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Use the Configurable Payment Retry feature

Zuora

Use the Configurable Payment Retry feature

When Configurable Payment Retry creates Payment Runs to retry failed payments, it uses the current date as Target Date for the Payment Run. Any billing document with a due date later than the current date will not be processed by Configurable Payment Retry.

Prerequisites

Activation of the retry logic

Upon the completion of a payment run, Configurable Payment Retry’s logic is activated. Initial payments from the payment run that are not successful will be sent into the retry system and will trigger the configured retry logic.

If you configured your retry logic manually based on the payment gateway response codes, the retry logic that you defined for the customer group is executed. If you enabled Smart Retry, the AI-driven retry logic is executed to retry failed payments at optimal times. For details about how to configure these two approaches, see Edit retry logic for a customer group.

When a retry attempt is executed in Configurable Payment Retry, a payment run with the record of the payments being attempted is also created and visible in Payment Runs of Zuora Payments. Retry attempts are executed in batch on the hour rather than continually being executed. A maximum of 24 payment runs can be made in a day. Hence, the retry logic cannot be set to retrying sooner than every hour.

Please ensure that out-of-box payment retry is not running in Zuora environment, and the Callout Notification setting for Configurable Payment Retry is configured. Failure to disable the out-of-box payment retry while running Configurable Payment Retry might result in disruption to the service. See Configure the Configurable Payment Retry feature for details.

See Payment Runs for more information about payment runs.

Auto-pay settings

See the table below for the invoice-level and account-level auto-pay settings for different retry levels in different retry stages. 

Retry level Invoice-level auto-pay setting Account-level auto-pay setting
Invoice Turned off when the retry cycle starts. No change during invoice retry cycles.
Account
  • Once the retry cycle starts, auto-pay is turned off.
  • If no payments have been collected, auto-pay stays off.
  • If payments have been collected, auto-pay is turned on. 

Once the account-level and/or invoice-level auto-pay is turned off, invoices or debit memos for the account will not be picked up in the next payment run. If you want the invoices and debit memos to be picked up during a payment run, you need to manually turn on the auto-pay both on the account level and the invoice level. You must also make sure a valid electronic payment method is configured for the accounts.

View account-level and invoice-level retry status

Once Configurable Payment Retry is installed, a custom field "Retry Status" will be added to the Account and Invoice (or Debit Memo, if Invoice Settlement is enabled on your tenant) objects. You can use the values of these two fields to determine the retry and payment status.

The application updates all custom fields associated with Configurable Payment Retry after each failed payment. Zuora recommends you do not manually change the value of the fields.

To view the retry status of an account, navigate to the details page of the account.

collect_cpr_account_retry.png

To view the retry status of an invoice or debit memo, navigate to the Additional Fields section on the details page of the invoice or debit memo.

collect_cpr_invoice_retry.png

Account retry status

  • In retry: The account is active in a retry process. It indicates that either an invoice of the account or the account enters a retry cycle. 
  • Failure: The retry process for the account has completed with errors and payments have not been collected.
  • Blank: All accounts start with this status (no value for the field). Once the account or an invoice of the account enters a retry process, this field begins to be updated. If a retry cycle completes and payments are collected, this field becomes blank again.

Invoice or debit-memo retry status

  • In retry: The invoice or debit memo is active in a retry process.
  • Complete: The retry process has completed and the payment has been collected.
  • Complete - External: The retry process has completed due to a payment made outside of the retry process. It means that an ad hoc payment has been made during the retry process. The next time Configurable Payment Retry attempts to retry a payment, it recognizes the payment and updates the status to Complete - External.
  • Failure: The retry process has completed and no payments have been received.
  • Blank (no value): All invoices or debit memos will start with this status (no value for the field). Once the account or the invoice (debit memo) enters the retry process, this field will begin to be updated. The field will never be blank again unless it is manually modified to be blank (which is not recommended).

View retry attempts

To monitor the progress of your retry logic, complete the following steps.

  1. In your Zuora tenant, click the desired account and select Transactions > Payments.

  2. View the Status of each payment.

    • Error - Payment was unsuccessful and is in retry attempt
    • Processed - Payment was successfully processed

    CPR_Using_1.png

  3. Click the Payment Number to view payment details.

    CPR_Using_2.png

    The Payment window opens:

    CPR_Using_3a.png

    • Error Message: Displays the error message from the selected payment gateway.
    • Comment: Displays information about the status of the account in the retry process. The final workflow will be triggered by CPR after three attempts regardless of how the payment run initiates the payment, either by regular payment runs from Billing or CPR-initiated payment runs or by the advance payment manager.

Understand the metrics on the home page

Use metrics on the home page to evaluate the performance of your retry process for increased collection rates. If you are on the other page of Configurable Payment Retry, you can always navigate back by clicking the Dashboard tab.

  • Retry Success Rate

    The percentage of successful payment attempts, for all customer groups on this Configurable Payment Retry instance so far.

    Retry Success Rate = Number of successful retry payment attempts / Total number of retry payments attempted

    Payment attempts here are any payment attempts executed by Configurable Payment Retry, excluding the initial payment run.

  • Document Success Rate

    The percentage of billing documents that are successfully collected, for all customer groups on this Configurable Payment Retry instance so far.

    Document Success Rate = Number of billing documents collected / Total number of billing documents attempted

    Billing documents collected are any invoices or debit memos that were paid through the payment attempt initiated by Configurable Payment Retry.

  • Average Days Outstanding

    The average number of days invoices or debit memos are unpaid before collection, for all customer groups on this Configurable Payment Retry instance so far.

  • Amount Recovered

    The total amount recovered and the amount recovered over the last 30 days broken down by currency.

  • Document Success Rate by Customer Group

    A chart displaying Document Success Rate timeseries for each customer group over the past 6 months. If you have implemented any A/B testing, such as testing for Smart Retry, you can use this chart to do a comparison of customer groups.

  • Customer Groups

    Metrics comparison among active customer groups. 

The following icons next to the metrics provide visual cues to indicate the change in values over the last 30 days, which are helpful to provide insights into the progress and efficiency of the retry strategies:

  • A green and up arrow indicates the number is trending up and showing a positive increase.
  • A red and up arrow indicates the number is trending up and showing a negative impact.
  • A green and down arrow indicates the number is trending down and showing a positive decrease.
  • A red and down arrow indicates the number is trending down and showing a negative impact.
  • A neutral sign is shown when there is no shift in the rate.

If no data or all data is presented, it is because no payments have been processed through the retry attempt initiated by Configurable Payment Retry. Ensure that you have properly configured Configurable Payment Retry. After the configuration is done and payments begin to be processed, relevant data will be populated and updated daily.

Example lockbox scenarios

The following scenarios explain what happens when certain information matches or doesn't match. The scenarios column describes the data coming into the lockbox, and the result column explains what the lockbox application does with the payment.

Scenarios Account Invoice Date Amount Result
When the account and invoice number are correct. A00003054 Z-11472-INV-00000051 11/29/2022 10.00 Payment is created on the correct invoice.
When the account number is blank.  

Z-11472-INV-00000051

11/29/2022 20.00 Payment is created on the correct invoice.
When the account number is bad. BAD123 Z-11472-INV-00000051 11/29/2022 30.00 Payment is created on the correct invoice.
When the account number is wrong. A00003070 Z-11472-INV-00000051 11/29/2022 40.00 Payment is created on the correct invoice.
When the invoice number is blank. A00003054   11/29/2022 50.00 Payment created as unapplied payment on account.
When the invoice number is bad. A00003054 BAD456 11/29/2022 60.00 Payment created as unapplied payment on account.
When the invoice number is wrong and already paid. A00003054 Z-11472-INV-00000050 11/29/2022 70.00 Payment created as unapplied payment on account.
When the wrong invoice is for a different account. A00003054 Z-11472-INV-00000059 11/29/2022 80.00 Payment is created on the wrong invoice on a different account.

With Invoice Settlement Enabled
When the process by invoice is first selected, this is expected result. If needed, the customer billing team can manually unapply payment from the wrong invoice and then reapply payment to the correct invoice on the correct account.

Without Invoice Settlement
External Refund and new external payment.
 
With a blank account and invoice number.     11/29/2022 90.00 The payment failed - expected.
With a bad account and bad invoice number. BAD123 BAD456 11/29/2022 100.00 The payment failed - expected.