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How to manage PayWhirl subscriptions in Shopify

You can update customer profiles, shipping addresses, payment methods, adjust billing cycles, pause, skip, cancel, and more.

Larry Brager avatar
Written by Larry Brager
Updated over a week ago

You can sort and filter customers based on their subscription status directly from the Shopify customers page using segment rules or within the PayWhirl App.

Viewing Subscription Customers in PayWhirl

For a quick at-a-glance view of upcoming subscription payments, navigate to the PayWhirl app dashboard and scroll down to the calendar view. Clicking on a specific day will bring up the view of that day's charges.

To open the list view of your subscribers, click on the subscriptions page in the PayWhirl app navigation. From here, you can see the list of your subscribers and sort and filter by status, product, etc.

If you are working with many subscribers, you can also run a subscription export. The export is in CSV and provides information for each subscription in a row in the report. A customer with multiple subscriptions would have multiple rows on the export, one for each subscription.

Once you have found a subscription you want to view or adjust, click on the subscription number to display its details, order history, etc.

To view their related page in Shopify, click on the name in the top right corner.

From here, you can see the customer's Shopify account status, payment methods on file, and subscriptions.

Viewing Subscription Customers in Shopify

Shopify's native subscription tools are somewhat limited, but they do allow you to do some basic sorting and filtering.

  • You can filter by active, paused, canceled, and expired subscriptions.

  • You can show failed payments and see which customers are in the dunning process or need to update their card on file.

Managing subscriptions

If you view a customer or a subscription order in Shopify, you will find links that will take you to the subscription details page in the PayWhirl app. For example, when viewing a customer in Shopify, you can click the View Subscription link under a customer's active product subscriptions.

The subscription details page allows you to view the customer's subscription in more detail and make changes as needed.

Refunding and Cancelling Subscription Orders

To refund or cancel a specific order that was generated from a subscription. Navigate to your Orders page in Shopify and locate the order you wish to cancel. You can also locate the subscription in PayWhirl and then click the link to the specific order from the Payments section on the subscription details page.

Please note that canceling or refunding a subscription order WILL NOT automatically cancel the subscription in PayWhirl. If you need to cancel the subscription, you'll need to do so from the subscription details page in PayWhirl.

Canceling Subscriptions

The red Cancel button will cancel the subscription immediately and prevent it from billing the customer again. Please note this can not be undone, and the customer will need to sign up again if canceled by mistake.

Pausing Subscriptions

The Pause/Resume subscription option is located next to the cancel button at the top of the page and will suspend the automatic billing until you or the customer resumes it. If you resume the subscription before their next order date, it will retain the original billing cycle. Everything will continue as if it was never paused.

WARNING: If the subscription is resumed after the next order date, the subscription will bill the customer immediately, and their billing cycle will now be based on the new date. This can lead to multiple payments if the subscription was paused for more than one billing cycle.

Reactivating failed subscriptions

You can reactivate failed subscriptions previously canceled due to nonpayment from the subscription details page in the PayWhirl App. To do this, click the Reactivate button, then select the next billing date for the failed subscription in the popup that appears.

Editing Subscription Line Items

While subscriptions are active, you may need to adjust the number of items, pricing, and shipping costs or modify the customer's product (s) in their subscription.

Clicking the pencil icon will allow you to change an existing line item. In the popup, you can edit the price and quantity of the line item or select a new product entirely.

Note: The price displayed will include any subscription discounts configured for the related plan, but you can edit the price as needed.

You can change the product by clicking Select, which will bring up a product search and allow you to switch out the product:

Once you have completed the changes you want to make, click Save. Your changes will be applied to the customer's next payment when the subscription is processed.

Adding items to existing subscriptions

Adding a new line item works similarly. Once you click Add, select the product you want, edit the price and quantity, decide if the added product should be recurring or a specific number of payments, and click Save.

After saving, you'll see the newly added line item on the subscription, and you can edit further if necessary.

Adjusting Subscription Shipping Fees

Adjusting subscription line items will not automatically recalculate the shipping. With that in mind, you may need to change the shipping accordingly. Clicking the pencil icon next to the shipping price will allow you to modify the subscription's recurring shipping price. You can also set the price to zero to give the customer free shipping.

Adjusting Customer Billing Cycles

The edit option next to the payment schedule will allow you to adjust the billing cycle, billing interval, and installments for the customer's subscription.

WARNING: Changing the minimum/maximum fulfillments will not reset the customer's processed installment count.

The installment count is based on the number of orders that have already been processed for that subscription. You can view the current installment count in the Overview section on the subscription details page.

Billing Installments Early

The Charge Now option in the Payments section bills the customer's upcoming payment early. Clicking Charge Now immediately processes the next payment and generates the related order in Shopify.

Billing an installment early will update the customer's next automatic billing date.

For example, if a customer was on a monthly billing plan and set to be charged on February 1st. If you click charge now, the order for February 1st will be processed early, so their next order date will be updated to March 1st. If you don't want that behavior and want the plan to bill again in February, you will need to adjust the customer's payment schedule back to February 1st.

Adjusting a customer's shipping address

You can change a customer's shipping address associated with their subscription by clicking Edit in the shipping address section and updating as necessary. The updated address will be used for all future orders the subscription generates.

Note: If the customer is subscribed to multiple subscriptions, editing the address on one subscription will NOT update the others. You will need to edit the address for all of their active subscriptions in that case.

How customers manage their own subscriptions

If you install our customer portal in your theme, customers can manage their subscriptions on Shopify. However, they will need a Shopify customer account. If they don't have an account, you can send them an invite request from the customer details page in Shopify.

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If you have any questions, please reach out to our support team. We're happy to help.

Sincerely,

Team PayWhirl

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