Collections Management: #6 Realign Customers who gets back In-Term

Collections Management: #6 Realign Customers who gets back In-Term

Arun stared at the subscription list on his dashboard. Another account had just been moved to Cancelled status after completing the whole dunning process. Nothing unusual, just that payment failures happen, retries fail, and cancellation is the expected outcome.


But what came next was always the part that causes operational friction.

A few days later, the customer writes back saying, "I've fixed the issue with the card. Can we reactivate the subscription? Please don't change my billing date or create a new invoice, we just want to continue from where we left."

Arun knows the real challenge here. Manually recreating a subscription or adjusting dates always introduces the risk of invoice overlap, proration errors, renewal shifts and reporting inconsistencies. Something that simple in terms often turns into a billing task that demands extra caution.

This is the exact gap that Zoho Billing addresses with In-Term Reactivation.

What is In-Term Reactivation? 

In-Term Reactivation is a way for businesses to bring a cancelled subscription back to life without altering the original billing structure. Meaning: no change in start date, no new invoice created, and no new subscription cycle kicks off.


The subscription is simply restored to Live, continuing on the same rhythm it initially followed.

This really matters when cancellations happen due to dunning, where the customer is typically expected to return as soon as the payment issue is resolved.

Why would a Business Need It? 

Cancellation caused by failed retries is often a temporary setback. They are not intentional churn, and when the customer returns, the billing team needs a method that can,

  • Keep the existing billing date intact,

  • Avoid duplicate or overcharging for the same period

  • Prevent misalignments in the billing cycle. 

Without this capability, teams end up creating a subscription from scratch, which is clearly not going to please the returning customer.


In-Term Reactivation ensures the subscription lifecycle stays accurate, consistent and easy to manage.

How does it work? 

When a subscription is cancelled in Zoho Billing due to payment failure, you can choose to reactivate it any time during the same billing term.

Once reactivated,

  • The subscription returns to Live

  • The original billing cycle continues.

  • The renewal date remains unchanged.

  • The system does not generate a new invoice.

 There is no proration, no recalculation, and no need to clean up tasks. The existing invoice remains valid, and the billing flow stays intact.


Reactivation Through Customer Portal 

Zoho Billing also allows customers to handle this process themselves through the Customer Portal. If the option to reactivate subscription through the customer portal is enabled, customers can update their payment method, then click on Reactivate, and the subscription resumes instantly.


Customizing Reactivation Rules 

Businesses can configure how In-Term Reactivation behaves in Zoho Billing. For example, you can restrict reactivation until a successful payment is captured or allow customers to reactivate before payment is fully processed.

These controls ensure that the reactivation flow aligns with your internal policies and customer experience expectations.

What In-Term Reactivation Does to Business?

In-Term reactivation brings clarity and stability to billing operations. It avoids duplicate charges, eliminates manual reconstruction of subscription and preserves continuity in revenue tracking. Since it keeps the original subscription structure intact, there is no deviation in renewal cycles, reducing future errors.


For businesses recovering revenue from failed payments, this feature removes the friction from the revival process and keeps billing measurable.

On the whole, Zoho Billing offers In-term reactivation to help you recover revenue without disrupting your billing logic. For a business with more involuntary churn, In-term reactivation can turn the complexity into a possible opportunity to win customers back.

 

Notes
Up Next: Common Mistakes in Payment Collection

    • 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

    Nederlandse Hulpbronnen


      • Recent Topics

      • Mail is sent twice!

        Been using Zoho for a while now. Installed Zoho for someone else and some weird things are happening. Mails are being sent twice. He is using Thunderbird as an email client. I already read about email being duplicated in the sent folder. But in my case

      • Can't login IMAP suddenly

        Since this evening I'm getting the error: You are yet to enable IMAP for your account. Please contact your administrator... IMAP always been enabled in my account and was workign fine for the past 7 years. Already tried turning IMAP off and on again.

      • Sending of username did not succeed: Mail server pop.zoho.com responded: User already specified

        I am having issues receiving emails from Zoho in Thunderbird. I am getting the above error. The first error tells me Authentication failed, and prompts me to enter in my password. Then I get the above error. I can receive emails when I log in online to

      • Bug tracking

        Hi, does anyone know how to track errors during picking or packing? This way I can keep track and see how to improve and prevent errors in this area.

      • Exact match in name when searching workdrive

        Hello, I am wondering how to search workdrive files/folders with an exact match in the name. For example, when I search across folder with the url param search[name]=someName, I get multiple results such as "someName", "someNameAndMore", or "someName

      • Flow - Fetch info from drop down in another module

        I am running into a road block which I thought would be a simple task. My goal - The account is assigned to a "route" which can be selected from a drop down menu and adds a tag to the account accordingly (easy enough). Now when I create a task for this

      • Migration of corporate mail environment from Yandex 360 to Zoho mail

        I have to migrate a corporate mail environment with an existing domain from Yandex 360 to Zoho mail. It is vital to migrate all users with all the data. I have read the article on this topic using MacMister Email Backup Software just now and have some

      • I'm unable to send mail pthrough Zoho SMTP programmatically

        This has been working for years, but today it's been offline all day long. I see nothing anywhere on your site about this. I'm not the only one experiencing this. Downdetector has a spike of reports today

      • Can no longer send email via Django site

        This was working fine as of 11/7/25. Now I am unable to send user verification emails from a Django site on a AWS lightsail sever. When a user attempts to register the following error occurs. I have also attempted to send a test email via the shell and

      • unable to send email but able to receive email

        my email address is info@securityforceservices.ca

      • Custom Field for Subscription

        Hi, I can't find a way to add a custom field (to contain a license key generated from our software) against a subscription? Is the only place to add this information in the Invoice module (as custom field for invoice)? When a customer views his subscription via the customer portal, there appears no way to display a license key for them? The invoice is not the natural place to store a license key for a particular subscription, so where else can this be stored and displayed?

      • Login to server failing

        When trying to retrieve my mail, I am getting this error message -- Login to server pop.zoho.com with username (my email address) failed. It gives me the option to retry, enter password, or cancel. Then I get this message -- Sending of username did not

      • Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request.

        Hello, I am trying to set up a webhook to connect with an Salesforce but I receive the following error from Zoho: Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request I have tried testing it on webhook.site as well and receive the same error

      • Zoho Migration Assistant not working

        Hello, I am trying to use you Migration assistant to migrate emails from Rediff to Zoho. I am stuck in the first step. After downloading the migration tool, I copied the link to verify user credentials, however, after pasting the link in the browser,

      • Paid Support Plans with Automated Billing

        We (like many others, I'm sure) are designing or have paid support plans. Our design involves a given number of support hours in each plan. Here are my questions: 1) Are there any plans to add time-based plans in the Zoho Desk Support Plans feature? The

      • Scheduled Reports - Do not send empty report

        Hello, We are intensively using reports in the CRM, especially for sales managers.  When data is empty, they still receive an email. Can you add an option to avoid sending the report when data is empty?

      • Contacts Missing — PeopleSync/Zoho Mail

        English: In our company we use ManageEngine Mobile Device Manager (MDM), Free edition, to manage corporate mobile devices. Our usage policy does not allow personal Google accounts on these devices; therefore, Google account sync is blocked through MDM.

      • Best way to integrate Zoho with mobile app for managing customer requests with real-time notifications?

        Hello, I'm building a solution for a travel company where customers submit requests through a website, and the sales team manages these requests through a mobile app. The Requirement: Customers fill a form on the website (name, email, number of children,

      • Kaizen #57 - Mass Update API in Zoho CRM

        Hello everyone! Welcome back to yet another post in the Kaizen series. This week, we will discuss the Mass Update API in Zoho CRM. In this post, we will cover the following: 1. Introduction 2. Mass Update Records API  3. Schedule Update and Get Status

      • Getting Attachments in Zoho Desk via API

        Is there a way to get attachments into Zoho Desk via an API?      We have a process by which a zoho survey gets sent to the user as a link in a notification.    The survey has several upload fields where they can upload pdf documents.    I've created

      • Multiple currencies - doesn’t seem to work for site visitors / customers

        I am trying to understand how the multiple currency feature works from the perspective of the website visitor who is shopping on my Zoho Commerce site. My site’s base currency is US Dollars (USD) but my store is for customers in Costa Rica and I would

      • Pincode based Product Restriction

        we have different types of products. 1) Very bulky items like plywood. 2) Too delicate items like glass These type of products we want to sell to local customers. Other products we want to supply all over India. There should be an option to restrict products

      • Can multiple agents be assigned to one ticket on purpose?

        Is it possible to assign one ticket to two or more agents at a time? I would like the option to have multiple people working on one ticket so that the same ticket is viewable for those agents on their list of pending tickets. Is something like this currently

      • Related Lists filter

        I have Contacts showing in our Accounts module. I customized the Contacts module with an Employment Status field, with the following picklist options: "Primary Contact", "Secondary Contact", "Active Staff(not a main contact)", and "No longer employed".

      • Standalone custom function not generating logs

        Why dont't standalone custom functions generate logs when the're called from another function? I have some functions (workflow, buttons and blueprint) that have common parts, so I put that part in a standalone function which is called from the others.

      • Automated log-out/session end

        I'm concerned about security of our data. Is it possible to set an automatic time-out for user sessions on Zoho CRM, after a certain period of inactivity or when the session reaches a certain duration (12 hours perhaps)? 

      • Add "Reset MFA" Option for Zoho Creator Client Portal Users

        Hello Zoho Creator Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an important enhancement related to Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for client portal users in Zoho Creator. Currently, Creator allows us to enforce MFA for portal users,

      • Support Bots and Automations in External Channels

        Hello Zoho Cliq Team, How are you? We actively use Zoho Cliq for collaboration, including with our external developers. For this purpose, external channels are a key tool since they work seamlessly within the same interface as all of our other channels

      • Urgent Security Feature Request – Add MFA to Zoho Projects Client Portal Hello Zoho Projects Team,

        Hello Zoho Projects Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to submit an urgent security enhancement request regarding the Zoho Projects Client Portal. At this time, as far as we are aware, there is no Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) available

      • Creator HTML page refresh

        Hi, I have added around 5 different html snippets in single creator page. I understand, I can refresh the entire page from page script using Navigational URLs https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/creator/developer-guide/others/url-patterns/articles/navigational-urls

      • Zoho Desk - Custom Module Related List Columns on Tickets

        I have a custom module in Zoho Desk called Asana Tasks, each task has a lookup to a Ticket. On the Ticket I want to see the columns of the Asana Tasks in the related list . Is there a way to do this? Right now it just has the name of the record and I

      • Google Analytics import data inaccurate (as of October 11, 2025)

        We have Zoho Analytics connected to GA4 to import daily event data. This has been running without issue for a couple of years. However, a month ago we started noticing discrepancies. All data until October 10 lines up perfectly - October 11 onward is

      • What is your opinion of the new UI?

        Hi Everyone, I would like to see what everyone thinks of the new Zoho One Dashboard. I don't get it, but perhaps I'm missing something. What are your thoughts?

      • Zoho mail to Teaminbox

        Hello, We're searching for new mail program. Now I'm testing a bit with zoho mail and team inbox. My findings in the research: Pop mail throught zoho mail is almost instant. Any pop or imap via external provider takes a couple minutes to 15 minutes before

      • What are the OAuth scopes needed to access the Zoho MCP server?

        I think I'm authenticating with the MCP server endpoint successfully using a bearer token but I can't successfully initialize an MCP session. I'm using the official MCP Python sdk (https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk). I get as far as here

      • Account blocked for IMAP use

        Hello, My email client (Evolution) can't sync mail anymore. It gives the error: "Your account is temporarily blocked for IMAP use. This may happen if you exceed the maximum number of simultaneous IMAP connections allowed. Kindly try again after some time."

      • Is SMTP included in the free plan?

        My client has a Zoho Mail Free 14 day trial that ends tomorrow. She has set up a domain email address with SMTP on a third party app and is wondering if it will continue working once her plan downgrades to the free forever plan. Thanks

      • Zoho mail issue.

        I have verified my domain ohhoexpress.online by adding necessary TXT and MX records. But when I am sending email to any external email id, it is showing as zohomail.com. Also while I am sending mail to internal mail id, it is saying user not found whereas

      • My email is blocked from sending

        I get this message when I try to send any message .. > Unable to send message, Reason 554 5.1.8 Email Outgoing Blocked We have urgent emails to send and the issue continues to persist from yesterday. Please help us with this issue as soon as possibl

      • [WEBINAR] Smooth year-end closure with Zoho Books (KENYA)

        Hello there, This webinar is for all Kenyan businesses looking to wrap up their financial year smoothly! Join our free session to learn how Zoho Books can simplify your year-end process. What to expect from this webinar: - All the latest updates in Zoho

      • Next Page