Plenty of contracts say the subscription only starts once the customer has paid something up front — an implementation fee, setup, onboarding, or first licence charge. Sonic models that with Link subscription to payment on the schedule, not with a second billing date on the fee alone.
One-time products in Contract details still invoice on their own dates regardless. Only subscription phases wait on the gate.
The four activation modes
Pick the rule that matches the contract wording:
| Mode | Use when | Where start date comes from |
|---|---|---|
| On the day payment arrives | "Term commences upon receipt of the setup fee" | Payment date on last gate product |
| On a committed date | "Service commences 1 April, subject to payment of the implementation fee" | Committed date if paid on time; slides if paid late |
| A date I choose after payment | "Go-live date to be agreed following payment" | Operator picks date after gate clears |
| Immediate (switch off) | No gate clause | Normal schedule dates |
Tick which one-time products are gate products. All ticked lines must be fully paid — partial payment does not open the gate.
NULL dates are real, not a UI bug
For payment day and manual after payment modes, subscription start and phase calendar dates are genuinely empty in the database until the gate resolves — not hidden placeholders.
What Sonic keeps instead:
- Each phase's duration (
duration_months,duration_days) - Product mix per phase
- Gate configuration and status
When payment lands, Sonic materialises dates from durations: phase one starts on the anchor date; each later phase starts the day after the previous ends.
That is why phase durations matter more than usual on gated schedules. Wrong duration → wrong rebuilt dates, invisible until payment day.
Dates you entered before enabling the gate are not thrown away. Switch back to a non-gated rule before save and they return.
Committed date — the late-payment slide
For On a committed date, dates are visible immediately because you already committed to them. Phase one's start follows the committed start date you set on the schedule; later phases chain with their lengths.
| Payment timing | Subscription start |
|---|---|
| On or before committed date | Committed date |
| After committed date | Whole term slides so day one is payment date; phases keep length |
Commercial contract period never moves — only subscription billing dates shift. Legal term at signature stays fixed by design.
Reading gate status on a live schedule
An activated schedule with an open gate can stay in an "Upcoming" state even when its nominal start date is already in the past — the schedule is real, but nothing bills until the gate clears. Two states matter here: gate products not yet fully paid, meaning nothing has happened yet; and gate paid, meaning the schedule is waiting on someone to confirm a go-live date and set the subscription in motion.
Marking the gate invoice paid — however that happens, from the invoice itself, a bulk action, or a bank match — is what triggers that second state. It's worth pausing on any invoice flagged as a gate payment before confirming it: marking it paid doesn't just close an invoice, it starts a contract term.
Contract parsing and approve
The structurer reads gate clauses. Review may return with switch on, rule selected, and gating fee ticked. Verify — clause wording is often ambiguous:
- Setup fee that must be paid before subscription starts → gate.
- Second instalment of setup billed in 90 days → not a gate; just a one-time row date.
Approve creates the schedule with gate config. Fix ambiguity on review, not after invoices exist.
Catch-up invoicing after the gate opens
Subscription invoicing starts from on committed-date schedules controls catch-up once the gate opens if you activated the schedule after the committed subscription start. On payment-day and manual-after-payment rules, that field hides — the term is built from payment or your chosen go-live.
Watch out for
- Later setup instalments are not gates unless the contract blocks subscription start until paid.
- All gate products must pay — ticking three means three paid invoices.
- Switch locks after subscription starts — dates are real; billing has run.
- Partial payment is not payment for gate purposes.
- The committed start date has one source of truth. Change it on the schedule, not by trying to edit the phase it produced — two places holding the same date is how they drift apart.
- Durations drive rebuild — validate phase lengths on review, not just headline start.