Sales Pack subscriptions with an external payment provider (no invoices from Espo)

[SailReal]

Hi,

we use Sales Pack subscriptions for customers who pay by invoice, and that works very well. Some of our customers subscribe and pay through an external provider (like e.g. Paddle) instead. The external provider sells to the customer itself, so it charges them and issues their invoices.

We'd like to keep those subscriptions in Espo too, so that all customers live in one place. For them we want the subscription features (plan, items/seats, periods, renewal dates, updates/history, status) but none of the billing side:

- the Control Subscriptions job should not create invoices for their periods
- no payment requests, emails or dunning
- no switch to Past Due or Stopped because an Espo invoice is unpaid, since there won't be one

The external provider would tell us about renewals, seat changes and cancellations by webhook, and we'd sync those into Espo through the API.

As far as we can tell, the job's upcoming-period step creates the next period with invoiceAutomatically on. So each renewal would need us to step in, e.g. by creating the next period ourselves as Settled before the job does.

Questions:

1. Is there a supported way to do this today, e.g. a billing plan setting, a period/subscription flag, or the "right" period status to use?
2. If not, would you consider it as a feature? For example an "externally billed" option on the billing plan or subscription. The job would still manage the periods but create them as settled, with no invoices and no past-due handling.
3. If 1. and 2. is no option, how would you recommend to add this by us via customization?

Thanks!

[yuri]

Hi,

There's no such a feature currently. Will be considered in future.

[SailReal]

Thank you very much for your very prompt reply.

If this is being considered, could you give us a rough estimate of whether it will take weeks, months or longer before this becomes available? I’m just asking so that we can evaluate whether we need to implement it via major customization or whether we better wait until Espo supports this natively.

[yuri]

I can't say for sure. As it needs to be analyzed first. It is not yet determined.

[ArctenicGmbH]

Hi sailreal,

Until something like an "externally billed" option exists, a quick idea from the top of my head how to achieve this:

1. Add a custom boolean field (e.g. "externallyBilled") to Subscription, or a separate billing plan used only for those customers.
2. Let your webhook sync own the periods for these subscriptions: when the provider reports a renewal, create the next period via the API right away with status Settled and no invoice, so the job finds the upcoming period already in place. Seat changes and cancellations can update the subscription items/status the same way.
3. As a safety net, add a beforeSave hook on the period entity that, for externally billed subscriptions, disables invoiceAutomatically and keeps the status from moving to Past Due/Stopped.

We're Arctenic from Germany and do EspoCRM customizations and integrations like this; I'll be about your PM if you'd like support with the implementation.

Best regards,
Nic