Book That In

How do I set up a subscription booking option?

It takes less than 5 minutes to set up a subscription booking option in Book That In. See how here.

Can I refund a subscription payment?

You can refund a subscription payment, but not through Book That In. To refund a subscription payment, login to your Stripe account (stripe.com), search for the customer's email address, and you will see all their payments to you. You can refund them from there.

How do customer's cancel their subcription?

Your customers can cancel their subscription directly from their own Book That In account at any time. When they cancel, it take immediate effect and no more payments will be taken. This saves you admin time, as you don't need to manually process the cancellation, and it also gives your customers peace of mind when they book that they have control over their subscription and can cancel at any time.

When a customer cancels a subscription, you will receive an email to inform you, so you can remove their access privileges as necessary.

Does Book That In send a cancellation email automatically when I cancel a subscription?

Yes, Book That In sends an automated email confirming cancellation when either you or your customer cancels the subscription. 

Do discount codes work on Subscriptions?

Yes, they do - with limitations. A discount code will reduce the amount of the first payment only, to a maximum of the first payment's total amount. Ongoing payments will be at the standard subscription amount. If you want permanently discounted subscription, you would need to set up a separate Subscription Booking Type for this. 

Can I offer Trial Periods with Subscriptions?

Yes, Book That In's subscriptions have a built-in Trial period. You can set this when you create the subscription.

You can also use a discount code to reduce the cost of the first payment to 0, so you can use this to offer a trial period for the period covered by the the subscription's first payment (e.g. On a monthly subscription, you can offer a month's free trial by creating a 100% off discount code.)

Can I set a date for when subscription payments start?

Yes, you can set a delayed start date when you create a subscription Booking Type. After the start date has passed, any new customers signing up will start payments immediately.

Can I add a one-off charge to a subscription?

Yes. When creating a new subscription, you have the option to add a one-off charge. This will be charged when a customer signs up to your subscription. You might use this to charge a one-off membership fee, or to give customers the option to add a product to their booking.

Can I pause a subscription?

Yes. You can pause all bookings for a particular subscription, or you can pause them individually. Read more on how to pause a subscription.

Can I change the cost of a subscription

You can't change the cost of an existing subscription, but you can achieve the same thing by transferring a customer to a new subscription at a different price. (See below).

Can I transfer a customer from one subscription to another?

Yes, you can. Use the 'Transfer' icon on the 'View Subscriptions' tab to transfer an individual subscription or use the 'Transfer All' button at the top to move all subscriptions in one go (this is useful when you increase your prices).

Transferring subscriptions is particularly useful if you have different subscription options and you want to move individuals between the plans. It is also useful if you are changing your pricing. 

Book That In assumes you will have the necessary legal approval from your customers to change their subscription plans.

There are several things to note when you transfer a subscription:

a) If the payment frequency (e.g. weekly/monthly/yearly) is the same, then the customer will be charged on their normal charge date. If the payment frequency is different, they will be charged immediately.
b) The system gives you the option to pro rata the customer's next payment if you wish. This means that if you transfer someone in the middle of their subscription period, the system can automatically adjust their next payment to take into account what they have already paid. 
The system’s pop up box confirms what will happen when you make the transfer, so you don’t need to remember all this.

Why can't I edit the amount and frequency for my subscription?

Once you have created a subscription, you cannot edit the amount charged or the frequency. You can only edit the name and description details.

This is to prevent you from mischarging your customers by mistake: if we allowed you to edit the cost/frequency on a subscription, it would change for all existing subscribers as well as new customers. This may accidentally break the terms of your agreement with them. 

If you need to change the subscription, you can create a new subscription option for new customers and, if you wish to change the charging for existing customers as well, you can transfer them to the new subscription.

How do I know if a customer's payment has failed?

Unfortunately, Stripe doesn't automatically send you an email when a subscription payment fails, so we have made it possible to see if a payment has failed from your Book That In account. Simply click on the 'View subscriptions' tab for your subscription, and you will see a column entitled 'Last invoice date'. This column tells you that status of the customer's latest payment. You need to check in regularly to make sure you catch any issues early on.

Find out what the different statuses mean.

A Customer's Subscription Payment has failed. What do I do?

Subscription payments do fail from time to time - normally because a card has expired or there are insufficient funds in an account. When this happens you will see a red cross next the subscription on your account.

You can ask a customer to update their card details so you can resume payments. They can do this themselves via their Book That In account at bookthatin.com/Subscription/Manage

Alternative Instructions for doing this can be found here.

How can I prevent failed card payments?

It is a fact of life that credit/debit cards expire, and your customers will need to update their card details from time to time. Instead of waiting for a card payment to fail, you can set up some automated emails in Stripe that prompt your customers to update their card before it expires.