Credit Management: #4 Credits on Unused Period

Credit Management: #4 Credits on Unused Period

Recall a familiar situation. You sign up for a monthly gym membership. You pay the subscription fee upfront, get motivated, and show up consistently for the first week. Then, suddenly, you get caught up in work deadlines, travel plans, or a dip in motivation.


You walk to the front desk and ask, "Can you pause my membership for a week?"

The gym staff happily pauses your access, but what payment have you already made for the rest of the month? Gone.

When you return, you continue from where you left off, minus the days you didn't turn up. You don't complain out loud, but deep inside, you know that value quietly slipped away.

This is surprisingly common across subscription businesses. Customers pause subscriptions for obvious reasons such as travel, budget constraints, seasonal usage, or simply not having enough time to use the service. But the hard reality is that customers take short breaks, but their payments don't.

Many subscription systems today pause access, but not the billing value. Customers lose the amount they paid for but never used. They may not complain immediately, but they quietly remember the experience the next time renewal arrives. This tiny friction can snowball into churn. When the customer feels value is wasted, they hesitate to return, downgrade instead of renewing, or may even cancel early before the actual renewal cycle.

Introducing Pause Period Credits 

Pause Period Credits solves this experience gap with fairness built into every pause. Instead of forfeiting unused value, customers receive a credit note reflecting the prorated portion of the billing cycle they didn't use. When the subscription resumes, the credit is applied automatically as a discount or offset. This makes the pause feel fair, transparent and respectful.


Challenges in Manual Credit Calculation 

Although the idea of pausing subscriptions and offering credits sounds simple, executing it is complex. Businesses need to accurately prorate the unused value, issue credit notes that reflect the exact service gap, and adjust the billing date without breaking the cycle. The complexity increases when pauses are backdated or extended across the renewal period, as even a small discrepancy can ripple into a larger accounting mismatch.


When these calculations are handled manually, errors and inconsistencies become almost inevitable. Disputes over missed dates or incorrect credits can easily arise, leading to unnecessary back-and-forth communication. The result? Delays in resolution, dissatisfied customers, and operational strain for the finance team.

How it works in Zoho Billing 

Zoho Billing efficiently simplifies pause-related credits. When a subscription is paused, the system automatically calculates the unused portion of the cycle. However, the credit note is not generated immediately. It will be created when the subscription is resumed.


Depending on how the subscription resumes, the credit is applied accordingly.
  1. Out-of-Term Resume: If the customer resumes the subscription after the current billing cycle, a new invoice is generated, and the credit note is automatically applied.
  2. In-Term Resume: If the customer resumes within the same billing period, the credit note is created but applied only on the next invoice, provided "Redeem Credits" is enabled.
This ensures fairness and flexibility while keeping every billing event traceable and accurate.

InfoNote:  For businesses wanting to predict credit adjustment before the resume date, Zoho Billing shows exactly how much credit will be generated for a given pause period before resumption when you provide the resume date while pausing the subscription.

The entire process is transparent and consistent, and there is no guesswork. 

Pause Period Credits work differently for different frequencies. Here are some scenarios for your understanding,

Scenarios: 

Imagine a monthly subscription,

A customer subscribes to a service priced at $300 for a period from June 1st to June 30th. On June 10th, they pause their subscription and resume it on June 15th, leaving five days unused.

For this subscription,

Item

Value

Subscription Amount

$300

Amount Per Day ($300/30)

$10

Paused Days

5 Days

Credit Amount (5x$10)

$50

 

In this case, Zoho Billing will calculate $50 as credits. The credit note will be generated automatically when the subscription resumes. It will only be applied to the next invoice post-generation.


For Yearly Subscription,

Customer A subscribes to a plan priced at $3500 for 365 days. After five months of active usage, the subscription is paused for two months (precisely 60 days).

For this subscription,

Item

Value

Subscription Amount

$2000

Amount Per Day ($3500/365)

$9.58

Paused Days

60 Days

Credit Amount (60x$9.58)

$570

 

Upon subscription resumption, a credit note of $570 will be automatically generated and applied to the customer's account.


In a different scenario,  

Consider a subscription from 1st June to 30th June, priced at $300. The customer paused the subscription on 15th June and resumed it on 5th July.

For this subscription,

Item

Value

Subscription Amount

$300

Cost per Day ($300/30)

$10

Unused paid days (15th to 30th)

16 days

Credit Amount (16x$10)

$160

 

When the subscription resumes, a credit note of $160 is generated automatically. Since this is an out-of-term resumption, a new invoice is created for the resumed period, and the credit note is immediately applied to that invoice.


What Pause Period Credit Brings In 

Instead of treating pauses as lost value, they become a value-preserving retention tool for businesses. With this credit model, offering credits for the unused period builds trust with customers, and they feel covered. For businesses, it makes the billing transparent, and the revenue becomes more predictable.


Today's subscription economy is crowded. Customers compare experiences down to the most minor details. If pausing feels like losing money, cancellation becomes easier. If the pressure value is paused, returning becomes natural.

Pause Period Credit transform a pause from a quiet pain point into a moment of trust building.

Here's another situation that every business encounters. What if a customer doesn't pause, but decides to cancel instead? What happens to the remaining value then?

Should it turn into a credit or a refund?



NotesIn the next post, we will venture into the Advanced Refund Policy. 

    • Sticky Posts

    • Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

      Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

    • Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

      Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

    • Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

      Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

    • Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

      Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

    • Recent Topics

    • Is Desk Down?

      Across department - always an error. [Status Mode] - error [Table View and the rest] - working

    • We Asked, Zoho Delivered: The New Early Access Program is Here

      For years, the Zoho Creator community has requested a more transparent and participatory approach to beta testing and feature previews. Today, I'm thrilled to highlight that Zoho has delivered exactly what we asked for with the launch of the Early Access

    • Can the Product Image on the Quote Template be enlarged

      Hello, I am editing the Quote Template and added ${Products.Product Image} to the line item and the image comes up but it is very tiny. Is there anyway that you can resize this to be larger? Any help would be great! Thanks

    • How do I change the wording of the tile of SignForm?

      When my user opens a SignForm url, the title that is presented is always "SignForm signer Information" and a form is displayed asking for the username and email address. This can be confusing to the end user. How can I change the title at least (Or at

    • How to link tickets to a Vendor/Vendor Contact (not Customer) for Accounting Department?

      Hi all, We’re configuring our Accounting department to handle tickets from both customers and vendors (our independent contractors). Right now, ticket association seems to be built around linking a ticket to a Customer / Customer Contact, but for vendor-originated

    • Problem with CRM Connection not Refreshing Token

      I've setup a connection with Zoom in the CRM. I'm using this connection to automate some registrations, so my team doesn't have to manually create them in both the CRM and Zoom. Connection works great in my function until the token expires. It does not refresh and I have to manually revoke the connection and connect it again. I've chatted with Zoho about this and after emailing me that it couldn't be done I asked for specifics on why and they responded. "The connection is CRM is not a feature to

    • Automatic Matching from Bank Statements / Feeds

      Is it possible to have transactions from a feed or bank statement automatically match when certain criteria are met? My use case, which is pretty broadly applicable, is e-commerce transactions for merchant services accounts (clearing accounts). In these

    • Clone Recurring Expenses

      Our bookkeeping practices make extensive use of the "clone" feature for bills, expenses, invoices, etc. This cuts down significantly on both the amount of typing that needs to be done manually and, more importantly, the mental overhead of choosing the

    • Unify Overlapping Functionalities Across Zoho Products

      Hi Zoho One Team, We would like to raise a concern about the current overlap of core functionalities across various Zoho applications. While Zoho offers a rich suite of tools, many applications include similar or identical features—such as shift management,

    • Automation #7 - Auto-update Email Content to a Ticket

      This is a monthly series where we pick some common use cases that have been either discussed or most asked about in our community and explain how they can be achieved using one of the automation capabilities in Zoho Desk. Email is one of the most commonly

    • Ticket to article and Ticket to template

      Hello! I would like to know if it is possible (and how) to do the following actions: 1. To generate an article from a ticket (reply + original message) 2. Easy convert an answer to an email template

    • Is there API Doc for Zoho Survey?

      Hi everyone, Is there API doc for Zoho Survey? Currently evaluating a solution - use case to automate survey administration especially for internal use. But after a brief search, I couldn't find API doc for this. So I thought I should ask here. Than

    • Windows Desktop App - request to add minimization/startup options

      Support Team, Can you submit the following request to your development team? Here is what would be optimal in my opinion from UX perspective: 1) In the "Application Menu", add a menu item to Exit the app, as well as an alt-key shortcut for these menus

    • Kaizen #225 - Making Query-based Custom Related Lists Actionable with Lookups and Links

      Hello everyone! Welcome back to another post in the Kaizen series! This week, we will discuss an exciting enhancement in Queries in Zoho CRM. In Kaizen #190, we discussed how Queries bridge gaps where native related lists fall short and power custom related

    • WebDAV / FTP / SFTP protocols for syncing

      I believe the Zoho for Desktop app is built using a proprietary protocol. For the growing number of people using services such as odrive to sync multiple accounts from various providers (Google, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, etc.) it would be really helpful

    • CRM x WorkDrive: We're rolling out the WorkDrive-powered file storage experience for existing users

      Release plan: Gradual rollout to customers without file storage add-ons, in this order: 1. Standalone CRM 2. CRM Plus and Zoho One DCs: All | Editions: All Available now for: - Standalone CRM accounts in Free and Standard editions without file storage

    • Non-responsive views in Mobile Browser (iPad)

      Has anyone noticed that the creator applications when viewed in a mobile browser (iPad) lost its responsiveness? It now appears very small font size and need to zoom into to read contents. Obviously this make use by field staff quite difficult. This is not at all a good move, as lots of my users are depending on accessing the app in mobile devices (iPads), and very challenging and frustrating. 

    • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - AI-Enhanced Logistics Management in Zoho Creator

      Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. About Learning Table Series Learning Table Series is a free, 45-60

    • Learner transcript Challenges.

      Currently i am working on a Learner Transcript app for my employer using Zoho Creator. The app is expected to accept assessment inputs from tutors, go through an approval process and upon call up, displays all assessments associated with a learner in

    • Customizable UI components in pages | Theme builder

      Anyone know when these roadmap items are scheduled for release? They were originally scheduled for Q4 2025. https://www.zoho.com/creator/product-roadmap.html

    • Feature Request - Set Default Values for Meetings

      Hi Zoho CRM Team, I would be very useful if we could set default values for meeting parameters. For example, if you always wanted Reminder 1 Day before. Currently you need to remember to choose it for every meeting. Also being able to use merge tags to

    • Analytics <-> Invoice Connection DELETED by Zoho

      Hi All, I am reaching out today because of a big issue we have at the moment with Zoho Analytics and Zoho Invoice. Our organization relies on Zoho Analytics for most of our reporting (operationnal teams). A few days ago we observed a sync issue with the

    • How to use Rollup Summary in a Formula Field?

      I created a Rollup Summary (Decimal) field in my module, and it shows values correctly. When I try to reference it in a Formula Field (e.g. ${Deals.Partners_Requested} - ${Deals.Partners_Paid}), I get the error that the field can’t be found. Is it possible

    • Zoho Creator to Zoho CRM Images

      Right now, I am trying to setup a Notes form within Zoho Creator. This Notes will note the Note section under Accounts > Selected Account. Right now, I use Zoho Flow to push the notes and it works just fine, with text only. Images do not get sent (there

    • CRM gets location smart with the all new Map View: visualize records, locate records within any radius, and more

      Hello all, We've introduced a new way to work with location data in Zoho CRM: the Map View. Instead of scrolling through endless lists, your records now appear as pins on a map. Built on top of the all-new address field and powered by Mappls (MapMyIndia),

    • Error Logs / Failure logs for Client Scripts Functions

      Hi Team, While we are implementing client scripts for the automation, it is working fine in few accounts but not working for others. So, it would be great if we can have error Logs for client scripts also just like custom functions. Is there any way that

    • Automate pushing Zoho CRM backups into Zoho WorkDrive

      Through our Zoho One subscription we have both Zoho CRM and Zoho WorkDrive. We have regular backups setup in Zoho CRM. Once the backup is created, we are notified. Since we want to keep these backups for more than 7 days, we manually download them. They

    • Zoho Books blocks invoicing without VeriFactu even though it is not mandatory until 2027

      I would like to highlight a very serious issue in Zoho Books for Spain. 1. The Spanish government has postponed the mandatory start of VeriFactu to January 1st, 2027. This means that during all of 2026 businesses are NOT required to transmit invoices

    • Problem : Auto redirect from zoho flow to zoho creator

      Hi there, I've been waiting for zoho team to get back on this for last couple of days. Anyone else have the problem to access zoho flow? everytime I click on zoho flow it redirects me to zoho creator. I tried incognito mode but it still direct me to zoho

    • Client and Vendor Portal

      Some clients like keeping tabs on the developments and hence would like to be notified of the progress. Continuous updates can be tedious and time-consuming. Zoho Sprints has now introduced a Client and Vendor Portal where you can add client users and

    • #7 Tip of the week: Delegating approvals in Zoho People

      With Zoho People, absences need not keep employees waiting with their approval requests. When you are not available at work, you can delegate approvals that come your way to your fellow workmate and let them take care of your approvals temporarily. Learn more!

    • Trouble with using Apostrophe in Name of Customers and Vendors

      We have had an ongoing issue with how the system recognizes an apostrophe in the name of customers and vendors. The search will not return any results for a name that includes the mark; ie one of our vendors names is "L'Heritage" and when entering the

    • Why am I seeing deleted records in Zoho Analytics syncing with Zoho CRM?

      I have done a data sync between Zoho CRM and Zoho Analytics, and the recycle bin is empty. Why do I see deleted leads/deals/contacts in Zoho Analytics if it doesn't exist in Zoho CRM? How can I solve this problem? Thanks

    • Nueva edición de "Ask The Expert" en Español Zoho Community

      ¡Hola Comunidad! ¿Te gustaría obtener respuestas en directo sobre Zoho CRM, Zoho Desk u otra solución dentro de nuestro paquete de CX (Experiencia del Cliente? Uno de nuestros expertos estará disponible para responder a todas tus preguntas durante nuestra

    • How to use MAIL without Dashboard?

      Whenever I open Mail, it opens Dashboard. This makes Mail area very small and also I cannot manage Folders (like delete/rename) etc. I want to know if there is any way to open only Mail apps and not the Dashboard.

    • Peppol: Accept Bill (Belgium)

      Hi, This topic might help you if you're facing the same in Belgium. We are facing an issue while accepting a supplier bill received by Peppol in Zoho Books. There is a popup with an error message: This bill acceptance could not be completed, so it was

    • Zoho Books is now integrated with Zoho Checkout

      Hello everyone,   We're glad to be announcing that Zoho Books is now integrated with Zoho Checkout. With this integration, you can now handle taxes and accounting on your payment pages with ease.   An organization you create in Zoho Checkout can be added to Zoho Books and vice-versa. Some of the key features and benefits you will receive are:   Seamless sync of customer and invoice data With the end-to-end integration, the customer and invoice details recorded via the payment pages from Zoho Checkout

    • Sync Issue

      My Current plan only allows me with 10,000 rows and it is getting sync failure how to control it without upgrading my plan

    • Add Zoho PDF to Zoho One Tool Applications

      It should be easy to add from here without the hassle of creating a web tab:

    • JOB WISE INVOICE PROCESS

      I WANT TO ENABLE JOB WISE TRACKING OF ALL SALES AND PURCHASE

    • Next Page