How can you pause or suspend a recurring invoice?

[Koawood]

[The title of this thread has been edited from the original: Temporary Pause on Recurring Series]

With the current COVID-19 situation, many business are temporarily closing. For those of us who have recurring payments (subscriptions or series) with our clients for services we cannot currently offer, how do we pause or suspend these series?

[#2]

Hey @Koawood-

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

We don't have a way of temporarily pausing or suspending recurring Invoices at this time. You can either end the current Invoices series (and create a new one when things get up and running), or you can adjust the next payment date to extend the time frame so they won't be charged this or next month. If you'd like to adjust the payment date, head to the Invoices section of your Square Dashboard and select the recurring invoice you'd like to change. From there, select Edit Series, then locate the Next Invoice button to make the adjustment:

We realize that recent events have impacted our seller's day-to-day business and sales. I hope this suggestion is helpful. Having a suspend or pause button for Square Invoices is a fantastic feature request that we received in the past, and input like yours is very helpful to the product teams that develop these features. Please let me know if you have any questions about this information, or if there's anything else we can do for you during this time✨

[#3]

Hi @kfunch, welcome to the seller community and thanks for bringing this up!

You can edit the payment amount and date from your Invoices tab, though the ability to automatically send a prorated invoice in a recurring series is not available. For now, I would suggest sending a single invoice for the initial partial amount, then you can create the recurring invoice series for the full amount when the next payment is due.

I can see how this feature would help streamline your workflow. Rest assured that I'll be sharing your post with our Product Liaison team. We'll circle back with any updates or additional options as they're available.

Thanks for your patience, and let us know if you have any other questions. 🙂

[ashc]

Hi @ImageFit!

Thank you for leaving such detailed feedback for us and our Product team.

We'll get you added to the list!

[isabelle]

Hey @Koawood-

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

We don't have a way of temporarily pausing or suspending recurring Invoices at this time. You can either end the current Invoices series (and create a new one when things get up and running), or you can adjust the next payment date to extend the time frame so they won't be charged this or next month. If you'd like to adjust the payment date, head to the Invoices section of your Square Dashboard and select the recurring invoice you'd like to change. From there, select Edit Series, then locate the Next Invoice button to make the adjustment:

We realize that recent events have impacted our seller's day-to-day business and sales. I hope this suggestion is helpful. Having a suspend or pause button for Square Invoices is a fantastic feature request that we received in the past, and input like yours is very helpful to the product teams that develop these features. Please let me know if you have any questions about this information, or if there's anything else we can do for you during this time✨

[CBjr]

[The title of this thread has been edited from the original: What is best way to put customer recurring invoice on hold for a month without cancel the customers]

What is best way to put customer recurring invoice on hold for a month without cancel the customers?

[Alex_]

Hello @CBjr, 

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

Currently we do not have a way to put a "freeze" or to "pause" a recurring series. The only way would be for you to cancel the invoice series, and to start it again once you're ready to do so. 

I do agree with you that this would be a great feature to have, so I will be sure to bubble up your feedback to the appropriate teams. 

Please let me know if you have any other questions by replying to this thread. 

[CBjr]

I came up with a solution that will work for me. I open each invoice and edited the next date to the next month on the same date and  pushed the red button and saved it.

[Alex_]

@CBjr

Glad to hear you found a temporary solution. Hopefully business returns to normal in the near future, and please don't hesitate to reach out if you have any other questions. 

[WonderTent]

We run an  events business and have clients booking several months in advance. When we invoice we break it into a deposit and payable balance. With Covid-19 and uncertainty on when events  will be able to take place again, we have  a lot of invoices out that understandably haven't been paid as clients are unsure if the  events  will  go ahead. 

Rather than cancel bookings which increases anxiety for clients,  is there a way  to PAUSE the invoice so:

a) it doesn't show up as being OUTSTANDING for x amount of days - which I assume effects our ability  to raise capital through Square's algorithm

b) stop sending reminders to all outstanding bookings

I'm sure we aren't the only business in this predicament.

Trish

[AshleyK]

Hi @WonderTent thanks so much for sharing this and giving the reasons why this feature would be useful for your business. At this time, there is not a way to pause an invoice. You are correct in thinking the only workaround would be to cancel the invoice and send your clients a new one if the event does not cancel. I understand that this would not be the best option for you, but if you do not want reminder emails to be sent to your clients, then that would have to happen. 

I do think this is a useful feature, so I will share this with our Development Team for future tracking. 

Thanks again for your time and please let me know if you have any other questions. 

[CanadianFade]

It appears that this request has been "open" for quite some time.  I was looking for a pause feature today and could not find one so I'm assuming that it has not yet been implemented.  

I would like to strongly encourage your team to implement an option to pause recurring subscriptions/invoicing as quickly as possible as now more than ever I would imagine that there are plenty of customers who need to have this available.

I have a number of students who pay a monthly fee for any given length of time and for me to stop and restart their invoicing would be a big project. 

Due to COVID-19 and the shutdown of the majority of businesses I really think this should become a priority.

Thank you in advance for your help and attention.