How are the following fields used: Last Processed Date, Next Payment Date, Payment After Next Payment Date and End date?
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Last Processed Date: The "Last Processed Date" is generally when the card was last charged, however, this is more like a "Last Processed As Of Date". There are scenarios where the date used here is not the processing date, but more a transaction date.
If you have an early renewal, with say the end date of the subscription being 30/08/2022, then the Last Processed Date is 30/8/2022 so that the next Payment Date is calculated correctly as 30/8/2023 - i.e. Next Payment Date, End Date on subscription are calculated from this date.
Also, if you have just a normal recurring donation and the next payment date was 15/5/22, but their charge attempts failed 2 times in a row, but succeeded on the 3rd attempt (18/5/22). The Last Processed Date is set as 15/5/22, not the actual date of 18/5/22 so the Next Payment Date is calculated correctly from the date it was supposed to be charged.
Please also see How do I do setup catch up payment dates from Last Processed Date for other important information on how this field is used. - Next Payment Date: This is the date that active and qualifying Recurring Payments will be charged next. The payment will be taken out at approximately 1am on this date. If the payment fails to be taken out on this date (e.g. no funds available on the card), then "Retry Attempts" field will be incremented by one and the transaction will be attempted against the next day.
- Payment After Next Payment Date: This is similar to the Next Payment Date. If today's date is greater than or equal to this date for qualifying Recurring Payments, then the payment will be attempted on this date. An example use case for this date is for a membership that is on quarterly invoice. The invoice is generated by the Recurring Payment record type of Payment Schedule. If the member does NOT pay the first quarters membership invoice and the today's date then goes past when the second quarters invoice date (Payment After Next Payment Date), then a second invoice is then generated for the second quarter.
- Sign Up Date: This is the date the Recurring Payment is created, or when the donor "signs up". If left blank it will default to TODAY.
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Start Date: This is the date the Recurring Payment will start.
This date is primarily used for the Import Files and upload processing. For Import File processing of cards:- Tokenisation will occur when todays date is before the Start Date.
- During the Import Process, if the Start Date is not specified, but the Payment Day is, then the Start Date will be assigned based on the Payment Day (eg: if Payment Day is 1, the next 1st of the month is when the payment will start).
- During the Import Process, if the Start Date and Payment Day is also blank the Recurring Payment will start TODAY
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End Date: This is the date the recurring payment is scheduled to end. If left blank, the Recurring Payment will continue indefinitely or until manually stopped.
When the Recurring Payment Processor runs and the Next Payment Date is calculated to be after the End Date, the Recurring Payment Status is then changed to "Inactive".