Grace period

A grace period is defined as a number days during which invoices remain in draft status, allowing you to review them and make changes before they are finalized and sent for payment collection.

In the example below, the timeline includes a billing period of one month and a grace period of three days.

Illustration of the grace period

​

Define a grace period at organization level

The organization’s grace period applies to all customers by default.

• Dashboard
• API

To define a grace period at organization level through the user interface:

1. Access the “Settings” section via the side menu;
2. Open the “Invoice” tab;
3. Click “Edit” in the “Grace period” section;
4. Enter the number of days associated with the grace period; and
5. Click “Edit grace period” to confirm.

Grace period in the settings of the app

If you shorten the organization’s grace period, some invoices in draft status may be automatically finalized. For instance, if the initial grace period was five days, but then three days into the grace period you decide to reduce it to two days, then all draft invoices will automatically switch to finalized.

​

Define a grace period at customer level

• Dashboard
• API

To define a grace period at customer level through the user interface:

1. Access the “Customers” section via the side menu;
2. Select a customer from the list;
3. Open the “Settings” tab of the customer view;
4. Click “Add grace period” in the “Grace period” section;
5. Enter the number of days associated with the grace period; and
6. Click “Add grace period” to confirm.

Grace period in the customer view

If you shorten the customer’s grace period, some invoices in draft status may be automatically finalized. For instance, if the initial grace period was five days, but then three days into the grace period you decide to reduce it to two days, then all draft invoices will automatically switch to finalized.

The customer’s grace period overrides the organization’s grace period. It only applies to the customer with whom it is associated.

​

Application scope and possible actions

The grace period applies to subscription invoices. It does not apply to invoices related to add-ons or credit purchases.

The creation of a draft invoice triggers the invoice.drafted webhook.

When a subscription invoice is in draft status, you can:

• Add usage records by sending events with a timestamp within the relevant billing period;
• Edit a specific fee by adjusting the total amount or the total units;
• Apply coupons to the customer’s account; and
• Add credits to the customer’s wallet and credit note wallet.

​

Edit a specific fee

To edit a specific fee, follow these steps in the Dashboard:

1. Open a draft invoice’s details page;
2. Click the ‘three dots’ icon next to the desired fee;
3. Change the invoice’s display name if needed; and/or
4. Select either Total amount or Total unit for adjustment;
5. For Total amount, enter units and unit amount. Note: This will overwrite existing fee details.
6. For Total unit, input new units. Lago will then automatically recalculate the fee based on the charge model.

This action is exclusive to the Dashboard.

​

Add usage records

In order to add usage to an invoice that is in draft status, the timestamp of the events must be within the billing period. Consider the following example:

The billing period started on January 1st and ended on January 31st. We have defined a 3-day grace period and today is February 2nd.

On February 1st, Lago automatically generated a draft invoice for the period January 1st to January 31st.

We want to send additional usage records for this invoice. To do so, the timestamp of our events must be included in the period January 1st to January 31st.

1673457300 (i.e. January 11th, 2023) is a valid timestamp, therefore the event will be included in the draft invoice.

However, 1675354500 (i.e. February 2nd, 2023) is outside the billing period under consideration, therefore the event will not be included in the draft invoice, it will be included in the next invoice.

After sending events, you can go to the invoice list and refresh the corresponding draft invoice to ensure your new events have been taken into account.

When all changes have been made, you can either wait for the grace period to expire (the invoice status will automatically switch to finalized) or you can finalize the invoice manually through the user interface or the API.

When an invoice is finalized, it can no longer be edited. Finalizing an invoice triggers the invoice.created webhook.

Draft invoice in the Lago app