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How do I create an advance invoice for the next annual year via bulk operation?

Summary

If you are looking to create advance invoices in bulk on your Chargebee site, you can use the “Charge Future renewals” bulk operation.

Solution

Advance invoices can be scheduled to be generated at fixed intervals of time, where each interval spans the same number of billing cycles of the subscription. The invoice for each interval is generated a specified number of days (days_before_interval) before the start of the interval. You can configure the schedule to end on a certain date or after a specified number of advance invoices have been generated.

The start date of the first interval depends on the number of days remaining from current time till the next renewal of the subscription. If this is more than days_before_interval, the interval begins at the next renewal. On the other hand, if the number of days remaining before the next renewal is less than days_before_interval, the first interval begins at the renewal following the next.

If you are looking to create advance invoices in bulk on your Chargebee site, you can use the “Charge Future renewals” bulk operation. Here are the columns and parameters that you need to pass in the bulk operation CSV if you are looking to create the advance invoices on a recurring basis at fixed intervals - 

1. subscription[id] - the Subscription ID

2. schedule_type-fixed_intervals
   

3. fixed_interval_schedule[days_before_renewal] - The number of days before the renewal at which you want the advance invoice to be created. For example, if you are looking to create advance invoices 30 days before the renewal of a yearly subscription, you can enter 30 as the value for this column.

4. fixed_interval_schedule[end_schedule_on] - Specifies when the schedule should end. Possible values - 

a) after_number_of_intervals - Advance invoices are generated a specified number of times and the schedule ends after this number of intervals. Lets say you want the advance invoice schedule to stop after 30 times, you can enter choose this as the end_schedule_on value and pass the pass 30 for fixed_interval_schedule[number_of_occurrences] .

              b) specific_date or subscription_end - End the advance invoicing schedule on a specific_date.

              c) subscription_end - Advance invoices are generated for as long as the subscription is active.

5. fixed_interval_schedule[number_of_occurrences] - The number of advance invoices to generate. This parameter is applicable only when fixed_interval_schedule[end_schedule_on] = after_number_of_intervals
   
   

6. fixed_interval_schedule[end_date] -  The date when the schedule should end. Advance invoices are not generated beyond this date. It must be at least 1 day before the start of the last billing cycle of the subscription and also within 5 years from the current date. This parameter is only applicable when fixed_interval_schedule[end_schedule_on] = specific_date.

Note: We can only have the advance invoice to be created before a fixed number of days from renewal and this depends on the plan's billing period. It is detailed in our help doc here - https://www.chargebee.com/docs/2.0/advance-invoices.html#faq

Based on the plan frequency, you can specify the number of days as follows:

• Weekly frequency - You can specify less than/equal to 5 days for a weekly frequency plan.

• Monthly frequency - You can specify less than/equal to 25 days for a monthly frequency plan.

• Yearly frequency - You can specify less than/equal to 363 days for a yearly frequency plan.

Related articles and Documentation

Advance invoice schedule

What is an advance invoice schedule and how to create one?