Autopay and saved payment methods

Members manage saved payment methods and autopay in the member portal. Autopay uses an eligible saved bank account for future renewal charges.

Ask the member to open Payment methods in the portal. They can add or remove a payment method and turn autopay on or off. Changing autopay affects future eligible charges, not an invoice that is already open.

If autopay fails, ask the member to update the bank account. An invoice that Stripe turned down isn't tried again automatically: ask them to pay it themselves in the portal. Payment methods and fees are configured in Settings. See Troubleshooting member payment problems.

The club's bank terms exist so the club can collect the charges you add by hand. They appear only when your club collects those charges: turn on Collect charges you add from members' saved bank accounts in Settings, under Payments. It is off until you turn it on. While it is off, members see no bank terms anywhere, we send none to Stripe, and saving a bank account works as it always has. See Ad-hoc invoices and collecting them.

With the switch on, when a member saves a bank account, Stripe shows its own bank-debit authorization and we send your club's bank terms to be shown with it. The same terms also show on the Payment methods page, above the button that adds a bank account, and beside "Remember this account" when they pay an invoice by bank debit. The club's wording says they authorize the club to take dues and the other charges the club adds to their account, such as late fees and program fees, and that the club emails the amount and the date at least 10 days before taking any charge other than regular dues. It stays in effect until the member cancels, and they can cancel any time by removing the bank account in their member account or by contacting the club. The wording uses your club's name.

Members who saved a bank account before the switch was turned on, or before this wording existed, are asked once to agree to it. They see a card titled "Please agree to your club's updated bank terms" with one I agree button. It shows on their portal Home page (below the Get ready card, if they have one), on Payment methods, and in the renewal review. It is optional: it never stops a renewal or a payment. Until a member agrees, nothing changes for their regular dues, and other charges the club adds stay on their balance and are never taken automatically.

Agreeing is not enough on its own. A household's added charges are collected only while autopay is on for that household, so turning autopay on is a precondition. With the switch on, the autopay card on Payment methods says so in plain words, before a member turns autopay on and while it is on: the club can also collect charges it adds to their account from that bank account, they are emailed the amount and the date at least 10 days before, and they can pay it themselves first. With the switch off, the card talks about dues only.

The terms have a version. If they are ever revised, members are asked to agree again. If a member asks the club to stop collecting charges other than regular dues, see Ad-hoc invoices and collecting them.

If your club wants every household to pay by autopay, turn on Require autopay in Settings, under Payments. It is off until you turn it on. It can only be turned on while autopay itself is on (the Autopay on switch on the Renewals page), and while it is on, autopay can't be turned off. Turn Require autopay off first if you ever need to switch autopay off.

What it does:

• It starts at each household's next renewal, never in the middle of a season. A household that has already renewed is not affected, and neither is a renewal that is already being paid or has nothing to pay.

• To finish renewing, a household needs autopay on with a saved bank account. A saved card doesn't count. In the renewal review the member sees a short step with a link to Payment methods, not an error. The "Looks good" button stays visible and says what is left, with the same link. Payment methods then shows a Back to Renew link. Turning autopay on, or choosing the default account, takes the member straight back to the renewal review with a short confirmation. Adding a new bank account does not: the member goes to Stripe, and the account may take a few days to verify, so they use the Back to Renew link when they return.

• Members can't turn their own autopay off. The button is replaced by a note to contact the club.

• Staff can still turn it off for a household. Open the household, find Autopay on the Overview tab, and use Turn off autopay. Use it for a member who asks the club to stop. The household's saved bank accounts stay. It shows as not set up for autopay afterwards, and it has to set autopay up again at its next renewal. No grace period starts and no email goes out, because you chose it.

• Staff can see who isn't set up. The Renewals page lists the households on its list that aren't set up, and the Households list shows a badge next to each one.

Two things are not enforced yet:

• Joining from a waitlist offer. The offer itself isn't held back. A new household that hasn't set up autopay shows in the same staff views.

• Paying the dues invoice directly. The requirement is checked in the renewal review. A member who skips the review and pays the dues invoice on its own page is not stopped. This is accepted for now.

When your club requires autopay and a household that was set up loses its bank account, three things happen:

1. The household is flagged for staff.

2. The household's members get one email asking them to add a new bank account.

3. A grace period starts. Its length is Days to add a new bank account in the same Settings group (30 days unless you change it). The last day counts as a whole day.

This happens when the bank sends back a payment from the household's only working account, or when that account is removed. If the bank sends back a second payment, autopay is switched off, so a bad account isn't charged again and again. The household still has just the one grace period and gets just the one email.

The flag shows the date its grace period ends, or that it has ended. When the household adds a working account and autopay is on, the flag clears. The email also says that a household with an invoice due can still pay it by hand. Nothing ends a membership automatically, including when the grace period runs out: the flag just says it has ended, and what to do next is up to the club.

Each member is emailed a heads-up at least a day before the money is collected, and the collection date comes from the due date printed on their own invoice. A member is never charged unless that heads-up reached them first (by email, or by text when no email can reach the household; see below).

The heads-up names the amount, the date and the bank account, and the collection keeps to all three. A heads-up that goes out late (for example the member turned autopay on after the usual date) gives the next day at the soonest, never a date that has already passed. If the amount owed goes up after the heads-up (a charge added to the invoice, or a late fee), or the member moves autopay to another account or turns it off, nothing is collected on that date: the household gets a new heads-up with the new amount and date first, and collection waits for that date. A text about the heads-up goes only to members who agreed to texts, once the email has gone out (or instead of the email, as below).

Autopay only ever collects from a bank account. A member can't turn autopay on with a saved card: Payment methods offers only their bank accounts for autopay, and says "Autopay uses a bank account, not a card" when they have only a card. A household whose autopay was set to a saved card some time ago gets no heads-up promising a charge, and is not charged from the card. If the household's default payment method is a bank account, autopay uses that instead, and the heads-up names it. If not, on the day the heads-up would have gone out, the household gets an email instead, titled "Autopay can't collect invoice … from a card". It gives the invoice's due date and, if your club charges late fees, the amount of the late fee and the day it would be added. It asks them to pay that invoice themselves and to add a bank account for their next invoices, so they still have the days before the due date. The treasurer gets a task too, and autopay doesn't try that invoice again. A saved card also doesn't count as an autopay account when your club requires autopay.

If none of a household's addresses can get email (each one bounced, marked as spam, or not yet confirmed), the heads-up goes by text instead to the members who agreed to texts. A text that goes through counts as the heads-up: autopay collects on the date in it, and Swim Ops is alerted so the email address gets fixed. If no text goes through either (nobody in the household gets texts), the household can't be given its heads-up, so autopay doesn't collect from it. Swim Ops is alerted and the heads-up is tried again every night. Fix the address on the household's People tab, or ask the household to pay another way.

Sometimes Stripe, the club's payment processor, turns an automatic payment down because of the household's own bank account. For example, there wasn't enough money in it, it is closed, the bank won't allow automatic payments from it, or it was removed at Stripe. No money is taken. When that happens:

• Autopay doesn't try that invoice again. Trying again would fail the same way while the invoice heads for a late fee.

• The treasurer gets a task, once, naming the household, the invoice, the amount and Stripe's reason in plain words. It also says whether the household could be emailed, and gives Stripe's error code and request number in case you contact Stripe.

• The household gets an email, once, titled "Your automatic payment for invoice … didn't go through". It gives the amount, the invoice, what it's for and the reason, asks them to pay the invoice themselves in the member portal, and links to Payment methods so they can check or update their bank account for future invoices. If the club's email is paused, the household has had too many emails that day, or the email couldn't be sent, it goes out in a later daily run while automatic payments are running. You can change its wording in Messages, under automatic emails.

• The member can still pay the invoice themselves, by any method the club takes. The invoice page shows the usual pay buttons.

Autopay stays on and tries the household's next invoices from the same account. If the bank account itself is the problem, ask the household to add a new one on Payment methods and select Make default for it.

Sometimes Stripe refuses because of how the club's own Stripe account is set up, not because of any household. For example, bank payments aren't turned on for the account. Then nobody is emailed and no treasurer task is opened, and the people who run the platform get an alert with Stripe's exact words so the setup can be fixed. If it happens twice in the same way before any payment has gone through that night, autopay stops trying for the rest of the night. If other payments went through, the problem is with that one payment request, and autopay carries on with the rest. Autopay tries those households again the next night. If many households seem to be turned down for the same reason on the same night, autopay treats that as a setup problem too, and tells nobody.

No late fee while the club's Stripe setup is the problem. While Stripe keeps refusing for a setup reason, an autopay household whose automatic payment was due and couldn't be taken isn't charged a late fee, even after the dues deadline. Once a payment goes through to Stripe again, the usual rules apply from the day after, so each waiting household's payment gets one more try first. If autopay is turned off or paused while this lasts, the late fees stay held and the platform team is alerted every day. A household whose own payment was turned down (for example its account is closed, or its autopay is set to a card) still gets the late fee as usual. The alert to the platform team names your club's late-fee date.

Only that one household is affected. The rest of the club is still processed the same night, and the people who run the platform get an alert naming how many households had a problem. A problem that passes (Stripe or the network failing for a moment, too many requests at once) is tried again the next night, so in most cases there is nothing for you to do. A payment Stripe turns down because of the household's own account is not tried again; it goes to the treasurer as described above.

The amount collected is whatever is still owed at the moment of collection, not what was owed when the night's run started. If a member pays in the portal, or you apply a credit while the run is working, the collection is reduced or skipped to match.

Autopay also skips an invoice while another payment on it is still under way — a member partway through paying online, or a bank transfer they have started and not finished — so the household is never charged twice. It collects as usual once that payment is finished or cancelled. A payment that fails also counts as finished: if a member paid from a bank account and the bank sent the payment back, autopay collects on the next collection night.

The same is true the other way round. Once autopay has started a bank payment for an invoice, the member can't start a second payment on that invoice while the first is on its way: their invoice page says a bank payment is already on its way and shows no pay buttons. If that payment fails or is cancelled, the invoice can be paid again, by any method. Autopay itself does not try the same invoice a second time, so ask the household to pay it themselves. If an automatic payment was set up but no bank payment appears for more than a day and the invoice is still unpaid, the treasurer gets a task to look into it; the household can pay the invoice themselves meanwhile.

Each night the platform also checks with Stripe on any payment that has been showing as in progress for more than a day, and clears the ones that have ended. If autopay is still waiting after that, the payment really is still under way, usually a bank transfer the household is still sending. Ask the household whether they are still paying that way. If they are not, ask them to open the invoice in their member portal, and autopay collects on its next nightly run.