Introduction

Delayed charge is a feature available in the circuly Hub that you can use if you do not want to charge the initial payment in the checkout and instead delay the charge until a later point in time. 

Currently the option to delay a charge in the checkout or the initial payment is only available if you use the following Payment Service Providers: 

• Stripe
• Braintree

Here’s when you might want to delay a charge:

• Limited stock availability - If you are unsure whether you can fulfil the order or not because you don’t have the necessary stock amount and need to order the stock from your supplier first. 
• Validating the credit worthiness of the customer - If you want to check the credit score of the customer first and based on the credit score decide whether you actually want to fulfil the order or not. 
• Checking if delivery is possible - If you want to check first whether you can actually deliver your product to the requested area & you need to manually follow up with the customer for the delivery of the product. 

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Good to know

If you choose to delay the charge during checkout, here’s what happens:

• The order amount is only reserved on your customer’s bank account—no money is charged immediately.
• The order will be created in both your shop system and Circuly, but the payment status will show as Payment Required.
• You won’t be able to start the subscription until the initial payment has been charged.
• You need to charge the payment manually first before you can create a subscription for the order.

Why this matters:By default, circuly prevents subscription creation without the initial payment to protect your business from fraud and to avoid unintentionally activating unpaid subscriptions.

However, if you have internal processes that require creating subscriptions for unpaid orders, circuly allows you to do this via the Allow unpaid subscriptions setting.

To enable it:Go to Settings > Subscription > Create Subscription > Allow unpaid subscriptions and toggle the switch on.

Once enabled:

• You can create a subscription even if the payment hasn’t been charged.
• circuly will automatically trigger the initial payment once the subscription is created.
• The customer will receive the Order Confirmation email.

📢 Be sure to clarify in the Order Confirmation email that it confirms receipt of the order request—not its acceptance. Update your email template accordingly to manage expectations.

In the Order Overview, you'll also see a new menu option under the three-dot menu: "Charge initial payment"—in case you prefer to initiate the payment manually.

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Step-by-step guide

Enable the setting

• Go to Settings > Checkout > End checkout > Enable the switch for Delay charge in checkout.
• Change the Default payment status to “payment required”. 
• Navigate to the Email Templates tab and adapt the Order Confirmation email. Make sure you communicate that this is only a confirmation email for order request and not order confirmation. ‍
• Optional: adapt the content of your Order fulfilment completed email or your Subscription Activated email. You may want to do this if you officially want to confirm the order to your customer. You can do this either when you are sending out the product to the customer (in the order fulfilment email) or with the subscription activation. Inform your customer that you can confirm the order, that the money has been therefore charged and that the product is delivered or is under delivery.

Note: The change applies to all orders only after you have activated the associated setting.

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What happens next

You need to charge the initial payment.

•  When the Delay charge in checkout setting is enabled, in your Order overview Window under the menu options, you will find a new menu option “charge initial payment”. 
• Go to the menu option and and charge the initial payment. 
• Once the initial payment has been successfully charged from your customers’ account, the Payment was successful email will be automatically sent to the customer. 
• The payment status will then change to paid. 
• Continue with your planned fulfilment / subscription process. 

Note: You can only Create a subscription once the initial payment has been processed. The button/option to so will now we be available to you or you've enabled the Allow unpaid subscription setting.