Configure Credit Card Dunning

Dunning for credit cards lets you control how past-due Subscriptions are handled when automatic card payments fail. This article walks through selecting or customizing a dunning strategy, configuring email settings, and defining retry and final-step behavior. You’ll learn how to tune timing, messages, and actions (cancel vs. mark unpaid), as well as how to test dunning flows with sample payment data and dynamic email variables.

To access the Dunning settings, go to Config > Retries & Dunning.

For more information on how to configure dunning for ACH and other strategies, please our specific sections that deal with dunning for ACH or dunning for Direct Debit.

Selecting a Dunning Strategy

To get you started, Advanced Billing has put together some pre-configured dunning strategies for Credit Card and Remittance. Simply click Create Schedule.

By default, the preset strategies do not send emails on their retry steps. Each step starts with email notifications turned off. After selecting a strategy, you can enable emails for individual steps and customize the templates as needed.

Select Trigger Options

Depending on your site configuration and enabled payment methods, you may see several options when setting up a dunning strategy. These can include:     

• Mid-period Component Allocation
  Start the dunning when a mid-period component allocation payment fails.
• Awaiting signup Payment Failure
  Start the dunning when a sign-up payment fails.
• Trigger Dunning For Backdated Subscriptions
  Start the dunning for backdated subscriptions on their first charge.

If you prefer an immediate response to failed renewals, you may also select the None strategy, which cancels immediately on failure.

Availability of these options varies based on your billing setup and gateway configuration.

Configure your dunning triggers here

Use triggers to start a Dunning Schedule in scenarios beyond a standard renewal failure. These options appear under Advanced Settings when you create or edit a Dunning Schedule.

Mid-period Component Allocation

Start dunning when a mid-period component allocation charge fails. This applies to component allocations that attempt immediate payment and fail with a non-zero amount. That includes quantity-based components, on/off components, prepaid allocations, and certain prepaid components that capture charges at allocation time. Usage types that do not attempt immediate capture will not trigger dunning.

How it works: When this is enabled, allocation charges that attempt immediate payment and fail can initiate the Dunning Schedule tied to the subscription. This helps recover revenue from component changes that occur during the billing period. If the allocation is set to accrue instead of charge immediately, the dunning configuration does not apply to that allocation.

Availability: Only available for **Credit Card** Dunning Schedules.

Group behavior: If the primary subscription fails an allocation payment, the entire group can enter dunning. If a member subscription fails an allocation payment, only that member enters dunning.

Awaiting Signup Payment Failure

Start dunning when an initial payment fails for a subscription that is in the awaiting signup state.

How it works: When enabled, a failed signup payment can enter the Dunning Schedule rather than immediately canceling the subscription. If the option is off, the subscription is canceled after a failed signup payment.

Availability: Only available when delayed signup is enabled for the site.

Trigger Dunning for Backdated Subscriptions

Start dunning when a **backdated** subscription fails its first payment.

How it works: When enabled, a backdated subscription can enter dunning (for example, move to a past-due state) if the initial payment attempt fails. If the option is off, the backdated subscription will not enter dunning on that failure.

Availability: Only available for sites with dynamic subscription creation enabled, and not available for Remittance Dunning Schedules.

Tips

• Additional Triggers apply to the Dunning Schedule that matches the subscription’s collection method and product scope.
• Use these options to align recovery workflows with your billing model (e.g., mid-period allocation charges versus delayed signups).
• If a subscription renews while already past due from a component allocation failure, the Dunning Schedule continues and does not reset for the renewal failure.

Retry and Dunning Schedule

Advanced Billing determines the correct dunning step based on how long the subscription has been past due and your current schedule settings. Because the step is always calculated from today’s timeline rather than stored as historical state, updates to your schedule may change on which step a subscription appears to be.

When a subscription’s period ends, the normal renewal process attempts to charge the card on file. If that attempt results in a failure (i.e. a processor “decline”), the subscription becomes “past due”. Advanced Billing will automatically retry the failed charge according to the schedule you configure in this section. After all the steps in this schedule have been completed, you can take a “final action” on the subscription and optionally send an email.

If a subscription reaches its regular renewal date while in dunning and there is no scheduled dunning step for that day, the renewal attempt still runs as normal. If the renewal attempt fails, the subscription remains in dunning and continues following the next scheduled dunning step.

To send an email without retrying the payment, disable the “Retry Payment” slider. This will turn off the payment retry for that dunning step.

To add an email to a retry step, move the “Send Email” slider to on to launch the email editor. Within the email editor, you can customize the subject and body of the email. You can also create a custom layout to personalize the look and feel of the email.

After adding or editing a new dunning email via the email editor, you will be able to choose whether or not to be BCC’d on this email. This email has access to custom parameters as defined in the section on Customizing Dunning Emails.

Edit the step, configure the day of the dunning email

Edit the contents of the dunning email.

Editing the dunning email template

Final Step

Select the day you would like Advanced Billing to perform before you take a “Final Step”. Entering “1” in this box will cause the final action to be taken upon the very first failed attempt to renew, i.e. every step in the Retry and Dunning Schedule will be ignored.

Next, select the Final Action to take. You can either cancel the subscription or mark the subscription unpaid.

• When you cancel the subscription, the subscription will transition to the ‘canceled’ state and it will cease to accrue any new charges. No more attempts will be made to collect the balance due. A canceled subscription can be later Reactivated.
• When you mark the subscription unpaid, the subscription will transition to the ‘unpaid’ state, but it will continue to accrue new charges. No more attempts will be made to collect the balance due. An unpaid subscription can be moved back to active by either applying for a payment, retrying the renewal (and receiving a successful payment), or zeroing out the balance and retrying the renewal.

Finally, you may optionally specify an email to be sent upon the execution of the final action.

When you select a final action, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the differences between the unpaid and the canceled states. For more information on subscription states, please view our subscription state documentation.