Our recurring billing feature is an exciting opportunity for pet business owners to simplify payments and delight their customers. 

Why Use Recurring Billing?

Recurring billing is a powerful tool to:

• Increase revenue with consistent, automated payments.
• Reduce workload by streamlining payment processes.
• Offer convenience to your customers.

How It Works

Prerequisite: Link Your Stripe Account

Ensure your Stripe account is successfully linked before proceeding. Follow these steps:

1. Navigate to Admin > Integrated Payments > Stripe.
2. Enter your Stripe login credentials and confirm the connection.

Step 1: Set Up an Unlimited Package/Membership

1. Go to Admin > Service and create an unlimited package/membership offering.
   • Important: If you already have unlimited packages/memberships set up, you can skip this step. Existing packages/memberships do not need to be deleted or recreated.
2. Configure the package/membership:
   • Select the unlimited package/membership and set the duration (in days).
   • Set the price and click Add.

Step 2: Generate Recurring Invoices for Customers

Ensure the customer has a saved payment method on file. Then follow these steps:

Save invoice

• Create a new invoice or open an existing invoice in draft status.
• Add the unlimited package/membership to the invoice.

Charge client

• Next, select Online as the payment method.

• Check the Auto-Renew box to enable automatic charges for the membership upon expiration.

• (Optional) Check the Send email receipt box at the bottom of the page to notify the customer.
• Scroll to the bottom to select the card to charge. Click Charge to finalize the process.

Step 3: Manage Recurring Memberships

To manage recurring memberships:

1. Navigate to Recurring Membership Management Dashboard.
2. View and manage active memberships directly from the dashboard.

What Happens When a Payment Fails

Once a membership is sold with Auto-Renew ticked, it appears on your Recurring Membership Management Dashboard and is charged automatically at the end of each period. You don't need to raise the invoice or take the payment yourself.

If a charge fails — an expired card, insufficient funds, a bank block — PawsAdmin handles the chasing for you.

What happens automatically

On the day the payment fails:

• Your customer gets an email letting them know the payment didn't go through, with a link to pay the invoice directly.
• You get a notification too, showing the customer's name, the reason the card was declined, and which retry attempt is coming next.

PawsAdmin then retries the card on this schedule:

Each retry sends a fresh reminder to the customer, so they're nudged five times in total over three weeks. If any attempt succeeds, the membership simply carries on as normal — nothing else is needed from you.

Updating a customer's card

If a customer gives you new card details, you can swap them over yourself:

1. Open the Recurring Membership Management Dashboard.
2. Find the customer in the list.
3. Click Change Payment and pick the new card from the dropdown.

Note: changing the card doesn't charge it straight away — it will be used at the next retry on the schedule above. If you'd rather not wait, charge the invoice manually as described below.

Charging manually at any time

Every failed renewal leaves an open invoice on the customer's account. You can take payment against it whenever you like — open their latest open invoice and charge it exactly as you would any other. Retries only ever charge that same invoice, so there's no risk of taking the money twice.

After the retries run out

If all five attempts fail, PawsAdmin stops trying and the membership stays on your dashboard with the payment still outstanding. It won't be charged again on its own, so at that point it's worth deciding what to do:

• The customer is staying — take payment against the open invoice once they've sorted their card out. The membership picks up from there and renews normally.
• The customer is leaving — cancel the membership from the dashboard so it stops appearing in your list.

It's worth glancing at the dashboard every couple of weeks for anything sitting unpaid, so nothing lingers unnoticed.

Support

For questions or assistance, contact our support team at support@pawsadmin.com.

We're here to help and excited to see your business thrive!