What to do if a Customer Is Not Billed Automatically

If you have a subscription plan set up in your Helcim account, there might be a time when you come across a customer who was not billed automatically despite being subscribed to an active plan.

If this happens to you, follow these steps to troubleshoot and resolve the issue.

If the Customer’s Last Payment was Declined

One of the reasons a customer might not be automatically billed is if their last scheduled payment was declined. A decline could happen for many reasons including an expired card, incorrect information being entered, unavailable funds, etc.

If a payment is declined, the following process will happen for the customer:

Helcim will move the subscription plan for that customer to a “Due” status
If you have the ‘Invoice Due Reminder’ set to On, you will get an email indicating there is a due invoice for one of your customers
If you have the ‘Invoice Due Reminder’ set to On, your customer will also receive an email indicating they need to submit payment for an invoice

While the customer is in “Due” status, the subscription plan will not auto-bill.

To get the customer back on auto-billing, follow these steps. Log in to your account, then click on Invoicing and Due Invoices. Select the Invoice for the Customer from the list of Due Invoices. Then click on Process New Payment from the Actions button drop-down menu on the top right-hand side of your screen. Select the transaction type and complete the payment. Once the payment has been processed for the due invoice, the subscription plan will be automatically returned to “Up-to-Date” status and automatic billing will resume as normal.

If You Process the Payment Without Using the Due Invoice

If your customer settles their outstanding invoice without going through the “Due Invoice” then the invoice will remain open and the subscription plan will not continue with auto-billing. To resolve this issue you simply need to mark the invoice as “Paid”.

To do this, log in to your account and click on Invoicing and Due Invoices. Select the Invoice for the Customer from the list of Due Invoices. Then click on Process New Payment from the Actions button drop-down menu on the top right-hand side of your screen. Select Other Tender Transaction. Now you can enter the details of how the customer paid to close the invoice. Tender Type: Use the drop-down to select how the customer paid for the outstanding balance Amount: This will auto-populate with the amount due Note: You can enter any additional details or comments you would like attached to the invoice using this textbox.

Click on Save to mark the invoice as “Paid”. A confirmation message will appear confirming the invoice has been marked as “Paid”.

Next, you need to update the customer’s subscription on the plan to be Set as Paid.

To do this click on, Customers and Customer List from the left menu

Next, click on the customer that you are looking for. Then click ‘View Subscriptions’ Click on the Subscription Plan you need to edit. Then click Set as Paid. Once the customer’s plan is moved to Set as Paid auto-billing will resume as normal.