Note: if you're looking to capture payment methods before a new invoice is issued/outstanding, head over to this article instead.

Configuring Autopay

By default, Autopay is activated for all your customers and works with both cards & direct debits (SEPA and ACH via Stripe Payments).

We strongly recommend leaving it on as this enables you to automate future collections, but you can selectively disable it for specific customers if needed from their customer details page:

or via our mass-action functionalities from your "Customers" tab for a specific group of such customers.

How does Autopay work?

Capturing a payment method

When your customer pays you online via card or direct debit through their portal, they will be prompted to save their payment method:

When a payment method is saved, both your customer & you will be able to visualize it on the portal and your Upflow interface respectively:

View from the customer portal.	View from your customer's details page.

Collecting payments with Autopay

Autopay notification

Two calendar days before an invoice is due (at HR:45 before the invoice's debit—i.e. 09:45 based on your organization's timezone—, your Upflow platform will automatically send a debit notification to your customer on your behalf to ensure compliance. This notification recaps what will be debited and when. It is sent to the email address which was used to save the payment method.

For new invoices created with a due date less than 48 hours in the future, payments will be collected 2 calendar days later as this is the minimum delay between an autopay notification and a payment collection attempt.

Example 1:

Invoice issued on March 4th, with a due date on March 6th.

• The invoice is imported on issue date, March 4th around 10:30, the Autopay notification will be sent the same day at 10:45.
• The Autopay debit will happen on March 6th around 10:45.

Example2:

Invoice was issued on March 1st, and imported the 4th around 2:15pm. The notification will be sent to the customer the same day around 2:45pm.

The debit will happen on March 6th around 2:45pm.

You can visualize scheduled payments directly in your customers' timelines:

Notice example

Special case: if your customer saved a payment method but did not pay all overdue invoices at the same time, a debit for all outstanding invoices will be issued 2 days later following the same mechanic as above.

Payment collection

On the scheduled Autopay date, your Upflow platform automatically attempts to collect payment on your customer's method which can either succeed or fail.

Autopay is successful

Debit on the payment method has been triggered, and a payment is recorded for corresponding in invoices in Upflow & written back to your systems if applicable.

Autopay is unsuccessful

When a payment collection via Autopay fails, your customer will receive an email notification with the related reason and you will also be notified so you can get in touch to resolve.

If an error is considered temporary (for example "insufficient funds"), we will attempt payment collection 3 times before marking the saved payment method as "inactive" and stop the Autopay mechanic:

Resolve a failed Autopay

To resolve this, your customer can:

1. Delete & update their saved payment method directly through their customer portal
2. Reactivate the inactive payment method if needed (for example, if a card was re-funded):

View from the customer portal.	View from your customer's details page.

Doing so will restart the Autopay mechanics from the beginning. Because Autopay is triggered every 30 minutes by our systems, you might have to wait up to an hour for the two-day notification and the in-app notifications to be sent.

Customer hierarchy (parent/children)

If you use this configuration in Upflow, please note that a saved payment method at the parent level will trigger Autopay only for the parent's direct invoices, and will disregard the children's invoices.

If you wish for the children's invoices to be automatically debited via Autopay, you must ensure the children have their own saved payment method in Upflow (in their own portal).

Useful to know

• It is not possible to exclude individual invoices from the Autopay process for a customer with a saved payment method.
• Promises to pay at a later date do not postpone the Autopay payment collection schedule.
• Portal: Pay button unavailable - If your customer wishes to manually pay their invoice before the due date, they will have to remove their saved payment method to access the manual payment process.
• Autopay is not available for GoCardless.

​Do you have any further questions? Contact our Support team!