How to Retry a Failed Payment?

A typical situation in subscription ecommerce is failed recurring payments. The reasons why a payment fails can vary from one customer to another.

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Article Overview

• Reasons for payment failure.
• What happens when a payment fails? - Payment retrial.
• Associated settings for payment retrial.
• Payment failure after last attempt.
• Retrying failed payments manually.
• When should you retry a failed payment manually?

Typical reasons for payment failure

• Expired card details
• Insufficient funds
• Bank fraud prevention refuses the charge
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The reason for the failed payment can be seen for most Payment Service Providers (PSP) in your circuly Operations Backend in the Recurring Payment List under Failed Reason. The reason for the failed payment as displayed in the Failed Reason column is the same as the reason displayed in your PSP. In other words, if you log into your PSP and see a failed transaction, the reason displayed in the PSP will be the same as the reason displayed in the circuly Operations Backend.

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Important note: When the Payment Settled column displays a "No", this does not mean that the payment has failed or not gone through rather it means that the payment has not been settled yet.

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The reason for a "No" in the Payment Settled column is either that the date of collecting the recurring payment hasn't arrived yet or it's an upcoming payment.

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Recurring payments with a "No" in the Payment Settled column do not require any action from your side.

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What happens when a payment fails?

When a payment fails because of one of the reasons mentioned above, circuly retries the payment if the associated settings are enabled. For the associated settings, continue reading below.

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Settings for retrying failed payments

In the circuly operations backend you can define how many times a payment should be retried, what should be the time interval between each retry, should the customer be informed on each attempt or only on the final attempt and so on.

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We’ll go through each setting associated with failed payment in detail, so you can decide on a process that fits your subscription operations.

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Step 1: Decide how many times a failed payment should be retried, the time interval between the attempts and what happens on failure.

Step 2: Decide if you would like to inform the customer about the payment attempts and the frequency of the reminders.

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Step 1: Access the payment retries settings:

• Login to your circuly operations backend
• Go to Settings > Invoices & Payments > FAILED PAYMENT
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Available Setting Options:

• Maximum number of payment retires - this setting defines the maximum number of payment retrial attempts that can be automatically made by the circuly system before a manual input is required.

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• Next payment attempts in: this settings defines the time period between each payment attempt.
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• Past billing date: this setting defines the number of days in the past the circuly system checks for non-paid recurring payments for retrial attempts.
  
  Example
  Let's assume that the value in the Past billing dates input field is -15 days. The circuly system will scan all recurring payments that were to be charged and pick the ones that were not charged. Then the circuly system will retry all those payments x number of times (as defined in the Maximum number of payment attempts setting).

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• Cancel subscription on failure - when you enable this setting the subscription will be automatically cancelled and set to pending return after 2 failed payment cycles.
  
  One payment cycle has “x” number of payment retrial attempts for a particular payment. “2 payment cycles” is when your customer has two failed payments that have already been retried by the circuly system “x” number of times. Learn more about payment cycles.

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Step 2: Access the Email settings to inform the customer about the payment attempts

• Login to your circuly operations backend
• Go to Settings > Emails > PAYMENT NOTIFICATIONS

Available Setting Options:

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• All payment related emails - enable this switch to allow the circuly system to send emails for both successful and failed payment attempts from the Email Templates (Email reference: Payment was successful and Payment has failed email templates).
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• Failed payment - final attempt- when you enable this setting the customer will get a Payment failed email only on the final payment attempt.
  
  
• Failed payment - every attempt - when you enable this setting the customer will get a Payment failed email after every payment retrial attempt.
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• Terminal  - when you enable this setting the customer will get the "Return unpaid product" email after 2 failed payment cycles. Make sure to activate the Return Unpaid product email  in the email templates. In order for an email to be sent from the Email Template, it needs to be created first.

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What happens if the payment still fails even after the last try?

If the payment fails after the last trial attempt, your connected customer support will be automatically notified about the failed payments via email.

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Can you retry a failed payment manually?

Yes, you can try to collect the failed payment even after three failed trial attempts. to do so, follow the following steps:

• Go to Subscriptions and search the subscription for which the payment has failed (either use the search bar by entering the subscription id or name of the customer or simply scroll through the list).
• Click on the subscription to see the subscription details.
• Scroll down to RECURRING PAYMENTS.
• Search for the recurring payment with the status displayed as "failed" in the Payment Settled column.
• Click on the three dots in the same row and select Charge Recurring Payment.
• In the new Charge Recurring Payment window, accept the terms that say, "I understand the consequences".
• By accepting the terms the customer will automatically be charged with the stated amount and will be automatically notified by mail.
• Conclude the window by pressing on the button that says CHARGE xx.xx €.
• The status of the recurring payment as displayed in the Payment settled column will change to "yes".
• DONE ✅

When should you retry a failed payment manually?

You should retry a failed payment manually when your customer confirms with you that the payment details have been edited or changed and a manual payment attempt can be made.