With autopay, a customer saves a card once and agrees to it being charged. After that, every job invoice and billing plan invoice for that customer is charged automatically, so you stop chasing the same people every month. It is included on every plan, and your Stripe account has to be connected first (how to connect Stripe).
1 Get the customer’s card and agreement
A customer saves a card and agrees to the charge in one of four places:
- A card link. Send the customer a single-use link by email or text, or show them the QR code. They save a card and agree without logging in. The link expires after 7 days, and sending a new one cancels their earlier unused links. Texts do not go out between 9pm and 8am.
- The customer portal. The customer saves a card and agrees themselves.
- The Worker app. Your crew can collect the card and agreement on site.
- Your office. Add the card and record the agreement yourself.
The agreement reads: “I authorize your company to automatically charge this card for completed services. I can turn this off anytime by contacting your company or in my customer portal.” Your company name appears where it says “your company”.
2 Know which invoices get charged
Autopay charges job invoices and billing plan invoices, about a minute after they are created. A billing plan invoice is raised at 11pm local time and charged soon after. It does not charge invoices you typed by hand with no job, or deposits and prepayments. And it never reaches back: an invoice made before the customer agreed is not charged, so turning autopay on does not suddenly bill someone for an invoice you already asked them to pay.
The receipt says “Paid automatically with your card ending 4242” (with the customer’s real last four digits).
3 Know what happens when a charge fails
- A soft decline, such as insufficient funds, is tried once more after 24 hours.
- A hard decline (a lost, stolen or expired card, or a wrong number) is tried again after 24 hours only if the customer saved a different card.
- Any failure sends you an email and a dashboard alert. The customer gets an email with a pay now button and a way to update their card.
- If the second try also fails, autopay stops for that invoice and the customer is asked to pay it.
4 Turn it off when you need to
A customer can turn autopay off in their portal. You can turn it off for one customer or, as the owner, for the whole company. Turning it off cancels charges that were waiting, and turning it back on does not bring them back.
What it will not do
It will not charge an invoice twice. While an automatic charge is in progress, new card payments on that invoice are blocked. If you try to record by hand a card charge that is already recorded, ClippingCash refuses it, because automatic charges post on their own. Late fees and reminders also pause for an invoice while its charge is in progress.