thread Re: Saved Cards for future billing - charging now? in Archived Discussions (Read Only)

Saved Cards for future billing - charging now?

HeyShay — Thu, 08 Mar 2018 20:15:45 GMT

I rent studio space to artists and am trying to move to automated billing wherever possible. I have a question regarding using their card saved on file:

I have a client who is renting one weekend a month over the course of the year. I set up invoices for each of the dates--they are not strictly regularly occurring, so the due dates and amounts vary somewhat. I usually set up my recurring invoices to send an e-mail 5 days before the billing date, so they have some warning of the upcoming charge; but this doesn't appear to be an option on one-off invoices, so be it. But here's the issue right now:

She paid her first month's bill and saved her credit card on file as instructed. I now have a stack of future invoices due on various dates: one in a month, another in two months, three months, etc. I want her to receive e-mail notifications on the day she is invoiced, letting her know her card is being charged.

Now that she has a card on file, I went into the next invoice that will be due and chose her card from the drop-down, expecting it to simply bill her on the date specified on the invoice. Instead, the "Send" button in the upper right corner changed to "Charge", which to me implies she will be charged right now today, but the invoice isn't actually due until the end of the month. I don't want to have to personally go to each and every invoice on the due date and trigger the payment--that moves the onus on me instead of an automated process I thought this would offer.

Is the button change simply a misleading UI behavior? Will the billing actually occur on the date I set, or today when I choose her credit card as the billing method?

Re: Saved Cards for future billing - charging now?

Tom — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 16:19:20 GMT

Hello @HeyShay, appreciate you illustrating your business need for Invoices and Card on File.

At this time, we aren't able to support the ability to set a specific [irregular] time/date for charging a card on file—the payment will process as soon as you select the "Charge" option. As for setting up a recurring invoice and clicking the "Schedule" button, that refers to simply sending the invoice to your client; once they receive and pay the invoice, you'll receive an email confirmation.

Hope this helps make things more clear. I'll be sure to share your post with our Invoices Team and point out how being able to automate custom settings would help simplify your workflow. Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Re: Saved Cards for future billing - charging now?

HeyShay — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 04:14:43 GMT

Thanks for the reply (replies), Tom. I am curious: so I have some recurring invoices which bill my customers on a set date (in my case, the 25th of the month or the last day of every month). Given the ability to schedule when they will be charged has been very helpful. I would just like this option for customers with irregular billing schedules.

I realize a possible workaround for now is to set up the individual billing dates as a recurring invoice, but end it after one occurrence. Since in most cases the billing amount is not the same every month, this would be the best case scenario for me for now.

What I WISH was possible would be to set up irregular billing schedule using a date picker or similar. Where I can set an invoice amount, and then add multiple datesto trigger payment. For instance, I may need to collect on an invoice of $100 on May 10th, June 17th, and July 30th. I know that is uncommon for your regular customers, but for me I agree to bill a week before a given event they are being billed for which is scheduled irregularly.

I hope this detail is helpful to your developers for considering future functionality.

Thanks so much.

Re: Saved Cards for future billing - charging now?

Tom — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 16:21:49 GMT

Thank you for your reply. That does help—we'll circle back with any other developments or workarounds that may be useful.