This is just one part of a much bigger subscriptions scope. Here are some other helpful KB's to help guide your way to sucessfully creating subscriptions.
Enable subscriptions
From Settings > Orders > Subscriptions:, select the store you wish to configure Subscriptions for.
This will open the Subscription Setting Overlay :
You can configure the system to generate a single subscription for the Entire Order with the Frequency type / range specified here, or you can choose Subscription Products Only, where a separate subscription will be created for each product on an order that is marked as a Subscription Product.
Once Auto Create Subscription Type is configured, Subscriptions will be created on each new order placed via the front end or Order Edit.
In the case of Subscription Products Only, the Frequency is derived from the product itself, and the Frequency settings at the store level are irrelevant. If we choose Entire Order as the type, the subscriptions generated would use the store level settings for their renewal frequency.
Auto-Renew Subscriptions will cause the system to create new orders for subscriptions automatically when their due date is reached. When a subscription is renewed and a new order is successfully placed, the next due date is extended based on the Subscription Frequency, in this case, 1 year.
Enable Subscription Products
Products are configured as Subscription Products on the General tab of the product editor, or using the Import / Export system.
Below we can see where the Product is set to Subscription with a 1 Year renewal frequency.
Subscription List
Once created, Subscriptions will appear under the Subscription List page, accessible from the top Orders > Subscription
You can edit the subscriptions or use the Action menu to process renewals manually.
Subscription Edit
Editing individual subscriptions allows you to set the frequency, renewal date, enable or disable, and assign a drip series to the subscription. Once a subscription is created you cannot change its Subscription Type.
Manually Create Subscriptions from Orders
From the OrderList page, selecting an order or group of orders and using the Action menu you can create Subscriptions manually if your use case requires a more manual approach.
Renewals
If you have Auto-Renew Subscriptions enabled on the store settings, the system will automatically renew any subscriptions that are beyond their due date. A new order will be placed using the same process as if it was a manually placed order based off of the contents of the subscription and the credit card associated with the subscription will be automatically processed according to the store's gateway settings.
If you wish to manually renew subscriptions, you can disable the Auto-Renew feature and manually renew them via the Subscription List action menu.
My Account
Customers have a Subscriptions area on their My Account page which allows them to view their subscriptions, enable / disable them, and change the credit card on a subscription.
If a customer changes the credit card on a subscription that has been flagged as credit declined on its last renewal, and its renewal date is in the past, Spark Pay online stores will attempt a new order and new credit card charge with the updated credit card information upon assignment of the new card.
Subscriptions listed by OrderID (Order level subscriptions) or ItemName for ProductOnly subscription.
The layout of the Subscriptions area is completely customizable using Custom Layout on the Theme.
Web Service
Trigger "Product Of The Month" type subscription fulfillments via the Web Service API by creating new orders with the new product for all subscriptions based on a specific subscription item.
For example, you sell a product called "Fruit of the Month Annual Subscription" with a subscription type of Subscription Products Only with a 1 year frequency. This will auto-renew each year for the subscription amount, however you need to fulfill a new order each month for the fruit of the month.
For this example, this month's fruit of the month is an Orange Basket.
If you plan to charge only for the annual subscription but ship the monthly orders for no charge, the Orange Basket product can have a $0 price and free flat rate shipping.
If you wish to charge for individual shipments but not the subscription itself, simply set the annual subscription product to $0 with a free flat rate shipping override and set the Orange Basket product to its normal pricing and shipping settings.
Call this method each month with the Annual Subscription SKU and substitute the current month's SKU such as an Orange Basket SKU, false for OnlyProcessSubscriptionsDue and false for ExtendRenewalDate.
public string[]Subscription_PlaceOrderFromSubscriptions(string psItemNr, string[] psItemNrsToSubstitute, bool pbOnlyProcessSubscriptionsDue, bool pbExtendRenewalDate)
Method notes: Places and order from a selection of subscriptions. psItemNr is optional, find only subscriptions that match this ItemNr, used for Product Subscription Types (send null for none). psItemNrsToSubstitute is optional but requires psItemNr, places the new order without the Subscription Product, substituting the comma-seperated listed ItemNrs instead (sent null for none). ExtendRenewalDate will mark the subscription as renewed and extend its next renewal date by its frequency.