: Yearly, Count: 5 => billed once every five years
This gives you full control over billing cycles that last a long time and happen more than once.
Click Save to make the Subscription Plan.
You can choose the plan you saved when you make customer subscriptions.
You can also add other payment options, such as establishing a Payment Gateway, setting up automatic payment collection, and altering the default manner payments are made. This is especially useful when you have subscriptions that come with online payments or when you regularly pay your bills using a credit card.
There is always a Subscription Plan associated with an item, and at the beginning of each billing cycle, ERPNext automatically makes a Sales Invoice based on the plan’s settings. These invoices satisfy the requirements for accounting and taxes, so they operate nicely with Accounts Receivable, the General Ledger, and financial reporting.
Using Subscription Plans effectively in ERPNext v16 can help Businesses automate their recurring revenue, speed up the process of sending invoices, and maintain billing accuracy high.
