AutoBill object defines the relationship between an Account object (the customer description), an AutoBillItem object (products and services purchased), and a BillingPlan object ( frequency and amount of the bill). An AutoBill describes the purchase by encapsulating the data members and methods that control the purchase terms, frequency, and rates for recurring billing, and any additional subscription information.
AutoBills usually encapsulate the terms of a recurring or renewable subscription. Although you may use AutoBill for one-time purchases (typically when an entitlement system is required), they are best handled with the Transaction object instead. For details, see The Transaction Object.
Once created, an AutoBill object automatically generates periodic Transaction objects within Subscribe, according to the Billing Plan. Subscribe processes those transactions with your payment processor. The status of a transaction determines the current status of the associated AutoBill object, which, in turn, affects the entitlements granted by AutoBill to the associated Account object. Be sure to define entitlements with either BillingPlan or Product (or both) when creating an AutoBill object.
The constituent objects of an AutoBill object, Account, AutoBillItem, and BillingPlan, may be preexisting objects, in which case, you can simply refer to them by their IDs when constructing AutoBill. You may also create these objects along with the AutoBill object by specifying them inside the AutoBill object with new IDs.
Note: Use of the forward slash character (/) in identifiers is not allowed. See Merchant Identifiers for more information.