We are a software company and are looking to start to use Hubspot Subscriptions. We currently do subscription management manually and think that we can improve our process flows by moving to subscriptions.
We use Hubspot as our CRM/Sales tool, and Sage Intacct as our finance tool. All invoices/payments are generated/managed in Sage Intacct. This won’t change. We will never move to credit card/online payments due to the type of customers we serve.
Looking at Hubspot, I had the view that our sales process could generate the subscription, which will create the invoice record in Hubspot. We will then use our data mover to transfer the invoice record to Sage for processing. We will move the invoice status (paid!) back to Hubspot to close the loop.
For the most part, this seems to work. However I have found that we cannot amend (upsell) a subscription mid term, and have the interim invoice automatically generated. We can amend before a billing period boundary and the next invoice is uplifted, but we need the interim invoice to cover the difference. Apparently we cannot amend subscriptions if we don’t use online payments.
Is there any workaround or dummy payment process we can implement to allow Subscription upselling?
many thanks,
Ian
Hi @IClarke1
Thanks for sharing the full context again — this is a really well thought-out architecture, and you’re bumping into a very real limitation of HubSpot Subscriptions today.
I’d like to invite a few Community members who are subject matter experts in Commerce Hub, Subscriptions, and ERP-led billing setups to join the conversation.
@GaroAroian @HubDoPete @TTolley — hope you’re all having a great week! Have you seen any supported ways (or pragmatic workarounds) to handle mid-term subscription upsells with interim invoicing when HubSpot is not handling payments? In particular, any patterns involving dummy payment gateways, subscription splits, or “shadow” subscriptions that still play nicely with external systems like Sage Intacct?
Any real-world guidance on what does and doesn’t work here would be hugely appreciated.
Best, Victor
Thank you Victor,
@IClarke1 i found this workaround for a client:
Use new deals for mid term upsell, Not Subscription Amendments.
Instead of trying to amend the subscription:
-
Keep the original subscription unchanged.
-
Create a new “Upsell” deal for:
- Prorated uplift amount
- Custom line item (manual calculation or workflow-calculated)
-
Generate a one-time invoice from that deal.
-
Push invoice to Sage.
-
Update the existing subscription amount manually for next cycle.
Please let me know if this works for you. Happy to jump on a quick call and brainstorm too.
Hi, thanks for this.
I hadn’t thought about this method as we block our users from reducing the term of a product below 1 year when adding line items to a deal. That is something we will have to take a look at.
Thanks for your help.
Hello,
I was looking at this option yesterday. I created a new product with monthly pricing so that Sales could add this, with a quantity and a term, allowing them to sell a part year with minimum granularity of a month, which our business has accepted.
However, we don’t accept monthly payments, this would have to be paid upfront. If Sales change the payment to one time, Hubspot changes the number of payments to 1 and only charges for one month.
Is there a method to allow Sales to use this product, select a quantity, then select a number of months (or term) which then drives a one time price of cost * quantity * num of months?
We looked at doing this on the actual quote document, but realised that all of our management reporting is driven off the line item and was still incorrect.
many thanks,
Ian
Hi @IClarke1 and @GaroAroian, thank you for your helpful suggestions!
There is an existing similar Idea in the Ideas Forum: https://community.hubspot.com/t5/HubSpot-Ideas/Convert-deal-with-recurring-line-items-to-invoice/idi-p/937656
However, yours is a different limitation. My recommendation is to create a new Ideas Post and share it with the community. Feel free to tag me in it, and I’ll upvote it!
Best
Victor
Hi @IClarke1 good question, I checked if you can have a custom calculation property in products, Looks like it is not yet live with HubSpot @Victor_Becerra curious if you know the product person working on this and when the custom calculation property might get released for Ian
Hi there,
Thanks for the comprehensive reply, however I think you have the wrong topic.
Ian
Hi @IClarke1, thank you so much for your patience.
I found a few community threads and Knowledge Base articles that would help with a workaround.
Help with Importing Subscriptions – Historical Dates & Upsells:
https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Commerce-Tools/Help-with-Importing-Subscriptions-Historical-Dates-amp-Upsells/m-p/1182195#M1542
Subscription editing bug or inconsistency
https://community.hubspot.com/t5/Commerce-Tools/Subscription-editing-bug-or-inconsistency/m-p/1185154#M1566
There’s also this KB article:
Finally, tagging a few Commerce experts to share more insights: @BarryGrennan @RSchweighart @kosalaindrasiri , any ideas here?
Thanks,
Victor
