Migrations FAQ
The guide answers frequent questions regarding the migration process. For general information, visit Migrating to Recharge.
Sections
- How will customers be notified of their new account within Recharge?
- When will my customers start being charged after being imported into Recharge?
- In the Migration Template, how should I set up my Next Charge Dates to ensure I don’t miss any billing dates and none of my customers are charged twice?
- What payment processors are compatible with Recharge? Can I migrate the same account I was using in my previous subscription platform?
- Will Recharge edit or update my Migration File on my behalf if they find any errors?
- Will Recharge notify my customers of changes on their account due to the migration?
- How do my customers update their billing information while my data is being migrated?
- I recently completed my migration, but none of my recurring billing is processing. What’s happening?
- When should I schedule my migration?
- I am already using the Recharge Checkout on Shopify, but I’m setting up a brand new Shopify store and need to move all of my Recharge data into it. How can I do this?
- I am having trouble finding my product’s Variant IDs. Where can I find these at?
- Are there any differences between a prepaid subscription and a regular subscription?
- Does the migration process trigger any webhooks?
- Can I filter my Shopify sales reports to only view store data related to subscription orders?
- Can I migrate a Shopify Checkout Integration store to BigCommerce?
How will customers be notified of their new account within Recharge?
Shopify has a Bulk Account Inviter tool available for Shopify Plus stores to accomplish this. If you are not a Shopify Plus store, you can opt to use a third-party application like Bulk Account Invite Sender. Once your customer has accepted the invitation, they will be able to enter a new password and complete their account setup.
When will my customers start being charged after being imported into Recharge?
Customers are charged on their next charge date based on what is inputted into the migration template.
In the migration template, how should I set up my Next Charge Date to ensure I don’t miss any billing dates and none of my customers are charged twice?
In order to migrate your customers seamlessly, you need to determine what date your migration will take place. There should be no charge dates in your migration file that fall before this date as those will be processed by your old system. To be safe, you should move charge dates at least 3 days out from your migration date to ensure you have enough time to complete the post-migration checklist and work with Recharge to remove the hold from your account.
For example, let's say you plan to launch Recharge on January 1st. We recommend you export the data from the old system on or after January 3rd, which gives you a few days to ensure new subscribers are flowing through Recharge correctly. Your official migration date is January 8th, giving you a few days from the 3rd to the 8th to validate your data and ensure the file is set up correctly. Since you will be migrating on January 8th, the absolute soonest you should set your next charge dates in the migration file is January 9th.
Now let's say you have a customer whose next charge date is January 5th. Since this charge falls before the migration date, you should update this line in your file to be the customer’s next charge date, which would be February 5th. Your old subscription platform will handle the January 5th charge, and then this customer will process through Recharge on its February 5th renewal.
What payment processors are compatible with Recharge? Can I migrate the same account I was using in my previous subscription platform?
Recharge Checkout on Shopify or BigCommerce
Merchants using the Recharge Checkout on Shopify or BigCommerce can use Stripe, Braintree, and Authorize.net. Refer to the guide on Payment processors and Payment Processor FAQ for more information. As long as you are using one of our supported payment processors, you can connect your existing account to Recharge.
If you are migrating over a Stripe account, make sure there are no Stripe Subscriptions set up. If you see any subscriptions, ensure they are canceled to prevent double-billing.
Shopify Checkout Integration
Merchants using the Shopify Checkout Integration can use one of Shopify's eligible subscription payment processors. Refer to the guide on Payment processors for more information.
Will Recharge edit or update my migration file on my behalf if they find any errors?
Recharge is unable to make any edits or updates to your migration file.
Will Recharge notify my customers of changes on their account due to the migration?
Recharge will not contact or send any migration-specific notifications to your customers. If there are any notices you feel are needed to be sent to customers, it is your responsibility to send that information to them.
How do my customers update their billing information while my data is being migrated?
If your payment processor remains the same between your old system and Recharge, customers can still update their billing information in the old system while the migration is occurring. If you are changing payment processors or the old system is no longer available, they will need to wait until the account is created in Recharge after the migration is completed before updating their billing information.
When should I process my migration?
We highly advise you to process your migration earlier in the week to ensure our migration team will be able to assist you with any issues you may encounter. We discourage migrations from being scheduled on a Friday to prevent issues from occurring throughout the weekend when the migration team is not staffed.
I am already using the Recharge Checkout on Shopify, but I’m setting up a brand new Shopify store and need to move all of my Recharge data into it. How can I do this?
We highly discourage a Recharge to Recharge migration. This is not as simple as flipping a switch to move your Recharge account to a new Shopify store. Due to the way Shopify handles product IDs, variant IDs, and much more, this action would follow the same process as a normal migration. Refer to the guide Migrating to Recharge for more information on how to initiate this process. Keep in mind, the migration process can’t import order history into Recharge. You will need to manage historical data outside of Recharge.
If you are interested in Converting to the Shopify Checkout Integration (with existing subscribers), review the guide, and please fill out the request to convert form.
Our team will review your request and let you know if you are a good fit for migration, or if remaining on the Recharge Checkout on Shopify is the best platform for you based on your business needs.
For an overview of available features, see Shopify Checkout integration feature status. You can still complete the request form even if your store has requirements that are not currently supported.
I am having trouble finding my product’s variant IDs. Where can I find these?
Shopify merchants
Refer to Finding and exporting Shopify variant IDs for more information.
BigCommerce merchants
Refer to Finding and exporting BigCommerce product and variant IDs for more information.
Are there any differences between a prepaid subscription and a regular subscription?
If a subscription ships more frequently than charged, it is considered a prepaid subscription. prepaid subscriptions need a little more attention to detail when migrating as fixing issues with prepaid data is more complicated than regular subscriptions. There are four columns to pay extra attention to while creating your migration template when it comes to prepaid subscriptions.
charge_interval_frequency
and shipping_interval_frequency
The charge_interval_frequency
should be greater than your shipping_interval_frequency
. For example, if you have a six-month prepaid subscription, and the customer receives a shipment every month, the charge_interval_frequency
would be set to six while the shipping_interval_frequency
would be set to one. This will ensure customers are charged every six months, but receive shipments every month.
last_charge_date
The last_charge_date
represents the date the customer’s current prepaid subscription cycle started. The Recharge system will use this date and the frequencies to figure out how many $0 shipment orders remain and when shipments will be sent.
If customers are charged on a specific day of the month, you will need to ensure the day on your last_charge_date
matches your charge on day of month parameter. If you have a cutoff day, you may need to edit the month to coincide with the cutoff shipment.
number_charges_until_expiration
If you have gift prepaid subscriptions that should expire after the cycle ends then you would add this column to the template and enter a 1 in their row. The last_charge_date
counts as the one charge and we will not renew them after the prepaid cycle.
Does the migration process trigger any webhooks?
Yes, the migration process will trigger the customer.create
, subscription.create
, and charge.create
webhooks. If you don’t want these webhooks to trigger for imported customers, you’ll need to disable any tools or apps using these webhooks while the migration is happening.
I am an existing merchant using the Recharge Checkout on Shopify - can I convert my existing store to the Shopify Checkout Integration?
Refer to Converting to the Shopify Checkout Integration (with existing subscribers) to learn more about the store conversion process. Once you have reviewed the guide, please fill out the request to convert form.
Our team will review your request and let you know if you are a good fit for migration, or if remaining on the Recharge Checkout on Shopify is the best platform for you based on your business needs.
For an overview of available features, see Shopify Checkout integration feature status. You can still complete the request form even if your store has requirements that are not currently supported.
I am an existing merchant using the Shopify Checkout Integration - can I migrate to a new store on the Shopify Checkout Integration?
No, Shopify cannot move the customer payment data from one Shopify store to another. This means that migrations from one Shopify Checkout Integration store to another Shopify Checkout Integration store cannot be done. If this is something you would like to do we recommend reaching out to Shopify's Support team directly.
Does a migrated customer's subscription charge frequency have to match the frequency set up in Recharge?
No, the customer's charge frequency listed in the migration CSV will override the subscription rule in Recharge. Migrated customers can maintain their existing pricing and charge frequency, even if these settings have changed for new customers once you migrate to Recharge.
For example, if a customer is set to be charged every two weeks in your old subscription platform, but you only have monthly frequencies set up for the product in Recharge, the migrated customer can keep the previous frequency of every two weeks. The charge frequency is based on what you include in the migration CSV.
Can I filter my Shopify sales reports to only view store data related to subscription orders?
Shopify's sales reports have the ability to filter by order type, allowing merchants to compare subscriptions versus one-time orders.
This feature is only compatible for merchants using the Shopify Checkout Integration. Shopify does not have access to store data processed through the Recharge Checkout, and cannot display subscription-only data to merchants who migrated to the Shopify Checkout Integration.
Merchants using Recharge Pro can use the Product SKU or Product Variant dashboard to filter orders by one-time products.
Can I migrate a Shopify Checkout Integration store to BigCommerce?
Yes, but you cannot migrate payment information with the customers. Shopify requires that customers payment information is vaulted in Shopify. This is outlined in the Shopify Checkout Integration technical details and requirements.
Customers can be migrated without their payment data and add a payment method via the customer portal post-migration.