Automatically retry failed scheduled payments

Automatic payment retries let your organization try an eligible failed scheduled card payment again on dates you choose. Set the policy once in your payment settings, then follow the status and attempt history of each payment on its invoice.

The feature is off by default. Enabling it does not automatically retry payments that had already failed.

Before you begin

An Account Owner or Organization Owner can configure automatic payment retries. Administrator access alone does not display this setting.
Automatic retries apply to eligible scheduled credit-card payments processed through Stripe. The payment needs a usable saved card.
Bank debits, Interac, cheques, other manual payment methods, and ordinary one-time card payments are excluded from this automatic retry policy.
The payment and invoice must still be eligible for collection. A completed, canceled, or otherwise ineligible payment cannot be charged again through its retry schedule.

Some declines can recover without intervention, such as insufficient funds. Other failures require the client or an administrator to act, such as an unusable payment method or required card authentication. Those failures are not automatically retried.

Enable automatic retries

Open Organization settings.
Under Finance, select Payments.
Find Automatic payment retries.
Enable Automatically retry eligible failed scheduled card payments.
Under When should we try again?, choose a preset or Custom.
Review the date preview and organization timezone, then click Save.

Turning on the switch without saving does not change the organization's settings.

Choose the retry days

The days are offsets from the payment's first failure, not intervals between consecutive attempts. Each day is one automatic retry; the original payment attempt is additional.

Option	Retry days after the first failure
2 retries	1 and 3
3 retries	1, 3, and 7
5 retries	1, 3, 7, 14, and 21
Custom	Up to five different whole-number days, from 1 to 30

For Custom, enter a day and click Add. Repeat for the other days you want. Remove a day with its remove button. Add or clear any unfinished entry before saving.

Retry dates follow the organization's timezone. The preview shows the dates that would apply to a new eligible failure today.

Example: days 1 and 3

If a payment first fails on November 5, a policy with days 1 and 3 plans attempts for November 6 and November 8. If the November 6 attempt succeeds, the November 8 attempt is no longer needed.

The system checks for due retries every 15 minutes, so a retry may run after its planned time. If processing is delayed long enough for later retry dates to have passed, subsequent attempts are spaced at least one day apart instead of running together.

Which payments enter the retry schedule?

The organization setting is checked when a new eligible payment attempt starts. Its retry policy is saved for that payment. If the attempt then fails with an eligible decline, a retry is scheduled.

A payment scheduled before you enabled the feature can qualify if its new payment attempt starts after enabling it and then fails with an eligible decline.
A payment that had already failed is not automatically enrolled when you enable the feature.
Enabling the feature does not immediately charge a backlog of failed payments.
The original installment date stays unchanged. The retry date is tracked separately.

An eligible payment does not necessarily receive every planned retry. Before charging, Activity Messenger checks the payment's current state, the invoice balance, the organization setting, and whether another payment is already in progress. The charge can be reduced to the remaining invoice balance. A pending payment on the invoice can defer the retry.

Add existing failed payments

You can explicitly review older failed scheduled card payments and add eligible payments to the saved retry policy. Turning on automatic retries does not enroll these payments by itself.

Enable automatic retries and click Save in Organization settings → Finance → Payments.
Under Apply to existing payments, click Review existing failed payments. This section appears only while automatic retries are on. Save any policy changes before opening the review.
Search by client or invoice number and choose failures from the last 7, 30, or 90 days.
Select up to 20 payments on the current page. Use the header checkbox to select or clear eligible payments on that page. Changing the page or filters clears the selection.
Click Review selection. Activity Messenger verifies the gateway failure and saved card. Payments that cannot be verified safely are excluded with a reason.
Review the selected payments, cards, amounts and proposed retry dates. Check the confirmation box, then click Schedule retries for … payments.

No payment is charged immediately. The new retry dates start from confirmation rather than the old failure date. For example, confirming a days-1-and-3 policy on November 6 plans retries for November 7 and November 9. The original installment date and previous attempt history are preserved.

Click an invoice number in the review table to open the invoice. Closing the invoice returns you to the review, which refreshes to reflect any payment changes.

Payments already in a retry cycle, including stopped or exhausted cycles, cannot be enrolled again through this tool. Paid or canceled payments, pending payments, authorizations awaiting capture, unverified gateway outcomes, and payments without a usable managed saved card are excluded. Some older records lack enough gateway information to qualify.

The confirmation review expires after five minutes. Changes to the saved policy or the payment, balance or card can require a fresh review. Each payment is checked again before enrollment and before a charge, and enrollment is recorded in its invoice log.

Follow retries on an invoice

Open E-Commerce → Invoices, find the invoice, and open it. Each payment with a recorded retry cycle has its own status and automatic retry count. Expand Related attempts under that payment to review its attempt dates and outcomes.

The automatic retry count excludes the original payment attempt and manual retries. Attempt history can also include those attempts and gateway reconciliation records.

Status	What it means
Automatic retry scheduled	A retry is planned. Next retry: shows its date and time.
Processing or awaiting payment reconciliation	The attempt is processing or its outcome needs confirmation. Another charge is blocked until the outcome is confirmed.
Payment completed	The payment succeeded; remaining automatic retries are no longer needed.
Automatic retry limit reached	The saved policy has no automatic retries left. Review the payment before taking further action.
Automatic retries stopped	The cycle stopped, for example because retries were disabled, the installment changed, or an existing online payment took precedence.
Customer or staff action required	The failure cannot be recovered by automatic retries alone. Review the payment method or required client action.

Invoice dates and times are displayed in your device's timezone. This can differ from the organization's timezone used to calculate the retry schedule.

Change or stop automatic retries

Return to Organization settings → Finance → Payments to edit the policy or turn the feature off, then click Save.

Change the retry days: the new policy applies to newly enrolled payment attempts. Existing cycles keep their saved days and timezone.
Turn retries off: queued retries check the setting again before charging and cannot proceed while it is off. A cycle may be marked stopped when it is rechecked.
Turn retries on again: this does not enroll historical failures or restart a cycle that has already been marked stopped.
Payment succeeds or is canceled: further automatic collection is prevented when the payment is no longer eligible.
Reschedule an installment: its old queued retry is not used for the changed installment date. Review the revised payment plan on the invoice.

Turning off automatic retries does not cancel the original installment or remove the unpaid invoice balance.

Review a payment that still needs attention

If a card needs updating or authentication, review the client's saved payment method and the payment's selected card. Once the issue is resolved, use the invoice's existing Make a payment action when appropriate.

If an attempt's outcome is uncertain, first confirm the result with the payment gateway. Activity Messenger blocks additional invoice charges until the attempt is reconciled. Do not create a replacement charge just because an attempt appears delayed.

For an old failed payment, use Apply to existing payments in the payment settings to review eligibility for a new retry schedule. If it cannot be enrolled, review the invoice and use the existing manual payment workflow when appropriate. An uncertain gateway result must be resolved before another charge.

Invoices and client billing