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Cut-off Period

How to set a cut-off window for your subscription orders

Updated over a week ago

To better understand the cut-off period, you first need to know how the subscriptions Specific Billing Day works in Subify.

When you set a <Delivery/Billing Day> for your subscription, you can also set a cut-off period for it to filter out just or newly created subscription orders that are too close to the pre-defined delivery day.

Since the functionality of this feature can be a bit complicated, we highly recommend placing a test order and testing it out yourself.


In This Article:


What are the common applications of Cut-off Period?

Prevent multiple orders too close in a short period

Prevent customers from being charged twice for a current month or week, if they've already been submitted for fulfillment in this period once.

Minimize the time between the placement of the initial order and the first delivery.


How can I set a Cut-off Period for my subscriptions?

You can set a Cut-off period for each of your selling plans in Subify.

To add a Cut-off period to your selling plans, follow these steps:

1- Go to the Subscription Plans tab.

2- Create a new Subscription plan.

3- Add the products that you like.

4- Click on the Add Selling plan.

5- Set the frequencies that you want (it should be weekly or monthly).

6- Click on Edit.

7- In Options enable <Charge on specific day>

8-Set specific day for charge and then how you want to deliver the first order. the <when order comes within ... day(s) before specific date> is the cut off period you proffered to set.

The Cut-off Period is only available when you set a Delivery/Billing Day for selling plans with Weekly and Monthly frequencies.

The options for <cut-off period> change based on the frequency of your subscription:

Weekly:

You need to choose the cut-off period between 1-7 days before the delivery day

Monthly:

You need to choose the cut-off period between 1-31 days before the delivery day


Cut-off period for pay-per-delivery subscriptions

Example:

If you create a subscription plan with the following selling plans:

<Selling plan type> : Pay-per-delivery subscription
<Delivery every> : 1 week

<Delivery/billing day> : Saturday

And a customer subscribes to this product;

The customer places their order on: Wednesday, Dec 14th.

The first upcoming Saturday date is: Dec 17th.

The second upcoming Saturday date is: Dec 24th

  • There is a 4 day period between the order placement day(Wednesday) and the first upcoming Delivery Day(Saturday).

Let's check these scenarios with different cut-off periods for this subscription:

<cut-off period>

order placement date

first fulfillment

Next Order/Billing date of the subscription

1 day before Delivery Day

14 Dec

14 Dec

17 Dec
upcoming Sat

2 days before Delivery Day

14 Dec

14 Dec

17 Dec
upcoming Sat

3 days before Delivery Day

14 Dec

14 Dec

17 Dec
upcoming Sat

4 days before Delivery Day

14 Dec

17 Dec
upcoming Sat

24 Dec
Second upcoming Sat

5 days before Delivery Day

14 Dec

17 Dec
upcoming Sat

24 Dec
Second upcoming Sat

6 days before Delivery Day

14 Dec

17 Dec
upcoming Sat

24 Dec
Second upcoming Sat

7 days before Delivery Day

14 Dec

17 Dec
upcoming Sat

24 Dec
Second upcoming Sat

Real example:

Let's say you set the cut-off period for this subscription to <4 days before delivery day>. This means that all the subscription contracts that were created out of the 4-day period before Saturday, meaning at least "4 days before Saturday" (i.e. Thursday or earlier), will be ready to fulfill on the first upcoming Saturday. An order is created on your Shopify panel with a fulfillment option:

Any other subscription contract that was created within this 4-day period, from Wednesday to Saturday, will be considered too close for fulfillment. So, an order will be created for this subscription on your Shopify panel with a scheduled fulfillment. Its fulfillment will be scheduled for the upcoming Saturday, and the next order will be on the second upcoming Saturday:


How to add a Cut-off period to existing subscription plans?

You can edit the selling plan of an existing subscription plan. Go to the Subscription plan tab and click on the subscription plan, and then click on the dots next to the Selling Plan to edit it.

Note:

Editing a subscription plan won't change the previous subscription contracts and only affect the future subscriptions on your store.


Let your customers know about it, too

It's important to let your customers know about your subscription Billing Day and Cut-off Period. You can inform them on your store: explain it in the product description, subscription FAQ, or anywhere on the product page. If you have a subscription landing page, it would be good to put it there, too.

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