Subscription Management

App Overview

Subscription Management is a recurring billing app for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central. It gives sales and finance teams a structured, automated way to manage subscription-based invoicing — creating invoices for recurring products and services on a defined schedule, without manual effort for each billing cycle.

At the heart of the app is the Subscription Order: a blanket sales order of type "Subscription Order" that holds the customer, the billable items, and all the billing rules — start date, invoicing frequency, period length, and optional end date. Every subscription order acts as the standing agreement from which invoices are generated.

Invoice creation is the operational engine. Invoices can be created manually from a single subscription order, or automatically in batch using the Subscription Job Queue — a configurable automation that runs on a schedule, calculates the correct dates from formulas, and creates invoices for all subscriptions that are due. The Invoice Per setting controls whether subscriptions for the same customer are consolidated onto one invoice, kept per order, or split per line.

Supporting both is the Subscription Text Translation feature, which ensures that the description line added to each invoice line is shown in the customer's language — with a global fallback for customers whose language has no specific translation.

Feature Map

Use this table to find the right article for your task.

Common Infrastructure

Several concepts are shared across all three features. Understanding them once makes the individual feature articles easier to follow.

Subscription Orders as the Source of Truth

Everything in Subscription Management flows from the Subscription Order. It is a specialised blanket order that holds the customer, the items, and the complete billing ruleset for each line. Invoice Creation reads from it; Text Translation is applied during invoice creation; nothing in the app runs without at least one correctly configured subscription order.

Number Series

Two number series must be configured before the app can be used: one for Subscription Orders and one for Posted Subscription Invoices. Both are configured in Subscription Setup. The posted subscription number series is also linked to the Sales & Receivables Setup to ensure the correct number series is used when invoices are posted.

Subscription Setup

Subscription Setup is the single configuration page for the app. It controls the number series, the first-period calculation method, partial-period adjustment behaviour, and the default subscription text language. It also provides navigation to the Subscription Text Translation page and the Subscription Job Queue Setup page.

Next Invoicing Date and Period Start Date

Each subscription line carries two key dates that the system maintains automatically: Next Invoicing Date (when the next invoice should be created) and Period Start Date (the start of the next billing period to be invoiced). After each invoice run, both dates are advanced by the invoicing frequency. When Period Start Date reaches or passes the Ending Date, the line is automatically marked Completely Invoiced and excluded from future runs.

Partial Period Handling

When a subscription starts mid-period, the first invoice covers a partial period. The Calc. End First Period setting in Subscription Setup determines how the first period end date is calculated (aligned to end of month, end of current period, or using the actual period length). The Adjust For Odd Subscription Period setting controls whether the adjustment is applied to the invoiced quantity or the unit price.

Typical Workflows

Onboarding a new subscription customer

1. Open Subscription Setup and confirm that the number series and default text language are configured.
2. Create a new Subscription Order for the customer.
3. Add subscription lines with Starting Date, Invoicing Frequency, and optionally Ending Date.
4. Review the auto-calculated End Date First Period for the first partial period, adjusting if needed.
5. Run Create Invoices from the order to test that the first invoice is generated correctly.

Monthly automated billing run

1. The Subscription Job Queue runs automatically according to the configured schedule (typically nightly or on the first of each month).
2. It calculates the include-up-to date, posting date, and document date from the configured date formulas.
3. All subscription lines with a Next Invoicing Date within the calculated window are processed and invoices are created.
4. The Last Run Status and Invoices Created Last Run fields in Job Queue Setup are updated, and the result is logged to the Activity Log.

Handling a fixed-term subscription that expires

1. Set Ending Date on the subscription line.
2. Invoice creation will continue to generate invoices until the last period before or on the Ending Date.
3. The final invoice for a partially-covered period is automatically adjusted (quantity or price) according to the partial-period settings.
4. Once the last period is invoiced, the line is marked Completely Invoiced and excluded from all future runs without any manual intervention.

Adding a one-time startup fee to a subscription

1. Add an extra line to the Subscription Order.
2. Set Single-Use Invoicing Item to true on the line (or configure the item card so it defaults to true).
3. On the first invoice run, this line is included and billed once.
4. After the first invoice, the line is automatically marked Completely Invoiced and will not appear on future invoices.

Integration with Other Abakion Apps

Setup

The setup stories below cover the minimum required configuration to get Subscription Management operational. Work through them in order the first time you set up the app.

Core Setup