A card on file is a card the client has agreed you may charge later. It powers three things: autopay, cancellation and no-show fees, and payment plans.
Cards live in Stripe, so connect Stripe for the location first.
Turn on autopay and choose when it charges
Go to Settings → Billing → Payment methods → Autopay & invoicing. Each location has its own row:
- Switch Autopay on for the location. The switch is only available once that location's Stripe is taking payments.
- Under Charge cards, pick one:
- Nightly, for open invoices (the default). Once a night, between midnight and 6am in the location's time zone, each client with a card and autopay on is charged for their open invoices. The row reads "Charging cards on file each night for open invoices."
- When a visit is completed. Each visit's fee is charged as soon as the appointment is marked completed. The row reads "Charging cards on file when visits are completed."
- Turn on Daily invoicing if you charge nightly (see below). When it's off, a note on the row says nightly autopay has nothing to charge.
A location that had autopay on before the choice existed keeps charging on completion until you pick Nightly. Without autopay, cards can still be saved and used for fees, plans, and one-off charges.
Daily invoicing
With Daily invoicing on, each night FrontDesk puts every client's visit charges from before today that are still owed and aren't on an invoice yet onto one invoice per client, due in 30 days. These invoices are issued (status Sent) and show in the client's portal, but aren't emailed. Nightly autopay then charges them the same night.
- Only visits from the day you turned it on are invoiced; older ones are left for you.
- A charge whose invoice was voided isn't invoiced again; you decide what happens to it.
- A night that is missed (the location was closed, or Stripe was down) is caught up the next night.
See Invoices.
Save a card as staff
- Open the client → Billing tab → Edit on the Billing profile → Autopay → Add card.
- Tick the consent line confirming the client agreed to keep the card on file and be charged for visit fees and balances they owe.
- Enter the card in the Stripe form and save.
The profile now shows the brand, last four digits, and expiry, with Replace and Remove. The Autopay switch on the profile turns automatic charging on or off for this client alone, and is only available once a card is saved. If Stripe is not connected, Add card says so.
Let the client save it
In the portal, Billing & Payments → Card on file → Add a card opens the same Stripe form with a consent checkbox: "I agree that [your practice name] may charge this card for my visit fees and any balance I owe. I can remove it any time." The client sees the saved card, whether visits are charged automatically, and can replace or remove it. See What clients can do in the portal.
Clients who aren't in front of you, or don't use the portal, can be sent a secure add-card link by email and text from Settings → Billing → AutoPay clients. Saving a card from the link turns autopay on for them. See AutoPay clients and add-card links.
What gets charged
Nightly, for each client with a card and autopay on:
- Any credit on account is put against what they owe first.
- Each open invoice (sent, viewed, partly paid or overdue) is charged for what it still owes, oldest first, one charge per invoice. The invoice moves to Paid, the visits it bills are marked paid, and the balance goes down.
- A client on an active payment plan is skipped: the plan collects on its own schedule.
- An invoice with a bank payment still clearing is skipped until it settles.
When a visit is completed:
- The client's share still open is charged: the full fee for self-pay clients, the copay for insurance clients (and nothing until a copay is on their profile). Money they already paid toward the visit, such as a copay taken at check-in, counts, so only what is still owed is charged.
- A visit billed in several lines (a session plus an add-on, for example) is one charge to the card for all of its lines, and each line shows paid by its share. For a group session this runs per attended client.
Either way the charge runs off-session, Stripe emails the client a receipt, and the payment is recorded in the client's history as an AutoPay payment.
Declines and card changes
- Declined: the visit and any invoice stay as they are, the amount stays open on the balance, the decline is noted on the client's billing profile and in their portal, and the office gets a Payment failed notification. The client gets an email (and a text where they allow it) saying the payment didn't go through, that nothing was charged, and how to pay or update their card: through the portal's Billing & Payments tab when they can use it, otherwise by calling the office. They hear about each failed charge once.
- Nightly retries: after a decline, nothing more is tried for that client that night. The invoice is tried again the next night. After three declines in a row on the same invoice, nightly autopay stops trying it. When the client saves a new card (staff, portal or add-card link), stopped invoices are tried again the next night.
- The bank asked the client to confirm it (3-D Secure): nothing was charged. That can't be done while the client is away, so they get the same kind of message, asking them to confirm and pay it themselves in the portal. Nightly autopay doesn't try that invoice again until they add a card.
- Not confirmed yet: if Stripe doesn't answer in time (a timeout, or a payment still processing), it isn't treated as a decline: nobody is told it was declined and the card isn't charged again. Stripe's answer records the payment if it went through.
- Expiry and number updates from the card network arrive through Stripe and refresh the saved card automatically; a stale decline note is cleared.
- Card removed in Stripe turns autopay off for that client.
- Disputes on autopay charges show as badges on the payment; see Refunds and disputes.
If autopay didn't run when you expected it to, see Autopay didn't charge.
Receipts
- Automatic charges (autopay, payment plans, missed-visit fees) get a Stripe receipt at the client's email on file.
- Charges staff take themselves, including charging the saved card from the phone app, send a receipt only when Send receipt (on the phone, Email a receipt) is on. A client marked do not contact, or who hasn't allowed email, gets none. The screen says whether a receipt went and where.
Good to know
- Autopay charges only the client's share; an insurance client's remaining fee stays open for the claim or the client.
- Nightly or on completion? Nightly matches how most practices coming from SimplePractice work: visits are invoiced each night and each invoice is charged once. On completion charges sooner, visit by visit, and needs no invoices.
- A card on file is a per-client consent. Keep the consent line as it is written; it is what the client agreed to.
- A closed or archived account charges nobody's card, whatever the setting.
- Everything is audited: card saved, removed, autopay on or off, and each charge.