• You can change the address or contact information for a consumer.
• You can add a payment method to a billing record. For example, you can add Direct Debit to a billing record that already has a credit card set up.
• You can modify an existing payment method. For example, you can change a credit card expiry date.
• You can change the frequency or amount of a recurring transaction. For example, you can change the amount of a billing record if your own costs increase.
• You can change the status of a billing record. For example, if you suspended a billing record because of a chargeback and then later resolved the situation, you can change the status back to Active to resume the billing activity.

The Recurring Billing tool allows multiple users to work on billing records simultaneously. If you are working on a billing record and the Refresh button begins to flash in blue, this indicates that another user has modified some information in that billing record. If this occurs, just click the Refresh button to update your data to reflect those changes

If you are missing data or have entered invalid data for a required field when you are creating or editing a billing record, the Recurring Billing tool displays a highly visible alert tool so you know which field needs to be corrected

You can view the status of a billing record through the Billing Record tab. There, you can disable, suspend, and re-enable billing records. You can also see the status of any billing record when you perform a billing records search. A status icon is displayed in the left-most column of the search results, and the key for the status icons is displayed at the top of the results page

The Recurring Billing tool automatically sends an email to your consumer on your behalf each time a recurring transaction is processed. It includes relevant information such as your store name, credit card or banking details for the transaction, the amount of the transaction, and a transaction ID.

There are two cases in which we do not send a confirmation email:

• If you leave the Email field blank on the General Information tab when you create or edit your consumer
  
• If you do not have your own email address configured with us as part of your merchant information – we cannot send an email that does not have a return addres

Running activity reports

You can use the Billing ID of a billing record to run an activity report on recurring billing transactions. When you enter the Billing ID in the Merchant Transaction ID field of an activity report, the report will return all recurring billing transactions for that billing record over the date range you specify

General Information tab

Use the General Information tab to enter or edit the name and contact information for the consumer

Address tab

Use the Address tab to enter or edit the address information for the consumer. You can create both billing and shipping addresses. For example, you might enter a billing address that corresponds to the address information associated with the consumer’s credit card. But you could also enter a different shipping address

Payment Methods tab

Use the Payment Methods tab to add or edit payment methods for the consumer. A payment method is the consumer’s credit or debit card or Direct Debit bank account designated to be the payment vehicle for the recurring billing record. You can add multiple payment methods for a single consumer. For example, you might have a credit card and a bank account on record for the consumer, or you could have multiple credit cards on record for the same consumer, and use them for different billing records

Billing Records tab

Use the Billing Records tab to add or edit billing records for the consumer. You can have multiple billing records for a single consumer. For example, if you supply a variety of subscription services to a single consumer, you might have a billing record for that consumer for each subscription, with differing amounts and payment intervals

Notes tab

You can add notes when you create the consumer and billing record, or any time after. For example, you might include a note when you create the consumer, and then add a note each time you modify the billing record to help you remember the reason for the modification

Performing searches

You can run Recurring Billing searches based on a variety of criteria:

• Billing Record
• Consumer
• Expired Credit Card

Viewing a billing history

With the Recurring Billing tool you can easily run a report to view the billing history of any of your billing records, over the date range you choose. For example, you may have a billing record in which payments are made monthly, and you want to see its history over the last year. The resulting billing history will display a summary of the activity in the billing record, including the status of each transaction, the amount, and the date it was processed

Modifying a single billing record

In some cases you may want to modify a single billing record. For example, if you temporarily suspended a billing record, you may want to go in and change its status back to Active

Modifying multiple billing records

In some cases you may want to modify multiple billing records at the same time. For example, you could change the amount of a recurring payment that is common across several of your consumers

Viewing chart overviews

The Recurring Billing tool provides a chart tool that gives you two graphical overviews:

• Billing records by status
  
• Credit cards by status
  

The billing record and credit card statuses are clearly defined by colour, and the number of each is also displayed.

From the chart overview, you can drill down to view details on individual billing records.

For a guide to Repeating Billing please visit our downloads page