Create payment schedules
The Payment Schedules feature provides you the capability to create payment schedules through both the Zuora UI and REST API.
- You can create both recurring payment schedules and custom payment schedules through the Zuora UI and REST API.
- You can create more than one payment schedules at once through the REST API. See Create multiple payment schedules at once for more information.
When creating a payment schedule, you have the flexibility to create different types of payments:
- Payments on a single invoice or debit memo
- Unapplied payments
- Standalone payments
The support for standalone payments is in the Early Adopter phase. To manage and access the self-serve interface, see Feature Management.
See Payment Schedules overview for more information about the Payment Schedules feature.
To create a payment schedule through the REST API, use the Create a payment schedule operation.
Create recurring payment schedules through Zuora UI
To create a recurring payment schedule through the Zuora UI, perform the following steps:
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In the left navigation section, navigate to Payments > Payment Schedules.
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On the Payment Schedules page, click New Payment Schedule. The Create New Payment Schedule page is displayed.
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In the Basic Information section, specify the following information:
- From the Customer Account list, select the customer account that you want to create a payment schedule for. Alternatively, you can click Search… next to the Customer Account list, and then search for and select a customer account in the Search Customer Account window that opens.
- If you want to create standalone payments without associating the payment schedule with any billing documents, select the Standalone checkbox. If you leave Standalone unchecked and at the same time don’t select any billing document, the payment schedule will create payment schedule items that create unapplied payments.
- Leave the Is Custom checkbox unselected.
- In the Start date field, specify the date that you want to collect the first payment.
- In the Occurrences field, specify the number of recurring payment schedule items to be created starting from the start date and within the recurring period specified.
- From the Period list, select the frequency of payment collection starting from the start date: Monthly, Weekly, or BiWeekly. By default, Weekly is selected.
- In the Run Hour field, specify the hour of the day in the tenant’s time zone when the payment is collected. Available values are the integers from 0 - 23. The default value of this field is 0. Note: If the time difference between your tenant’s timezone and the timezone where Zuora servers are is not in full hours, for example, 2.5 hours, the payment schedule items will be triggered half hour later than your scheduled time.
- In the Type of Amount field, specify the total amount of the payment schedule or the amount to be collected from each payment schedule item.
- From the Currency list, select the currency that applies to the payment.
- From the Payment Gateway list, select the payment gateway that processes the payment.
- From the Payment Method list, select the payment method that you want to collect the payment. Note: You can select either electronic payment methods or external payment methods. When an external payment method is selected, the Payment Gateway field will be ignored and no payment will be created.
- Check the Prepayment checkbox if you want to use the payment schedule to add reserved payments to the customer account. For more information, see Prepaid Cash with Drawdown.
- Optional: In the Description field, specify a description of the payment schedule.
- If you have configured custom fields specific to payment schedules, specify information about these custom fields in the expanded Additional Fields subsection. Note: The values will automatically be pushed to payment schedule items if the same fields exist at the payment schedule item level.
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In the Invoice/Debit Memo Selection section, select the billing documents that you want to collect payments for during the payment schedule.
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Click Save Changes to save the configurations of the payment schedule. The payment schedule is then created.
Create custom payment schedules through Zuora UI
To create a custom payment schedule through the Zuora UI, perform the following steps:
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In the left navigation section, navigate to Payments > Payment Schedules.
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On the Payment Schedules page, click New Payment Schedule. The Create New Payment Schedule page is displayed.
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In the Basic Information section, specify the following information:
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From the Customer Account list, select the customer account that you want to create a payment schedule for.
Alternatively, you can click Search… next to the Customer Account list, and then search for and select a customer account in the Search Customer Account window that opens. -
Select the Is Custom checkbox.
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If you want to create standalone payments without associating the payment schedule with any billing documents, select the Standalone checkbox.
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If you have configured custom fields specific to payment schedules, specify information about these custom fields in the expanded Additional Fields subsection.
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In the Payment Schedule Items section, add custom payment schedule items.
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Click New Payment Schedule Item.
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In the New Payment Schedule Item window that opens, specify the following information:
- In the Collection Date field, specify the date that you want to collect the payment.
- In the Run Hour field, specify the hour of the day in the tenant’s time zone when the payment is collected. Available values are the integers from 0 - 23. The default value of this field is 0. Note that If the time difference between your tenant’s timezone and the timezone where Zuora servers are is not in full hours, for example, 2.5 hours, the payment schedule items will be triggered half hour later than your scheduled time.
- In the Amount field, specify the amount of the payment that is collected.
- From the Currency list, select the currency that applies to the payment.
- From the Payment Gateway list, select the payment gateway that processes the payment.
- From the Payment Method list, select the payment method that you want to collect the payment. Note: You can select either electronic payment methods or external payment methods. When an external payment method is selected, the Payment Gateway field will be ignored and no payment will be created.
- Optional: In the Description field, specify a description of the payment schedule.
- Click Save to save the configurations.
- Repeat steps 4.a and 4.b to add more payment schedule items as needed.
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In the Invoice/Debit Memo Selection section, select the billing documents that you want to collect payments for during the payment schedule. You can associate multiple billing documents to a payment schedule item.
- Click Save Changes to save the configurations. The payment schedule is created.
Important notes
When creating payment schedules, keep the following restrictions and limitations in mind:
- If Standalone Payment is enabled, you can choose to use payment schedules to process payments associated with billing documents, standalone payments, or unapplied payments. If Standalone Payment is not enabled, you can only use payment schedules to process unapplied payments or payments associated with billing documents.
- Make sure the billing documents associated with payment schedules have met the following requirements:
- The balance of the billing document must not be 0.
- The status of the billing document must be
Posted
. - The billing document and the payment schedule must belong to the same customer account.
- When the payment schedule items of the payment schedules that are associated with billing documents are processed, the following rules apply to the payments created:
- If the billing document’s balance is 0, the current payment schedule item will be skipped.
- If the document balance is greater than or equal to the amount of the payment schedule item, the item will be processed to create a payment against the billing document.
- If the document balance is less than the amount of the payment schedule item. A payment with the amount specified in the item will be created. The payment will be applied to the billing document to pay all the remaining balance of the document. The remaining amount on the payment will be kept as unapplied amount.
- External payment methods can be specified for payment schedule items during the creation of payment schedules. If you’ve specified an external payment method, the Payment Gateway field will be ignored and NO payment will be generated from the payment schedule items. The payment schedule will be in pending status. However, you can link external payments to the payment schedule items with external payment methods.
- To avoid the invoice from being picked up by a regular payment run, set the Auto Pay field value to NO in the corresponding invoice.
If you set the Auto Pay field value to YES, the regular payment run picks up the invoices for processing. In that case, the full remaining payment balance is collected from the customer via regular payment run.