Cancel with a credit note

When you cancel a subscription in stock ERPNext, it bills the days used so far in the current period. That suits subscriptions billed at the end of the period. For a subscription billed in advance, the customer has already paid for the whole period, so the app credits the days that will not be used instead.

When a cancellation is credited

Cancel Subscription issues credit notes when all of these hold:

• The subscription's party is a customer whose Subscription Billing Anchor is set or who has Consolidate Subscription Invoices ticked.

• Credit Note On Cancellation is ticked in Subscription Settings (it is by default).

• The subscription is billed in advance: Generate Invoice At is Beginning of the current subscription period or Days before the current subscription period.

Any other subscription is cancelled the stock ERPNext way.

Cancel a subscription

1. Open the Subscription.

2. Choose Actions > Cancel Subscription and confirm.

The subscription is cancelled as of today, and today counts as a used day. Its status becomes Cancelled and Cancelation Date is set to today. No further invoices are made for it.

What the credit note contains

The app looks at every submitted invoice line that bills the subscription and whose period ends on or after the cancel date, and issues one Credit Note per source invoice:

• Each credited line has the original quantity and the original rate scaled by the unused share of its period: unused days (the days after the cancel date) divided by the days in the period, both in calendar days.

• Its description gets a second line, "Credit for unused service <FROM> - <TO> (<UNUSED> of <TOTAL> days)", and its Subscription Period Start and Subscription Period End record the credited days.

• Taxes are worked out again on the credited amounts. A fixed Additional Discount Amount on the source invoice is scaled down in proportion.

• The Credit Note is posted on the cancel date, or on the source invoice's posting date if that is later.

• Update Outstanding for Self is ticked, so the credit stays on the Credit Note as unallocated customer credit. The source invoice is not changed, and nothing is refunded through the payment gateway.

On a consolidated invoice only the cancelled subscription's lines are credited.

For example, a monthly plan of 49.00 billed for 1 to 31 January and cancelled on 10 January is credited for 11 to 31 January: 49.00 x 21 / 31 = 33.19.

Cancel on another date

The desk button always cancels as of today. To cancel as of another date, call cancel_with_credit_note with the subscription, the cancel date and, when the cancel date falls in a closed or frozen accounting period, a posting date for the Credit Notes:

bench --site <SITE_NAME> execute \
  automated_subscriptions.automated_subscriptions.billing.credit_note.cancel_with_credit_note \
  --kwargs '{"subscription": "<SUBSCRIPTION>", "cancel_date": "2026-03-15"}'

It returns the subscription, the names of the Credit Notes and the total credited. The days are still counted from cancel_date when you pass posting_date. You need write permission on the Subscription and submit permission on Sales Invoice. It does not fall back to stock cancellation: it refuses a supplier subscription, a subscription billed at the end of the period, an already cancelled one, and any subscription while Credit Note On Cancellation is off. Unlike the desk button, it does not check the customer's billing fields, so it also credits a subscription of a customer with no anchor and no consolidation.

Credits are never issued twice

If a submitted Credit Note already credits one of the lines, the cancellation is refused with "Credit note <CREDIT_NOTE> already credits row <ROW> of <INVOICE>.", and nothing is cancelled. A draft return against the same lines does not stop it: the app shows an alert naming the draft so you can delete it.

For the other messages a cancellation can raise, see Troubleshooting.