Creating a cut-off window

Cut-off windows create an interval between the day a customer goes through checkout and when you bill your customers again for their recurring orders. Checkout orders submitted before the cut-off day will have the next order process on the upcoming order date. If a customer orders after the set cut-off day, then their next order will skip the next upcoming order date.

This guide explains how to configure a cut-off window once a specific charge day has been set.

Before you start

To enable a cut-off window, you must have subscription rules configured for your products, or your products must belong in Rulesets, depending on the platform you are using. 

Recharge Checkout on BigCommerce	Recharge Checkout on Shopify

The cut-off window settings work exclusively with the specific charge day setting. A specific day of the week or month must be set, and customers must be able to skip their next orders in the Customer Portal for this feature to work.

The cut-off window is based in Eastern Time. Any order placed at or after midnight Eastern Time 00:00 ET (UTC -4) of the cut-off day will skip the next upcoming order.

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How cut-off windows work

By default, when specifying an order day in a ruleset, Recharge will skip the next upcoming order day when setting the date of the second order. To read more about the skip feature, visit Charging on a specific day of the week or month.

However, there may be circumstances where an order placed at checkout should be considered part of that fulfillment cycle. Cut-off windows are useful to:

• Prevent customers from being charged for a current month or week's order if they've already been submitted for fulfillment.
• Minimize the time between the placement of the initial order and first delivery. For instance, if a customer makes the cut-off day for this month's box, they will receive the current month's box rather than pre-paying for next month's box.

The table below highlights an example of a monthly subscription with a charge day of the 15th and a cut-off day of the 20th:

Step 1 - Set a specific charge day

You can configure your products so that customers are charged on the same day of the week or month.  This applies to customers checking out once the change is made. 

1. Navigate to your Recharge Dashboard and select the Product tab or the Rulesets tab depending on how you create your subscriptions.
2. Select the product or ruleset you would like to edit.
3. In the Order Schedule section, specify your Order schedule to be either months or weeks.
   
   

You can now specify the specific charge day. This is the day of the week or month that your customer is charged. 

Step 2 - Set a cut-off day

1. After setting your specific charge day, select the Set a cut-off date checkbox.
2. Enter either the day of the month or select the day of the week you'd like your cutoff window to be on.
   
   
3. Select Save when finished.