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Create Payment Runs

Zuora

Create Payment Runs

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Payment runs pick up invoices for accounts that have auto-pay enabled and charges them for the amount on the invoice. Auto-pay is enabled in each individual customer account. To automate your payment processing, you can schedule payment runs to execute on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis for any duration of time. 

The following sections describe how to create a payment run and a scheduled payment run through Zuora UI. You can also create custom payment runs through Zuora REST API. See Create Custom Payment Runs through Zuora REST API for details.

Create a Payment Run

The payment run is an asynchronous process running in the background, which means you can continue to use the Zuora application while the payment run is running.

  • You must have the Manage Payment Runs permission to be able to create, edit, cancel, and delete payments runs. This permission is enabled by default. When disabled, you can only view and download payment runs. An error message is returned if you try to perform actions for which you do not have permission. You must contact your Zuora tenant administrator to request a change to your user permissions.
  • When no payment profile is applied to a subscription, the payment run uses the default payment method. In such cases a standalone payment profile will be created for invoice within that subscription.

To create a payment run:

  1. Navigate to Payments > Payment Runs in the left navigation section.
  2. Click new payment run.
  3. Select whether you want to create a payment run for Multiple Customer Accounts or Single Customer Account.
    • If you select Multiple Customer Accounts, you can select All Customer Accounts, or filter by batch, bill cycle day, currency, payment gateway, or invoices in a bill run. If the Multiple Currencies feature is enabled, you can filter the accounts by currency based on the customer's billing document.
    • If you select Single Customer Account, search for the customer account to use.
  4. Optionally, select Apply Credit Balance to the invoice before attempting payment.

    The target date of the payment run must be on or before the date when the payment run is executed. Otherwise, the invoice might be charged by using an electronic payment method rather than by applying the credit balance. For example, if the payment run is executed on September 2 but you set the target date of the payment run to September 3, the credit balance amount might not be applied to the invoice.

  5. Optionally, select Process a single Payment for all Invoices that are due on an account.
  6. Optionally, select Process payments even if the default payment method is closed. If you select this option, the payment run will attempt to process a payment even if the default payment method is closed. When enabled, this will force a payment that will likely decline. However, there are use cases where an error payment is desired. Contact Zuora Global Support for more information.
  7. If you have the Invoice Settlement feature enabled, the following options are available:
    • Auto-apply unapplied credit memos during payment runs: Select this check box to auto-apply the unapplied credit memos on invoices and debit memos for a customer account. If you select the Exclude from auto apply rules check box when creating a credit memo, this auto-apply rule will not take effect for the credit memo.
    • Auto-apply unapplied payments during payment runs: Select this check box to auto-apply the unapplied payments on invoices and debit memos for a customer account.
    • The payment amount is applied to the invoice based on the Effective Date only.
  8. Enter a Target Date for the payment run.

    The target date is the day you are collecting the payments. The run will collect outstanding invoices that have auto-pay enabled and that have been posted.

  9. Click create payment run.
  10. Upon completion of the payment run, Zuora sends an email notifying you that the payment run has completed.

Create a Scheduled Payment Run

Scheduled payment runs create a new payment run number each time the scheduled payment run executes. When the scheduled payment run executes for that day, week, or month per the schedule, such an executed payment run will show a Completed message if the run was successful or an Error status if the run failed.

Because the next run is in the future, the scheduled payment runs that have not been executed show a status of Pending.

To create a new scheduled payment run:

  1. Navigate to Payments > Payment Runs in the left navigation section.
  2. Click new scheduled payment run.
  3. Perform steps 3-7 from the Create a Payment Run section.
  4. Enter the date on which you want the scheduled payment run to begin. This is the date the first scheduled payment run will launch.

The target date is the day you are collecting the payments for. The run will collect outstanding invoices that have auto-pay enabled and that have been posted.

  1. Select the time of day the scheduled payment run should execute (the time zone is Pacific time).

The time of day should be considered in relation to when a bill run will complete. As one example of a good billing schedule, schedule your bill run at midnight. Allow time in the morning to review your bill run and post at 8 am. Schedule your payment run at 11 am after review.

  1. Determine when the scheduled payment run should repeat by selecting Does not repeat, Daily, Weekly, or Monthly.
    • If you select Does not repeat, you are running what is effectively a single payment run.
    • For Weekly, select the day or days of the week on which the payment run should execute, and enter a range of dates during which the payment runs are to run.
    • For Daily, enter a range of dates during which the payment runs are to run every day.
    • For Monthly, enter a range of dates during which the payment runs are to run every month.
  1. Click create payment run to save and launch the scheduled payment run.

Best practice

To avoid payment processing failure due to applying payments to the same invoice through payment runs and Payment Page one-time payment flow at the same time, plan your payment collection approach to decide which invoices will be collected through which method, and separate your invoices into different groups. When an invoice is being processed by a payment, it is locked and any further payment against the invoice will fail. If you encounter this problem, wait till the current payment is properly finished and process another payment against the invoice.