New Subscription Plan Change History API Now Available to Businesses That Use FastSpring

SaaS continues to grow at a rapid clip, and more than ever, we’re used to using subscriptions for a variety of services. We’re also aware of the need to understand what we’ve historically paid for our subscriptions and the changes we’ve made to those subscriptions over time. We’re excited to announce the release of our Subscription Plan Change History API, which now gives users the ability to surface historical changes to a subscription to their buyers. This API will improve the end-user experience, increase customer satisfaction, and increase retention.

By using the Subscription Plan Change History API, businesses that use FastSpring open up a new line of sight into their customers’ accounts so they can always make the best decision for themselves. This includes tracking of changes such as:

• Quantity change
• Price change
• Discount change
• Coupon change
• Tax exemption
• Upgrade
• Downgrade
• Cross-sell

New and Improved API Status Reporting

FastSpring extends its developer focus with the release of its new API log, which provides its users visibility into the performance of their FastSpring APIs. Now, users can quickly understand how their APIs are performing and resolve issues easier with information provided, such as latency, status, error codes, and more.

Our at-a-glance view of API statuses is just the beginning. We also surface detailed information about each API, such as request header, request body, and response header. Now if sellers run into an issue with slow response times and errors, we provide exact information and give them enough visibility to quickly resolve issues with an API, instead of spending their time digging up information.

• Fixed an issue with Google Analytics integrations
• Fixed an unexpected error when a country wasn’t selected and a VAT ID was entered
• Updated valid zip codes for FastSpring checkout
• Fixed an issue in which the Products API wasn’t updating “overdueNotification” properly
• Updated calculations on some line items prices to accurately reflect summed up price
• Fixed a visual bug in which the checkout buttons appeared outside margins when quote was selected in popup checkout

• Added tax and unit pricing on invoicing
• Added copy/paste capabilities to the Purchase Order Number textbox
• Improved Digital Invoicing and Custom Orders to dynamically re-price on currency re-selection

Chargeback Overview Dashboard

We’re excited to announce the first of many improvements to FastSpring’s chargeback management capabilities, the Chargeback Overview Dashboard.

This dashboard will help you see, react to, and control your chargebacks. We’ve designed it to fit into your daily flow and deliver up information in an easy-to-understand format. With our new Chargeback Overview Dashboard, monitor chargebacks in near real time, react faster, and prevent fraud.

A few feature highlights:

• Chargeback Rate Meter: shows you your chargeback rate and helps you see at-a-glance how close you are to:
  • Penalty: Fee charged for being over chargeback threshold
  • Termination: Payments are turned off
• Chargeback Breakdown by Product: shows you what products are leading to chargebacks
• Chargeback Log: a comprehensive record of your most recent chargebacks - this is what helps you take action on a daily basis

Fixes

• Enabled SEPA capabilities to support purchases in Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Latvia, and Lithuania.
• Added additional required information for Japanese invoices.
• Fixed a display issue in the Safari web browser when using cross-sell bundle product text
• Fixed an issue in which some buyers weren’t receiving links to the account management portal in account management emails
• Fixed an issue in which bundle prices were being set incorrectly when using Mailchimp
• Fixed an issue in which Mailchimp was displaying the incorrect purchase date

SEPA Direct Debit Refresh

• To better serve sellers selling within the Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA), we have deployed new features to support payments via SEPA Direct Debit in select countries. This allows FastSpring sellers to capture larger market share, reduce fraud, and increase conversion rates in the EU.
• If you would like to learn more, check out our documentation here. Or, if you're a current seller and would like SEPA Direct Debit activated for your storefront, reach out to [email protected] with your request.

Subscription Dashboard Reporting

• MRR and ARR Calculation: Previously, upgrades, downgrades, and add-ons were occasionally not tracked or handled correctly in subscription reporting. These issues have been addressed and now, calculations will be more correct going forward.

What changes should I see in my store?

• If you are a heavy user of upgrades, downgrades, or add-ons, you may see your MRR and ARR fluctuate slightly resulting from the updated calculations. These calculations are more accurate than previous reporting with the identified fixes. If you still have questions, please reach out to [email protected].
• Historic MRR Changes: Previously, we used deactivate dates to check for cancelation dates and would then remove MRR contributions, which had the unintended side-effect of altering historic MRR values. To solve this, we have improved our our analytics to capture cancellation events on the day of cancelation and remove MRR contribution at that time.

Example of Changes

• Let's take an example of an annual subscription activated in January 2023, cancelled in May 2023, and then deactivated in December 2023. Our previous MRR contribution calculation would not have changed until December 2023, potentially altering the MRR contribution for the period of May to December of 2023.
• Now, with the dates in the above example, our calculation immediately removes the MRR contribution from the subscription starting at cancellation in May of 2023 resulting in more accurate MRR change calculation.

What changes should I see in my store?

• For some sellers, this may cause a slight increase in cancellation counts and a decrease in MRR for active customers and subscriptions. If you have questions about this reporting, please reach out to [email protected].

• Fixed an issue in which quote prices were incorrectly displayed after clicking the “Accept and Continue” button in some cases.
• Fixed an issue in which a subscription cancellation would occasionally trigger two subscription update emails.
• Fixed an issue in which some Australian orders were missing the street name in the buyer address.
• Fixed an issue in which some buyers weren’t receiving an order invoice for monthly subscriptions.
• Fixed an issue in which Digital Invoicing was not accepting valid VAT IDs from some orders in the Czech Republic.
• Fixed an issue in which some trial dates were missing in the shopping cart when a coupon was applied to a subscription.

• Improved on custom attributes for products to more accurately reflect changes from one product to another when a plan change happens.
• Added a new field in return.created webhook events to distinguish between a full and partial refund at the item level to improve ease of comparing total price vs. total price returned.

New Welcome Dashboard and Onboarding Experience for Free Trials

In an effort to improve the onboarding experience of new sellers and to deliver more valuable information to our existing sellers, we’ve launched a new version of our welcome dashboard. With this launch, we’ve created two new widgets to better help sellers understand the value FastSpring delivers from day one.

First, we have enabled Checkout Preview which, with branding and localization customization, you’ll be able to see what your checkout can look like with FastSpring right from our dashboard.

Second, we’ve enabled our Total Cost of Ownership Calculator. With this calculator, you’ll be able to better understand how FastSpring saves you money in comparison to other DIY providers like Stripe. We encourage you to take a look and reach out to our sales team to better understand exactly how we can help your business save money.

Beyond these two widgets, we’ve also added blocks to provide additional valuable information such as: new product updates, customer stories, thought leadership, developer documentation and much more.

New and Improved Webhook Status Reporting

As we go into 2023, we are striving to deliver improvements to make our platform more developer friendly. To this end, we’ve released a new Webhook Log which displays rich information for each of your webhook events. Now, understand which webhook events belong to, what ID it’s associated with, how many attempts were made, and much more right from the FastSpring platform.

Not only will you get an overview, but you’ll also be able to view detailed information about the event, including its JSON payload and response history. Further, you can filter out certain webhooks based on criteria like event type, status, creation date, and more to better streamline your review of each webhook you’re using.

Want to know more? Check out our documentation here.

Collect Payments through True ACH Transfers

A vital part of any B2B transaction, FastSpring now fully supports ACH transactions for all of its sellers. Purchasers in the US or Canada can leverage ACH not only for one-time transactions, but also for rebills such as subscriptions.

Take a look at our docs to learn more about this exceptional payment method.