What Happens When a Recurring Payment Fails?

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This article will take you through;

  1. What Happens When a Recurring Payment Fails?
  2. Next steps and additional support

What Happens When a Recurring Payment Fails?

If a member's recurring payment fails on the first attempt, Glofox will attempt to take the payment three more times over the coming days making it 4 attempts in total to take payment. This applies to both card and direct debit payments.

After the first failed payment, the member will not be allowed to use the membership they are on to book until a successful payment has been made.

You can retry the failed payment manually or forgive the failed payment using the "Retry" or "Write Off" options in the Actions dropdown on the right-hand side of the failed payment. To see these buttons click the arrow on the right of the payment.

Glofox automatically continues collecting payments on the next payment cycle even if the membership has moved from ‘Overdue’ (a failed payment) to ‘Unpaid’ (all attempts to take a payment in the current cycle failed) 

For example, if all attempts to take December’s payment fails Glofox will still automatically attempt to collect the next payment in January. As opposed to before when we would avoid an attempt at taking next month’s payment. When January's payment collection is attempted, the December amount owed is not included.

If your preference is for your customers to not to be continued to be billed for payments in future cycles you will need to pause or cancel their membership.

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Automatic Retry

Glofox will help collect failed payments by automatically attempting to take the payment again three additional times. These retries are at a set interval of:

  • 1 day after the initial failure date
  • 4 days after the initial failure date
  • 11 days after the initial failure date   

Please note;

  • Due to high failure rates on subsequent retry attempts and high failed payment fees associated with Direct Debit payment methods (e.g. ACH, BECS, SEPA) only one retry is performed for any subscription payment using a Direct Debit method through Stripe: Billing date + 1d (1st retry)

Manual Retry

Clicking Retry will attempt to take the payment immediately. If it is successful the member's membership will update. If it is not successful you will see the reason in the bottom left of the screen. 

You do not usually need to click Retry as Glofox retries automatically. 

Write Off

Clicking Write Off will stop the payment being attempted again in the future. You will not be able to process the payment and Glofox will not attempt to automatically retry the payment.

This can be used if a member pays you with an alternative payment method for the failed subscription cycle. 

Next steps and additional support

Once you understand this, you might want to take a look at the 'Failed Payment Report'; 

For additional support reach out to support@glofox.com and we will be happy to assist you. 

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