What to Do if a Payment Plan Fails
Payment Plans are helpful to give your participants the ability to break up a large payment by paying in smaller installments. Our system will send an email reminder to the registrant three days before the payment comes out reminding them of the amount owed as well as providing them the option to update their card. Even with this notice, sometimes payments can fail for a variety of reasons.
How to Know When a Payment Plan Fails
When you're reviewing your programs page, you will be able to quickly see how many payment plans have failed for a specific program. Each program will list the number of participants whose payment plans were not successful.
What Happens When a Payment Plan Fails
When a payment plan fails, the person who registered the participant will receive an email letting them know that their payment failed and will include the reason. Reasons could include insufficient funds, their card has been marked as stolen or even the account is no longer active. The email will include a link where they can click to add a new card. Once they add a new card, their payment will be automatically processed.
What You Can Do as an Admin
When you click on the participant's name, you'll see that there is an error message at the top. Clicking that button will bring you to the Payments section where you'll see the status of each installment.
For installments that have failed, you can either click on the three dots to either Resend the Notice or mark it as Do Not Collect. You can only send one notice every 24 hours. If the participant pays offline or you've come to a different agreement, you can mark the failed payment as Do Not Collect.
How to Help a Customer Fix a Failed Payment
If the person who registered the participant is on a payment plan and their payment fails, you can direct them to their User Settings to resolve it on their own.
Here’s what to tell them:
1. Go to User Settings
Ask them to click their profile icon in the top-right corner of the site and select User Settings.
2. Retry the Failed Payment
Under Payment History, they’ll see a red “Failed” message next to the payment. They can click the ↻ retry icon to manually try the payment again.
3. Update the Payment Method (If Needed)
If their current card isn’t working, they can update it from the same User Settings page before retrying the charge.
Preventing Failed Payments
The more payment installments you have, the more likely a payment plan will fail. We recommend having 2-3 payment plan installments for most scenarios.
If you're still in need of assistance or have any other questions, please send us an email to help@jerseywatch.com!