Scheduled payments

Charge a customer's saved payment method once at a future date, or on a repeating cadence, without anyone having to trigger each charge.

Setting one up

Open the customer and choose Schedule a payment.

• Choose one of the customer's saved payment methods. A schedule needs one already on file, because nobody is present to type card details when it runs.
• Pick the frequency: one-time, daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.
• Set the start date, and optionally an end date or a maximum number of occurrences.
• Add line items and choose the tax rate. A running Subtotal, Tax and Total shows what is charged each time. You can add bill-to and ship-to addresses, which are copied onto every invoice and receipt the schedule produces.

Each time the schedule runs, an invoice is created from those line items, the saved payment method is charged for its total, and the invoice is marked paid. If the charge fails, the invoice stays open with a pay link so the customer can settle it.

If a charge fails

PayMidWare retries automatically: up to three failures in a row, about four hours apart. Then the schedule is marked Failed and pauses itself. A failed schedule is not dead: update the customer's payment method, then resume it, or cancel it.

Asking a customer to approve a schedule

If the customer has no payment method on file, use Request a payment schedule on the customer page. The customer receives a link, reviews the items, tax and total, and approves by entering a payment method on their own approval page. Nothing is charged until they approve. You can see the request, and cancel it, from the same page. You can also require a signed authorization before they can approve.

Managing schedules

The Scheduled payments list has these actions:

• Pause and Resume: a paused schedule does not run. Pausing is also how you edit one: pause it, change what you need, then save and resume.
• Run now: runs the next charge immediately instead of waiting for its date.
• Cancel: stops the schedule for good.

Statuses: Active will run on its next date; Paused is on hold; Completed means a one-time schedule ran, or a recurring one reached its end date or occurrence limit; Canceled was stopped by a person; Failed stopped itself after several declined charges.

Reminder emails

Under Notification settings you can have PayMidWare email your customer a reminder before a scheduled payment runs. Turn on the reminder and choose how many days before the charge, from 1 to 7. If you change a schedule's amount or payment method, a fresh reminder is sent before its next run.