Payment schedules

Letting a payer spread what they owe over several payments, collected from a card they have saved.

It is not a bank direct debit

What parents call a direct debit is almost always this: a scheduled card payment. Xperios holds a card reference from a payment the payer made themselves and charges that card on each due date. Nothing is set up at their bank, and nothing is collected until they have made that first payment.

Nothing happens until the payer pays once

This is the cause of most "the schedule isn't collecting" reports, and it is not a fault.

Before Xperios can charge anybody it needs a card saved against the schedule, and the only way to get one is for the payer to make a payment themselves. So a schedule that is Active, with its first line still Pending, no attempts and no card reference, is not broken — it is waiting for the payer.

The query Payment Schedule - Active without Card Token lists exactly these: active schedules with no card saved, with the next collection date and what is still outstanding. Run it before investigating anything else.

What to tell the payer:

1. Log in to the Portal and open My Finances — the Pay Now icon under Account Balance on the dashboard, or My Account → Finance History.
2. Choose Pay Next Instalment — not Pay Balance, which pays the whole lot.
3. They enter their card. Every payment after that uses it automatically.

Setting one up

From the payer's ledger:

1. Select the invoice, then the invoice line.
2. Expand Allocated to Payment Schedule underneath it. The extra menu items there include one that creates a new monthly schedule.
3. Accept the number of payments and the amount Xperios has worked out, or change the number of payments — the amount follows.
4. Save.

Then ask the payer to make the first payment, as above.

A finished schedule has to be released first

Where the payer already has a schedule at End Schedule, you cannot add lines to it until it is released. Release it, then add.

A schedule is against the debt, not the invoice

By default a schedule covers everything the payer owes, and payments are allocated to the oldest invoice first until it is clear, then the next oldest. Add another service and the invoice joins the schedule they already have, so the monthly figure goes up rather than a second schedule appearing.

Most customers want that: one payment a month, covering everything. It does mean that looking at one invoice and its schedule side by side can be confusing, because the schedule is paying for more than that invoice.

If you would rather each invoice had its own schedule, Separate Payment Schedules in System Configuration does it. Two things to know:

• It only turns off the half of Combine Invoices that adds a new invoice to an open schedule. A tuition and its hire raised together still share one invoice.
• It applies to new invoices. Schedules that already hold several invoices are left exactly as they are — splitting those is a job for us.

Why the figures changed on their own

A schedule exists to clear a balance by the time it ends, so when the balance moves the schedule moves with it:

• a refund increases what is owed, so payments are added to the end;
• a credit reduces it, so the remaining payments come down;
• reducing the number of lines raises the monthly amount, and adding lines lowers it. That is the lever to use when a payer asks for smaller payments.

None of that needs anybody's intervention, and a schedule that has quietly gained two payments after two refunds is working correctly.

When nothing is collected automatically

Automatic collection needs three things, and the manual route below is used when any is missing:

A provider that can do it	GOV.UK Pay never collects automatically — it can hold a schedule, but every single payment is initiated by the payer from a link. Our other providers can
Auto Collect Payments	The System Configuration switch
A saved card	The first payment, above

Where collection is manual, each due date sends the payer a reminder with a link to pay. The schedule still tracks what is due and what has been paid.

Failed payments

A failed collection does not just sit there:

1. The line is marked Failed, the schedule goes back to Active, the date moves on three days, and the payer gets a failed-payment email.
2. That repeats up to four attempts.
3. On the fourth, the schedule is cancelled and the payer is told it has been. The account is then yours to deal with.

The same three-day, four-attempt pattern applies to manual reminders, ending in a final missed-payment email.

Restarting a cancelled schedule

Setting the status back to Active restarts it, and that is deliberately a decision somebody makes rather than something automatic. The original rule was that four failures ended the arrangement and the account went to finance to agree how it would be settled; the reset exists so you can put somebody back on instalments once you are satisfied they will pay.

A payer cannot stop a schedule

There is no button for them to cancel it. They have to speak to you, and you change the status once you have agreed how the balance is to be paid. That is the point: the arrangement is between you and them, not something either side walks away from quietly.

What the payer was told

Every notice, failure and success email is kept against the payment — see Debtors. When somebody says they were never told a payment was coming, that is where you find out whether they were.

See also

• Debtors — the ledger, the Card Schedule Manager and posting
• Refunds — and why a refund lengthens a schedule