Hello,
Since you want to perform a renewal, you need to use the Subscription system, not the serial one.
I don't know what you means by "Licensing of the application is done through the web API", but yes, "consume" and "check" are not compatible with the subscriptions.
Subscriptions like Serials have the "extra data" which allows to store some "external" information into the object ; like the end of validity for the serial (used by some plugins), etc.
I don't understand your last sentence, which mix subscription with a serial concept ; thus I don't see what you want to achieve.
But the subscription is the feature that you want to use ; now you need to give us details regarding your (missing) needs so we can see how we can help.
Regards,