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.

Note:  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?

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

• Topic Participants

• Hari Hara Sudhan. S

  

• 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

• Full Context of Zoho CRM Records for Zia in Zoho Desk for efficient AI Usage

  Hello everyone, I have a question regarding the use of Zia in Zoho Desk in combination with CRM data. Is it possible to automatically feed the complete context of a CRM record into Zia, so that it can generate automated and highly accurate responses for

• Multi-currency and Products

  One of the main reasons I have gone down the Zoho route is because I need multi-currency support. However, I find that products can only be priced in the home currency, We sell to the US and UK. However, we maintain different price lists for each. There

• Deprecation of the Zoho OAuth connector

  Hello everyone, At Zoho, we continuously evaluate our integrations to ensure they meet the highest standards of security, reliability, and compliance. As part of these ongoing efforts, we've made the decision to deprecate the Zoho OAuth default connector

• I need to know the IP address of ZOHO CRM.

  The link below is the IP address for Analytics, do you have CRM's? IP address for Analytics I would like to know the IP address of ZOHO CRM to allow communication as the API server I am developing is also run from CRM. Moderation Update: The post below

• Important Update: Google Ads & YouTube Ads API Migration

  To maintain platform performance and align with Google's newest requirements, we are updating the Google Ads and YouTube Ads integrations by migrating from API v19 to the newer v22, before the official deprecation of v19 on February 11, 2026. Reference:

• Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

  Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything

• Importing into the 'file upload' field

  Can you import attachments into the file upload field. I would expect it to work the same way as attachments do, But can't seem to get it to work.

• Zoho recruit's blueprint configuration is not functioning as mapped

  Current Status: Zoho Blueprint is not functioning as configured. Issue: We are moving a Candidate status in Zoho Recruit "for active file" but we encountered: "Status cannot be changed for records involved in Blueprint." This happens to various client

• Super Admin Logging in as another User

  How can a Super Admin login as another user. For example, I have a sales rep that is having issues with their Accounts and I want to view their Zoho Account with out having to do a GTM and sharing screens. Moderation Update (8th Aug 2025): We are working

• Blocklist candidates in Zoho Recruit

  We’re introducing Block Candidate, which helps recruiters to permanently restrict a candidate from applying to current/future job openings. Once the candidate is blocked, they will no longer be able to participate in the recruitment process. This will

• Layout Rules Don't Apply To Blueprints

  Hi Zoho the conditional layout rules for fields and making fields required don't work well with with Blueprints if those same fields are called DURING a Blueprint. Example. I have field A that is used in layout rule. If value of field A is "1" it is supposed to show and make required field B. If the value to field A is "2" it is supposed to show and make required field C. Now I have a Blueprint that says when last stage moves to "Closed," during the transition, the agent must fill out field A. Now

• From Zoho CRM to Paper : Design & Print Data Directly using Canvas Print View

  Hello Everyone, We are excited to announce a new addition to your Canvas in Zoho CRM - Print View. Canvas print view helps you transform your custom CRM layouts into print-ready documents, so you can bring your digital data to the physical world with

• Admin asked me for Backend Details when I wanted to verify my ZeptoMail Account

  Please provide the backend details where you will be adding the SMTP/API information of ZeptoMail Who knows what this means?

• Zoho Desk - Upsert Ticket

  Hi Desk Team, It is common to request more information from end-users. Using forms is a great way to ensure all the required information is collected. It would be great if there were an "upsert" option on the Zoho Form -> Zoho Desk integration which would

• All new Address Field in Zoho CRM: maintain structured and accurate address inputs

  The address field will be available exclusively for IN DC users. We'll keep you updated on the DC-specific rollout soon. It's currently available for all new sign-ups and for existing Zoho CRM orgs which are in the Professional edition. Latest update

• Client Side Scripts for Meetings Module

  Will zoho please add client side scripting support to the meetings module? Our workflow requires most meeting details have a specific format to work with other software we have. So we rely on a custom function to auto fill certain things. We currently

• Introducing Multiple Sandbox Types and Support for Module's Data Population

  Register here for the upcoming Focus Group webinar on Multiple Sandbox | Help documentation to learn more about the new enhancements Hello everyone,  Sandbox in CRM is a testing environment for users to create and test new configurations like workflow

• CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

  Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

• Creator Offline

  We had online access setup and working on our iphones. We have just set it up on an 'Android Tablet' and it is not downloading all the images? We use it to show customers our catalogue. Any ideas. Offline components all setup on both devices

• Drag 'n' Drop Fields to a Sub-Form and "Move Field To" Option

  Hi, I would like to be able to move fields from the Main Page to a Sub-Form or from a Sub-Form to either the Main Page or another Sub-Form. Today if you change the design you have to delete and recreate every field, not just move them. Would be nice to

• Enable or disable any Field Rule!

  Hello Zoho Forms Community, We are excited to announce a powerful new enhancement to Field Rules that gives you greater control and flexibility in managing your form logic! Previously, if you wanted to temporarily deactivate a field rule, you had two

• Marketing Tip #20: Increase traffic with strong meta titles and descriptions

  Meta titles and descriptions are what people see first on search results before they ever click through to your website. If your pages use generic titles or basic descriptions, you miss the chance to stand out, and search engines may not know which page

• Different form submission results for submitter and internal users

  I'm looking for suggestions on how to show an external submitter a few results while sending internal users all the results from the answers provided by the external user. The final page of our form has a section with detailed results and a section with

• Kanban view on Zoho CRM mobile app!

  What is Kanban? The name doesn't sound English, right? Yes, Kanban is a Japanese word which means 'Card you can see'. As per the meaning, Kanban in CRM is a type of list view in which the records will be displayed in cards and categorized under the given

• Not able to delete a QC nor able to revert or create a cycle of manufacturing for QC failed Jobs

  Not able to delete a QC nor able to revert or create a cycle of manufacturing for QC failed Jobs

• Dheeraj Sudan and Meenu Hinduja-How do I customize Zoho apps to suit my needs?

  Hi Everyone, I'm Meenu Hinduja and my husband Dheeraj Sudan, run a business. I’m looking to tweak a few things to fit my needs, and I’d love to hear what customizations others have done. Any tips or examples would be super helpful! Regards Dheeraj Sudan

• Zoho Desk blank screen

  opened a ticket from my email, zoho desk comes up blank, nothing loads. our receptionist also gets the same thing under her login on her computer. our sales rep also gets same thing on zoho desk at his home on a different computer. I tried clearing cache/history/cookies,

• is there any way to change the "chat with us now" to custom message?

  is there any way to change the "chat with us now" to custom message? I want to change this text

• Deprecation Notice: OpenAI Assistants API will be shut down on August 26, 2026

  I recieved this email from openAI what does it means for us that are using the integration and what should we do? Earlier this year, we shared our plan to deprecate the Assistants API once the Responses API reached feature parity. With the launch of Conversations,

• Capture Last check-in date & days since

  I have two custom fields on my Account form, these are "Date of Last Check-In" and "Days Since Last Contact" Using a custom function how can I pull the date from the last check-in and display it in the field "Date of Last Check-In"? and then also display the number of days since last check-in in the "Days SInce Last Contact" field? I tried following a couple of examples but got myself into a bit of a muddle!

• Any recommendations for Australian Telephony Integration providers?

  HI,  I am looking for some advice on phone providers as we are looking to upgrade our phone system, does anybody have experience with any of the Australian providers that integrate with CRM Telephony? So far we are looking at RingCentral and Amazon Connect, and would love to hear feedback on any of the other providers you might have tried.  Thank you

• Why is the ability Customize Calls module so limited?

  Why can't I add additional sections? why can't I add other field types than the very limited subset that zoho allows? Why can I only add fields to the outbound/inbound call sections and not to the Call Information section?

• PDF Annotation is here - Mark Up PDFs Your Way!

  Reviewing PDFs just got a whole lot easier. You can now annotate PDFs directly in Zoho Notebook. Highlight important sections, add text, insert images, apply watermarks, and mark up documents in detail without leaving your notes. No app switching. No

• 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),

• Enhance Appointment Buffers in Zoho Bookings

  There was previously a long-standing feature request related to enhancing the way appointment buffers work in Zoho Bookings, but it looks like the original post has been deleted. I am therefore adding a new request that Zoho Bookings adjust how appointment

• Subscriptions for service call

  So we install products and we want to offer a service contract for the customers yearly service calls to be billed monthly. So ideally at some point we want to email them a quote for their needs. WE will choice it our end based on the equipment. It would

• Add RTL and Hebrew Support for Candidate Portal (and Other Zoho Recruit Portals)

  Dear Zoho Recruit Team, I hope you're doing well. We would like to request the ability to set the Candidate Portal to be Right-to-Left (RTL) and in Hebrew, similar to the existing functionality for the Career Site. Currently, when we set the Career Site

• Delay in rendering Zoho Recruit - Careers in the ZappyWorks

  I click on the Careers link (https://zappyworks.zohorecruit.com/jobs/Careers) on the ZappyWorks website expecting to see the job openings. The site redirects me to Zoho Recruit, but after the redirect, the page just stays blank for several seconds. I'm

• How to add interviews through API

  I'm trying to add an interview without much luck. The documentation gives examples of adding just about everything except an interview. However, the issue might be the way I'm formatting it, because the documentation is unclear to me. It seems as if the xml should be passed in the url, which seems unusual. I've tried the data as both plain and character escaped, but nothing seems to work, nor do I even get an error response. https://recruit.zoho.com/recruit/private/xml/Interviews/addRecords?authtoken=***&scope=recruitapi&version=2&xmlData=<Interviews> <row

• Connection to other user

  Zoho Cliq handles sharing of Custom OAuth Connections that require individual user logins.

• Next Page