Subscription default start date

[undjike]

Hello team,

Just a casual question.
Why the default start date for a subscription is today instead of now? Any reason?

[lucasdotvin]

Hey! Thanks for bringing up this question! We use today() here because started_at is a date field, not datetime, so it could not store all the information that now() returns. 🤘

[undjike]

Yes, I found it out.

But I wanted to know if there is a particular business logic under it. Because, from my point of view, storing it as a timestamp or a datetime may be more interesting as it will provide both the date and the time at which the subscription occurred.

I don't understand why paradoxically all other similar fields (canceled_at, expired_at, suppressed_at, etc.) were stored as timestamps.

[lucasdotvin]

Hi! It occurs that started_at is a field focused "on the future". If you want to change a user's plan, for instance, you can give him a subscription today with a started_at date in the future, so, when this date comes, he will instantly receive access to his new features (without having to worry about the time). If you want to check when a subscription was created, you can check created_at. 🤘

[lucasdotvin]

This is the logic behind switchTo:

If you pass the immediately parameter as false, the package will create a new subscription that will only start when the current one expires (and it is made with started_at).