Autopay and saved cards

A customer can save a card when they pay, pay later bills with it in their portal, and turn on autopay for a recurring invoice. Autopay charges the saved card each time that schedule issues an invoice. The customer controls all of it from Saved methods in the portal.

Before you start: the optional customer card fee is set up for each workspace by BillingMart.

Save a card

On the pay page, the customer ticks Save this card for future payments. The card is saved only after the payment succeeds. The payment processor keeps a token, and BillingMart never stores the card number. A second card is saved next to the first, not over it. The portal has no form for adding a card.

The words beside the box tell the customer that the card can be charged again when they pay with it, when they turn on autopay, or when you charge one of their invoices to it, and that any of these charges can include the card fee you set for that invoice, never more than ten percent of the payment. BillingMart keeps those words, and which version they were, with the saved card.

Pay a bill with a saved card

1. The customer opens the portal, then Bills, and opens an unpaid bill.
2. Under Pay with a saved method they choose a card and select Pay with the amount shown, then Confirm.

This pays the full balance. When your workspace has the card fee, a card also pays the fee on top: before the customer confirms, the portal shows the balance, the fee and the total, and the button shows the total. The server works out the amount itself and never charges more than the total shown: if the fee or the balance went up after the page loaded (for example, your team refunded an earlier part payment), the payment is not made and the page shows the new total. If the balance went down, the customer pays the lower balance, and the portal says so. In the BillingMart phone apps the balance charged is the one at the moment of payment. The portal can ask for a second sign-in step first, and offers Turn on two-step sign-in or Open Security if it is needed.

Turn on autopay

Autopay belongs to a recurring invoice schedule. The customer opens Saved methods, finds the schedule under your business, chooses the card in Pay each invoice with, ticks the consent box and selects Turn on autopay. With no saved card, the page says to save one the next time they pay. Turning autopay off is never blocked by a missing feature, but like other changes to money it can still ask the customer for the second sign-in step.

The consent reads: "I authorize [business] to charge [card] for each invoice this schedule issues, on the day it is issued, for the amount on that invoice, until I turn autopay off here or remove the method." It goes on to say that a charge to a card can also include the card fee that applies to that invoice, never more than ten percent of the payment, added on top of the invoice amount, and that the receipt shows it. BillingMart stamps the time on its own server, and keeps the wording and its version with the record. The portal then shows Autopay on, the card and the date agreed. The console has no switch for turning autopay on for a customer.

Then, each time the schedule issues an invoice, the invoice is sent as usual and the card is charged at once for the invoice's balance, plus the card fee when the customer's autopay wording names it. Each invoice is charged once. If the charge fails, the invoice stays open and payable, and BillingMart records the failure. The customer can still pay it from the pay link.

The card fee on a saved card

Bank payments never carry the card fee, and bank entry is off today. For a card, it depends on who starts the charge.

• The customer pays in the portal. The portal shows the fee and the total before the customer confirms, and the fee is added on top. The receipt lists the fee and the total charged. The BillingMart phone apps do not show the fee yet, so a payment made in one adds it only when the card was saved with the current wording, which mentions the fee.
• Autopay. The fee is added only when the customer turned autopay on with the current autopay wording, which names the fee. Autopay agreed to under the earlier wording, which names only the invoice amount, or turned on without the customer's wording, charges the invoice amount with no fee, even when the card itself was saved with the current wording, and the charge still goes through. A customer who turns autopay off and on again in the web portal agrees to the current wording.
• You charge the saved card, from the console or by approving the assistant's request. The fee is added only when the customer saved the card with the current wording, which mentions the fee. A card saved before that wording, or saved by your team, is charged the invoice amount with no fee, and the charge still goes through. When you approve the assistant's request, the approval shows the fee and the total, and the card is never charged a higher fee than the one you approved.

Remove a card or stop autopay

• Turn off autopay on the schedule. Later invoices arrive to pay as usual.
• Remove a card, then confirm. The business can no longer charge it, and every autopay that used it stops. The portal says how many schedules were stopped.
• Moving a schedule to another customer in the console turns its autopay off.

Removing a card or changing autopay can ask for the second sign-in step. A customer who needs one is offered a button to the portal's Security page.