What This Does
After a payment finishes processing, Rhythm automatically emails a receipt to the payer using your association's payment receipt template.
That automatic receipt applies to payments made directly against an invoice, such as an open balance paid from Receive Payment. When someone pays during checkout for an order, such as a membership or event purchase, Rhythm sends an order confirmation instead because that confirmation already includes the payment details. Your payment gateway may also send its own receipt for the transaction, and Rhythm does not send a separate invoice for an order that is already paid.
If someone pays an order balance later, after the order exists as an open invoice, Rhythm sends a payment receipt then, just like any other invoice payment. A receipt belongs to the payment, so one payment, such as a single check, creates one receipt even when it covers multiple invoices or invoices for different organizations. The receipt lists those invoices together instead of splitting them into separate receipts.
For a Rhythm Pay payment, the receipt shows the card type and last four digits, and the related order receipt shows them too. For a purchase that used inline bundling, the receipt shows the bundled item with the main package line item.
Staff can resend a receipt at any time to the payer, someone else, or both. You can also print or download the receipt, and members and organization contacts can download their own receipts from the Portal.
When to Use It (and Not)
Use this when a payer asks for another copy, when you corrected a payment and want to send an updated receipt, or when you need a printed or downloaded copy for your records.
You do not need to send the first receipt after a payment. Rhythm sends it automatically when the payer has an email address on file and the receipt checkbox was checked when the payment was taken.
Prerequisites
- You can open the payment's page in Finance & Billing › Transactions.
- The payment's business unit should have a payment receipt template set up if you want the receipt to use your association's layout. If it does not, Rhythm uses a built-in layout.
Steps
- Go to Finance & Billing › Transactions and open the payment.
- From Payment Options, choose Email Receipt.
- Review the pre-filled recipient, sender, subject, and body. Change the recipient's address, add other recipients, or edit the text as needed.
- Select Send Email.
Variants
- Printing instead of emailing. From Payment Options, choose Print Receipt to open the receipt in a new browser tab, then print or save it.
- A member downloading their own receipt. In the Portal, open the payment from your recent payments list, then select Download to open the receipt.
- A payment taken at the time it's received. On Receive Payment, Send a payment receipt to the payee is checked by default. Leave it checked if you want Rhythm to email the payer's receipt as soon as the payment is processed, or uncheck it if you do not want Rhythm to send one automatically.
- Setting up payment email alerts for someone else. If a user has not turned on their own payment email alerts, an administrator can log in as that user and turn the alerts on for them.
Result
The receipt opens in a new browser tab for printing or download, or Rhythm emails it to the addresses you specified. The receipt uses the template for the payment's business unit, or Rhythm's built-in layout if that business unit does not have one set up.
Side Effects
When you email a receipt this way, Rhythm sends it as a regular email through your association's account. The email is addressed to the payer by default, and you can add other recipients before you send it.
What to Do If It Fails
Rhythm can't send the receipt because the payer has no email address. Add an email address to the payer's contact record, then try again. You can also print the receipt and share it another way.
Printing or downloading fails. Try again. If it keeps failing, contact Support.
The payer didn't get an automatic receipt after paying. Check that they have an email address on file and that Send a payment receipt to the payee was checked when the payment was entered. You can always send the receipt again from the payment's page.
The receipt is missing the card type or last four digits. Some payment records and receipts have not shown a card's type or last four digits for certain transactions, even while older records still showed them. A related change also affected Payment 360 screens and transaction reports for a period. When an issue like this is corrected, the fix applies to future transactions and receipts. Records from before the fix are not automatically backfilled, so an older receipt can keep missing those details permanently. If you find an affected historical receipt, contact Support; they may be able to add the missing digits to that specific record.
The payer didn't get an automatic receipt after paying. Check that they have an email address on file and that Send a payment receipt to the payee was checked when the payment was entered. If it still does not arrive, check spam or junk folders because receipt emails are sometimes filtered there or delayed. You can always send the receipt again from the payment's page.
The receipt won't open, but the payment shows in your payment gateway. As a temporary workaround, send the receipt directly from your payment gateway so the payer still has a record, then contact Support about the Rhythm receipt.
An older payment's receipt doesn't show the card type or last four digits. Card detail display on receipts has changed over time. Resending or reprinting an older receipt does not update it with current formatting because it reflects the payment's original processing.
The card brand shown on a receipt or payment record doesn't match what your processor shows. This is a known issue: the receipt or payment record can display a different card brand than the one actually used, even though the payment itself processed correctly. Contact Support if you notice this.
An order confirmation shows card details, but the payment never went through. A confirmation email that lists the card's last four digits does not guarantee the payment was captured by your payment processor. If you are not sure the payment processed, check it directly in Finance & Billing › Transactions instead of relying on the confirmation email alone.
A payment failed and you're not sure why. Note the exact steps you took and copy the full error message before contacting Support. A general description like "payment failed" usually is not enough to diagnose the issue.
A retry shows a duplicate transaction error instead of a receipt. That message comes directly from your payment gateway, not from Rhythm, so the exact wording depends on your processor rather than anything the receipt controls.