What This Does
Receive Payment is where you record money received for a customer's open invoices. You choose the payer, the payment type, and the amount to apply to each invoice line. For card or bank-account payments, Rhythm charges the payment method. For cash, check, or another offline method, Rhythm records the payment without processing money.
When to Use It (and Not)
Use this task when you need to record a payment against a customer's invoices. The money can come through a card or bank account that Rhythm charges directly, or through a channel Rhythm does not process, such as a mailed check or wire transfer. For a card or electronic check payment, use Add or Choose a Payment Method to Pay as part of this task.
Do not use Receive Payment for something that is not truly a payment, such as an in-kind contribution or another non-cash settlement. Receive Payment does not include a payment type for that kind of value, so use a credit memo or another accounting entry instead.
Prerequisites
- Your association has at least one business unit set up. Rhythm will not process a payment without one.
- You have permission to receive payments in Finance & Billing.
- Your active business unit, shown in the page header, must match the invoice's business unit. If it does not match, Rhythm refuses the payment, so switch to the invoice's business unit before you start.
- For a card or electronic check payment, the business unit must have an active merchant account and a working charge token for the card or bank account you use.
- For an electronic check payment, your payment gateway account needs ACH enabled separately from card processing. If ACH is not enabled, adding a checking account can fail even when card payments work.
Steps
- Go to Finance & Billing › Transactions › Receive Payment. You can also open Receive Payment directly from an invoice. If you start from an invoice, Rhythm selects that invoice for you. If you start from Transactions, you add each invoice yourself.
- Choose the payer. Rhythm loads the payer's open invoice lines and any unused credit. Only invoices with a balance due appear, so a fully paid invoice will not be available to add even if you know its number. The billing address choices come from the payer's contact record, not from a related organization's address.
- Set the Date, Type (for example credit card, check, cash, or one of the other payment types Rhythm offers), and Payment Amount. You can backdate the Date for money you received earlier. That date appears on the transaction later, not the day you enter it.
- For a non-electronic type, choose the Bank Account where the money will be deposited. For a credit card or electronic check, choose the Merchant Account that will charge it. Each payment type lands in a bank or merchant account this way, so you cannot set one up to post directly to a different G/L account, such as an expense account.
- Optionally choose the Batch for the payment. If you leave it blank, Rhythm calculates a default.
- In the invoices and credits lists, check each line you want to apply the payment to. Rhythm fills in the line's full balance, and you can lower the amount. The invoice-line list does not show which individual a line belongs to on a group membership invoice, so check the invoice first if you are applying part of the payment to specific people on a larger invoice.
- If the payment type is a credit card or electronic check, choose a stored payment method or add a new one. See Add or Choose a Payment Method to Pay. Rhythm does not connect to a physical card reader or swiper here, so every card is typed in or already on file.
- Enter a Reference Number if you have one, and add a Memo or Internal Notes if needed.
- Select Process Payment.
Tip
A fully paid invoice still shows a Receive Payment action by default. When you open that action on a paid invoice, Rhythm shows an amount of $0 with nothing to apply instead of hiding the action.
flowchart TD
A[Choose payer] --> B[Set date, type, amount]
B --> C{Payment type}
C -->|Card or electronic check| D[Choose merchant account and payment method]
C -->|Other| E[Choose bank account]
D --> F[Apply to invoices and credits]
E --> F
F --> G[Process Payment]
G --> H[Invoices updated, receipt sent if selected]
Variants
- Recording money that came in outside Rhythm's own processing. Choose a non-electronic Type, such as check, cash, money order, wire transfer, or offline credit card. Rhythm records the amount against the invoice without contacting a payment processor, so a check or cash entry stays in Rhythm's records and never reaches your merchant account. Offline credit card is a Console option for staff only; Portal payers never see it. Use this option for a check, wire, or card charged somewhere other than Rhythm only when the money was genuinely already received. Marking an invoice paid this way treats it as paid everywhere, including in QuickBooks Online if your account syncs there, whether or not the money has actually come in. Add how and where the payment was taken in the Memo or Internal Notes, and set the Date to when the money was received so your books line up correctly. If there is no open invoice yet for what you are recording, create one first and then apply the offline payment to it. Put the external transaction ID or the related record's own ID in the Reference Number, Memo, or Internal Notes field so the entry is easy to trace later. Place it in an archived batch if you want to keep it separate from your normal batch flow.
- ACH versus Electronic Check. These are not the same thing. ACH is one of the offline types: it records that an ACH payment was already received outside Rhythm, without debiting the customer's bank account. Electronic Check is the option tied to entering bank-account information for Rhythm to process and charge directly. Do not record a card that was charged directly with your processor under an ACH batch to represent it. That can make the transaction look like an ACH bank-debit payment in Rhythm even though it was really a card charge; use offline credit card instead.
- Paying in another currency. If the business unit supports more than one currency, you can pay an invoice in a different currency. Rhythm converts the amount at that day's exchange rate and books it in the business unit's own currency. It uses the rate current on the day you process the payment, not the invoice date. When you do not choose a different currency, the payment uses the invoice's own currency automatically. A general working-currency selector elsewhere in the Console does not change the currency recorded for this payment.
- Applying existing credit. Check a line under Outstanding Credits to apply some or all of a customer's unused credit toward the payment, either alongside new money or instead of it.
- Overpaying. If the amount you enter is more than what you apply to invoices and credits, Rhythm warns you that the difference will become a new credit on the customer's account. Once a payment covers more than one invoice, Rhythm cannot later split it back into a separate payment receipt for each invoice. Review the invoices you are applying it to before you process it.
- Receiving payment from the order instead of the invoice. Some orders let you receive payment from the order page instead of the invoice. If a payment attempt on the invoice does not go through, the same payment from the order can succeed, so check that path before escalating a stuck payment.
- Cash payments on an accrual business unit. Taking a payment as cash does not stop Rhythm from creating revenue-recognition deferrals. If the business unit uses accrual accounting, deferrals are created the same way they would be for any other payment type.
Result
The payment is saved with its own number, and the invoices it paid show reduced balances. If you left Send a payment receipt to the payee checked, Rhythm emails the payer a receipt right away.
Side Effects
If Rhythm charges a card or bank account but cannot save the payment afterward, it tries to refund the charge automatically so the customer is not left paying for a payment that never saved. That automatic refund is a best effort, not a guarantee. If the refund also fails, the charge or capture can stay with your processor while Rhythm shows no matching payment, or shows an invoice as paid with a payment record that will not open. If you see that combination — a charge with your processor, no usable payment in Rhythm, an invoice that still offers Receive Payment, or a payment that blocks a cancel or refund — do not retry the charge. Contact Support so they can check the processor and restore or correct the record. Seeing an authorization or a card's details in Rhythm Payments does not, by itself, mean a payment was captured, saved, or applied to an invoice. If the invoice is still open with no related payment, pay it.
A batch with errors can also keep a payment from being officially recorded, even when the payer already received a payment confirmation email showing the amount paid and a zero balance. If a customer's confirmation email does not match the invoice, check the payment's batch before assuming the payment posted.
Two payments that both show as successful in the Console are not necessarily duplicate charges. If the customer submitted two separate applications, orders, or registrations, each one can legitimately create its own successful payment. Check for a second submission before assuming the first attempt failed or created a stray authorization.
A payment stays tied to the organization and record that the invoice or order belonged to when it was paid. If a contact is later moved to a different organization in the CRM, past payments do not move with them. They stay associated with the original invoice or order's organization.
Changing your working business unit partway through Receive Payment, after opening it from an invoice, can cause a merchant-account mismatch error even though the card charge still goes through with your processor. If that happens, the charge may not be recorded against the invoice in the Console, so check the processor and the invoice before charging again.
Occasionally, a payment or order can keep showing an "Open" status even after everything else about it, including a related update such as a membership renewal, has completed successfully. If the balance is actually paid, treat the status label as informational rather than as a sign the payment failed. Confirm the real balance before troubleshooting further.
A declined or failed payment attempt can leave the original sale looking finished to the customer while the invoice or order behind it still shows an open balance. Depending on the situation, you either collect that balance with a new payment or, in some cases, cancel and reprocess the order.
What to Do If It Fails
"You have not selected a payment method." Choose a saved payment method or add a new one before you process a card or electronic check payment.
The selected payment method doesn't have a working token for the merchant account you chose. Choose a different merchant account, choose a different saved method, or have the customer add the card again.
The payment total doesn't match the sum of the lines you selected. Recheck the invoice lines and credits you selected. If you are not intentionally leaving an overpayment as credit, the payment amount must equal the amount you are applying.
You can't pay an imported invoice this way. Invoices brought in through a bulk import cannot be paid through Receive Payment. Contact Support if you need to settle one.
The customer's card was already charged in error, outside Rhythm. Do not try to charge the card again in Rhythm. Record it as an offline credit card payment with the actual charge date, so the invoice shows as paid without Rhythm attempting a second charge.
A payment shows up applied to the wrong invoice. Rhythm does not move a saved payment to a different invoice on its own. The likely cause is that the wrong invoice line was checked during entry. Open the payment and confirm which invoice it should have paid, then correct it.
Before retrying a failed card payment, check whether it already went through. Open the invoice and look for an attached payment before you charge the card again. A payment that looked like it failed may already be saved, with the invoice already marked paid.
A card payment fails with a generic decline and no clear reason. Open the transaction in Rhythm Payments for more detail, including gateway authorization information and any address- or card-code mismatch. If the failure points to a ZIP or postal code mismatch, confirm that the billing ZIP on the card matches what was entered and have the payer retry. Rhythm shows the processor's own error code or message both to the payer and in Rhythm Payments, so that detail is usually the fastest way to identify the specific problem. The on-screen error text by itself is sometimes not enough to diagnose the cause, and Support may ask for a reproducible test transaction alongside a check of the payment record itself.
A transaction is declined for a suspected fraud reason. This can come from the payer's own bank or card issuer, not from Rhythm or your processor. Have the payer contact their bank to check for a fraud alert or a required approval step before trying the card again.
To isolate whether a bank-account (ACH/electronic check) issue is with the gateway or something specific to one payer or scenario, try a low-value test invoice or order and submit a small electronic check payment against it. Then check whether the transaction reaches Rhythm Payments. If the small test goes through, the gateway itself is working, which points to something specific to the original payment instead.
A payment error message says an invalid account number was entered. Verify the bank account or card details against what the payer gave you. If the message does not explain the cause, or the error appears to originate from BluePay specifically, check BluePay directly because the gateway often has more detail on why a specific transaction failed.
Process Payment fails with a message about the total only accepting a limited range of values. This can happen in either the Console or the Portal, including when you use a saved payment method or re-enter the card. Retrying the same amount will not fix it; contact Support with the order or invoice number.
Receiving payment on an adjusted invoice fails. If the invoice was adjusted so that it has no exchange rate, but its total no longer equals its total in the business unit's base currency, payment processing can be refused. Correct the invoice's totals before trying the payment again, or contact Support if you are not sure how.
You need to charge a card while Rhythm's own payment entry isn't working. Some staff have worked around a temporary outage by charging the card directly with Rhythm Payments' own Quick Charge tool, then returning to Receive Payment and recording it as an offline credit card payment with the actual charge date. This is the same approach you would use for any card charged outside Rhythm. After a successful quick charge, go to the open invoice, choose Receive Payment, set the type to offline credit card, and process it so the invoice and anything tied to it, such as a membership, update accordingly.
Saving or charging a card fails for one specific user with a record-not-found style error, and there's no sign of a broader issue. If Support cannot identify a wider payment-structure problem, the practical workaround is to process the charge directly with your payment processor, such as Authorize.Net, and record it in Rhythm as an offline credit card payment with the actual charge date.
A payment exists in Rhythm Payments or with your processor, but the invoice still shows open. Apply an offline credit payment and associate it with the existing payment transaction that was already recorded, so the invoice reconciles without a second charge.
An ACH payment shows an error on submission, but the invoice later shows paid and the money later appears at the bank. Do not assume the transaction failed just because you saw an error. Check the invoice and payment record, along with your bank or processor's settlement records, before retrying or taking any corrective action.
A transaction is held for processor verification review (for example, by Payrix). You cannot force a held transaction through yourself. Confirm with the payer that the charge is legitimate, then contact Rhythm Support and mark it as a verification request with the transaction ID, amount, date, and any supporting documentation. Never include full card details. Rhythm coordinates with the processor from there, and the processor may ask for more documentation before releasing it.
A check payment shows an error in the Console, but the payment actually went through. Check whether the payment is visible and correctly applied before retrying. Occasionally, the visible error comes from an unrelated lookup that runs after the payment is created, not from the payment itself.
A notification email related to Rhythm Payments doesn't arrive, even though your settings look correct. Some of these notifications come from a separate partner system rather than Rhythm directly, so they may need to be escalated outside normal support handling if your settings check out.
What looks like two charges for one card payment is often an authorization and a capture, not a duplicate. Rhythm Payments can show a separate authorization record and a separate capture record for the same transaction. That is expected and is not the same as being charged twice.
Timestamps don't match what you expected when reviewing a payment in Rhythm Payments. Times there may be shown in 24-hour format, so double-check the hour before assuming a payment happened at a different time than it did.
A retry with the same card fails right after a first attempt, with a generic "unable to process transaction" message. Your payment processor's duplicate-transaction or fraud screening can reject a second charge on the same card within a short window of the first attempt. Wait a few minutes before retrying, or have the customer use a different card.
Tip
Payment disputes are handled through your payment processor, such as Rhythm Payments, not in the Rhythm Console. A dispute or chargeback will not show up here, so check your processor's own dispute or chargeback tools instead.
Tip
If a payment was made directly with your payment processor instead of through Rhythm, record it here as an offline credit card payment. For example, use this when Rhythm's card entry was not available at the time. Date the payment to when the charge actually happened, so the invoice balance and your books agree.
Tip
To reconcile your merchant deposits, match each Rhythm payment batch, along with any refunds in it, to the corresponding payout or disbursement in your payment processor, usually daily or weekly. Processor reports do not always include enough identifiers to match a payout directly back to a Rhythm transaction, and authorization timing can differ from settlement and fee timing. If a batch does not reconcile cleanly, gather the specific Rhythm batch, the processor batch, and an example mismatched transaction before contacting Support.