Automation Rules

An automation rule does something when a payment succeeds, fails, or is a set number of days away. Find them under Automation Rules in the dashboard.

What a rule looks like

Each rule has a condition and one or more actions, run in order.

When a payment…

• succeeds, or fails: the rule fires for a payment plan’s payments, or for any of a customer’s scheduled payments. Choose when:

  • every payment;
  • the first payment only;
  • after a number of payments, in total or in a row;
  • once an amount has been collected (or has failed), optionally only for plans with a given total.

  “First payment” and amount rules fire once per plan or customer.

• is about to be processed: a reminder, a number of days before the payment is collected.

A failed payment’s follow-up (payment plan failure rules only). Tick a failure behaviour, such as Try again in X days, to fire the rule only when the plan made that follow-up. Leave them all unticked to fire on every failure, including a failure that can’t be collected again.

Actions:

Action	What it does
Email	Emails the customer your subject and text
SMS	Texts the customer your text
Plan modification	Converts the plan to until further notice
Webhook	Sends automation_rule.triggered to your webhook endpoints (Webhooks)

Email and SMS text can use placeholders: {CUSTOMER_NAME}, {CUSTOMER_EMAIL}, {PAYMENT_DATE}, {PAYMENT_AMOUNT}, {FAILURE_REASON}, {BUSINESS_NAME}, {BUSINESS_EMAIL}, {TODAYS_DATE} and {PLAN_REFERENCE}. Dates are your account’s dates, in its timezone.

Every rule has an Active switch. Switch a rule off to stop it without deleting it, from its form or with Switch off on the rules list.

Who gets a rule’s messages

A rule only messages customers who allow it:

• Email goes to customers with Send payment emails? on. New customers start with it on. Every rule email ends with an unsubscribe link: a customer who uses it turns their Send payment emails? off.

• SMS goes to customers with a mobile number and:

  • Send SMS reminders? on, for a reminder;
  • Send SMS failure notices? on, for a failure rule.

  Both start off. A rule can’t send an SMS when a payment succeeds.

Every SMS ends with “Reply STOP to opt out”, and your text must fit in one SMS with it. See SMS Messages for opting out, and for what a sandbox account sends.

Reminders

A reminder goes the set number of days before the payment, counted on your account’s dates. It’s sent only for a payment that will be taken: none for a paused or suspended plan, a closed or inactive plan, a payment waiting for a new payment method, or while your account’s payments are held.

A customer rule reminds a customer of any of their scheduled payments. A payment plan rule reminds of that plan’s payments. Each payment gets one reminder per rule.

The two rules every account starts with

Every account starts with two payment plan failure rules, which email the customer:

When the plan’s follow-up is	The email says
Try again in X days	“Your scheduled payment to {BUSINESS_NAME} has failed. This payment has been rescheduled to be debited again in a few days.”
Double-up the next payment	“Your scheduled payment to {BUSINESS_NAME} has failed. This payment has been rescheduled to be debited with your next scheduled payment.”

They’re ordinary rules: edit their wording, switch them off, or delete them. They fire only when the payment really was rescheduled, so a retry that fails as well doesn’t send another.

Seeing what a rule did

Each time a rule fires, the plan’s or customer’s Activity shows which rule it was, for which payment, and what each action did:

• an email queued, or not sent and why;
• an SMS’s delivery status, or not sent and why;
• the plan converted;
• the webhook sent.

An email shows as queued because it’s handed to our mail service when the payment’s outcome is recorded. In sandbox, it reaches only your team (Emails in test mode).