A payment plan takes a balance and spreads it across equal installments. It lives on the client's Payments tab, and the client can follow it from their portal.
Plans are not available for practices connected to athenahealth.
Start a plan
- Open the client → Payments tab → Payment plan. (The button only shows when the client has no open plan.)
- The plan total is pre-filled with their balance; change it to put only part of the balance on the plan.
- Set an optional down payment, the number of payments (2 to 24), how often (weekly, every 2 weeks, monthly), and the first payment date. Installments are equal, and the last one carries any rounding.
- Choose when to remind the client (no reminder, 1 day, 3 days, or 1 week before each installment).
- Decide on autopay. The card-on-file box shows the client's saved card, or Add a card to save one through Stripe on the spot. The autopay switch is only available once a card is on file. See Card on file and autopay.
- Click Start plan.
On an autopay plan, a down payment is charged to the card immediately; if it is declined the plan stays a draft with the reason shown, and you can start it again once the card is fixed. If Stripe hasn't confirmed the down payment yet, the card says Starting… and the plan starts by itself once it goes through. On a plan without autopay, the down payment shows as due until you record it.
What happens on each due date
- Autopay on: at 9:00 AM practice time the card on file is charged for that installment. The client gets a Stripe receipt, the payment lands in their history described "Payment plan 2 of 6", and the amount is applied to their oldest open charges so the balance and the reports agree.
- Autopay off (the plan was set up without it): nothing is charged. The plan card shows the installment as the next payment, and you record it when it arrives.
- The client's autopay was turned off, or the card removed: the same. Nothing is charged, nothing counts as a missed attempt, and the plan never stops over it. The office gets one Payment plan not charged notice per installment, and the plan card says autopay is off for this client. Charging picks up again once their autopay is back on.
- The location's card payments aren't connected (Stripe disconnected, or not able to take charges yet): nothing is charged, and it isn't the client's fault, so nothing counts as a missed attempt and the plan never stops over it. The office gets one Payment plan not charged notice per installment, and the plan card says "Not charged: card payments aren't connected for this location." Reconnect Stripe under Settings → Billing → Payment methods and the installment is charged automatically.
An installment never takes more than the client still owes. If their balance is lower than the installment, only the balance is charged, and the schedule shows the amount with "of $150.00 · all that was owed".
A few days ahead, the client gets a reminder email from your verified practice sender. When the card will be charged it says so, naming the card. Otherwise it asks them to pay by the due date, with a Pay now button to the portal, and says the payment won't be charged to their card automatically.
The plan card
The card shows the total, paid, and remaining amounts, a progress bar, the card it charges, and the next payment with two buttons:
- Charge card: charge the card on file for this installment now (also the way to retry after a decline, or to restart a stopped plan). It isn't shown while the client's autopay is off.
- Record payment: a payment made another way (cash, check, a card run outside FrontDesk, or other), with a note. If the client owed less than the installment, only what they owed is recorded and the plan is marked paid off.
Show schedule lists every installment with its status: Scheduled, Paid, Overdue, Declined ×2, Confirming, Waiting for client, On hold, Not needed, or Cancelled. The ⋯ menu has Pause (nothing is charged until you resume), Resume (pick the next payment date; missed installments move forward from there at the plan's cadence, never charged in a lump), and Cancel (remaining installments are dropped, payments made stay on the account).
Start plan, Charge card, the ⋯ menu and the Check with Stripe buttons are for the account owner, admins, practice managers and billers. Anyone else at the location can Record payment, except a view-only member; the card says why when a button is missing.
Confirming: a charge Stripe hasn't answered yet
Now and then Stripe doesn't answer in time: the connection drops, or a payment is still processing. It isn't known yet whether the card was charged, so FrontDesk treats it as neither paid nor declined:
- The installment shows Confirming, and the card says it is waiting for Stripe to confirm the charge. "It settles by itself; don't charge it again."
- No attempt is counted, and Charge card is refused for it until it settles, so the card can't be charged twice.
- Stripe's answer settles it when it arrives, and FrontDesk also asks Stripe about any unsettled charge every 10 minutes.
In the portal the client sees that their payment is being processed, with no Pay now button until it settles.
Declines and stopped plans
Only the card saying no is a decline. A declined installment shows the reason and the attempt count. When the automatic run is declined, the client gets an email (and a text where they allow it) telling them what didn't go through, when it will be tried again, and how to pay or update their card. They hear about it once per installment, not on every retry. When you click Charge card yourself and it is declined, no notice goes out: you're the one talking to the client.
The scheduler retries every 3 days, 4 attempts in all. After that the plan shows Stopped, and the office gets a Payment plan stopped notification. Replace the card on the client's Billing tab and click Charge card, or record the payment. When that payment goes through the plan is Active again: the installments missed while it was stopped move forward, the next one to today and the rest at the plan's cadence, so the client is never charged for several at once.
Waiting for client: the bank asked to confirm
Sometimes the client's bank wants them to confirm a payment (3-D Secure). That can't happen while they're away, so:
- Nothing is charged, the installment shows Waiting for client, and it is never retried automatically. It doesn't count toward stopping the plan.
- The client is asked to pay it themselves: they get an email (and a text where they allow it) with a link to the portal, where their bank's check can run, or are asked to call the office if they can't use the portal. In the portal the plan says "your bank asked you to confirm" with Pay now.
- You can still record a payment they make another way.
Paid off early
A plan never collects money the client doesn't owe. If their balance is paid another way (at the desk, through a pay link, in the portal), the next installment charges nothing: the remaining installments are marked Not needed, the plan shows Paid off, and the card says "Paid off early: the client's balance was paid another way, so the rest of the plan was not needed and nothing more will be charged." The office gets a Payment plan paid off notification.
If a payment still lands on an installment that was already paid (the client paying in the portal at the same moment as the automatic charge, say), the extra payment is refunded to the client automatically and the office is told.
Closed or archived accounts
When the account is closed, or archived by FrontDesk support, every plan is paused and no card is charged. The plan card says "Paused when the account was closed. Nothing is charged until you resume it." Plans stay paused if the account comes back; resume each one yourself.
The client's side
The portal's Billing & Payments tab shows the plan: progress, the next payment, the card it charges, and a Pay now button for the next installment (or the down payment while it is due). Paying out of order is not possible. When a client pays there, the office gets a Payment received notice saying it came from the portal. See What clients can do in the portal.
The portal only says a payment will be charged automatically when it will be. A payment that didn't go through reads "Needs payment", never "charged automatically".
The balance card doesn't ask for the plan's money twice: it says how much of the balance the plan covers, and its pay button asks only for the rest ("Pay $40.00" instead of "Pay balance"), or doesn't show when the plan covers everything.
Refunds
Refunding an installment payment in full reopens that installment on hold: it is due again, the client's balance goes back up, but the scheduler will not charge it on its own. The plan card says "On hold" with the date; Charge card or Record payment clears it, and that charge is a new one, never the refunded payment again. The same applies to refunds made in the Stripe dashboard and to lost chargebacks. See Refunds and disputes.
Reporting
The Financial reports tab has a Payment plans section: how many are active, paused, or stopped, the cash expected in the next 30 days, and the plans at risk.