Payment dates

Dates are used in various parts of the payments process. Below are descriptions of all the different dates you’ll see on individual payments and on payment batches on the Root platform.

Date name	Description
`billing_date`	This is the main date used for a payment. It’s the date on which the premium is intended to be collected; the date the customer specified.
`payment_date`	This is the date the payment will go off on the customer’s card or bank account. It’s typically the same as `billing_date`, but might be a day earlier or later if `billing_date` falls on a bank holiday or Sunday (depending on the configured rules).
`action_date`	This is the day the system will attempt to collect the money from the customer’s card or bank account, and is mostly the same as `payment_date`. With certain payment methods, such as Direct Debits or Debit Orders, it can be configured to attempt collecting a few days earlier than what the customer specified. The first day of this collection run is the `action_date`.
`process_date`	This is the date at which the payment provider needs to process the payment. For payment methods such as Direct Debits or Debit Orders, banks need to process the payments a day or two before the intended `action_date`. For real-time payment methods like credit cards, this will be the same date as `action_date`
`submission_date`	This is the date Root delivers the payment instruction to the payment provider. For payment methods such as Direct Debits or Debit Orders, banks don’t accept payment instructions on public holidays or Sundays. In these cases `submission_date` will be a day earlier than `process_date`, else it will be the same.