An installment schedule is Rhythm's record of a customer paying one order in parts. It shows what is still waiting to bill, what has already billed, and what has happened along the way. This article explains how to find and manage a schedule when you already have a link to it.
When to Use This
Use this article to check a schedule's status and history, fix it after a declined payment, or update an unbilled installment's date, amount, billing address, or notes. To bill and charge selected installments now instead of waiting for the next scheduled run, see Process Installments Now.
If an order should have created an installment schedule but did not, there is nothing to edit yet. Cancelling and reprocessing the order is often the fastest way to create the schedule correctly.
Prerequisites
- Permission to view installment schedules, to open one.
- Permission to edit installment schedules, to modify one.
Warning
The Console does not include a list of installment schedules. You can open a schedule only from a link, such as the order it belongs to, an invoice linked to the schedule, or your recent items after you have opened it once.
Tip
A historical payment arrangement brought in from another system may have been migrated as an external payment record instead of a native, order-based installment schedule. If a migrated arrangement does not behave like the schedules covered here, or does not open with the controls this article describes, that is likely why.
Review a Schedule
When you open an installment schedule, you see the customer, the order value, and the schedule's current status. You also see every invoice, payment, and repeat order the schedule has produced so far. The Details tab shows the schedule's status, its saved payment method with the number masked, the amount billed, the amount still outstanding, and the next bill date. The Financials tab lists every related invoice, payment, and order.
One order can produce several installment invoices as the schedule bills over time, so the order's activity is spread across more than one invoice-level record. If you need to see everything billed under one order at a glance, group or count records by Order ID in a query instead of looking for a single combined view. Rhythm does not create one consolidated invoice or summary document that lists every installment payment on a plan, because each installment bills as its own invoice.
Right after a billing run processes a schedule, the Details tab can briefly show Amount Outstanding and Remaining Payments as zero even though the next invoice has already been created and no payment has actually been received. Until you check the related invoice or payment directly, treat those two figures as invoicing details rather than confirmation that money was collected.
If an installment payment is declined, check the Installment Schedule 360 page first. It shows the decline error message, so you can see why the charge failed.
Warning
Payment links on the Financials tab can fail to open because that tab can try to resolve them as invoices, even when the link is really a payment. If a payment link fails here, open the related order and use its Related Transactions tab instead, where the same payment opens correctly.
Edit a Schedule
- Open the schedule and select Modify Schedule.
- Change the billing address or notes, or add, change, or remove an entry that has not billed yet.
- If the schedule has a line that bills every period, you can change how often it recurs and optionally add an end date.
- Save your changes.
Result
Rhythm saves your changes to the schedule's unbilled entries, billing address, and notes.
Warning
The edit page does not check whether your changes still add up to what the customer owes. You can raise, lower, add, or remove installment amounts freely, so double-check the total before you save.
If you only need to stop future charges on a partially paid plan, remove the remaining unbilled entries instead of cancelling the whole order. This leaves the installments already billed and paid untouched while stopping future charges.
Removing a stale unbilled entry also moves the schedule's next bill date forward to the next entry that is still open. That makes later installments eligible for the next billing run. If a later entry already has a processed payment but still shows as open, you may need to remove that entry too before the next bill date recalculates correctly.
If an entry's status does not match what was actually billed or paid, correct the entry on the edit page. Do not work around it with an extra invoice through Process Now or a credit memo, because those options create additional invoice or credit records that a customer can see in the Portal.
What You Can't Change
- A billed entry can't be changed or removed. After an installment bills, its date and amount stay fixed. You can copy it to create a new entry, but you cannot edit or delete the original.
- The payment method is never shown in full. Wherever a schedule shows its saved card or bank account, Rhythm masks the number, so you never see the full number.
- You can't swap or reassign the invoice linked to a specific entry. There is no supported way to relink an entry to a different invoice so that invoice drives the entry's status instead.
- Deleting the schedule itself removes its remaining open installments. If you need billing to stop and later resume, remove or edit the unbilled entries instead of deleting the whole schedule. Once you delete it, there is nothing left to reactivate, and resuming billing means rebuilding the schedule instead of setting it back to Active.
Reactivate a Schedule After a Declined Payment
If a customer's saved payment method fails, Rhythm marks the schedule payment declined or, less often, error, and stops billing it. After you fix the problem, such as adding a new card on file, you can put the schedule back into billing.
- Open the schedule and select Modify Schedule.
- Change Status to Active.
- Save your changes.
Result
The schedule returns to active status and resumes billing on its normal schedule.
Tip
A schedule can move to Active only from Payment Declined, Error, or Suspended. After a schedule is Completed or Cancelled, you cannot reactivate it. A saved query or dashboard KPI that lists schedules in this state may be labeled Failed Installment Schedules; it was previously labeled Suspended Installment Schedules.
Manually collecting or recording payment on the related invoice does not necessarily clear a schedule's Error status by itself. If the schedule was in error because it had no usable payment method, and you have since processed the invoice's payment by hand, you may still need to set the schedule back to Active using the steps above.
If reactivating the schedule does not restore billing and it still does not process as expected, you can try one workaround. Impersonate the customer in the Portal, open the installment schedule there, and re-save the electronic payment method. This can restore processing when the console-side steps above do not.
Replace the Saved Payment Method
From the schedule's Details tab, use Update Payment Method to choose a different saved card or bank account for the same customer. The schedule uses that payment method for charges going forward.
If the contact's card on file changes or is removed elsewhere, the schedule does not automatically pick up the new card. It keeps charging the token it was already given, which can leave an installment entry open with a payment error even after the contact has paid successfully with a different card. Use Update Payment Method to point the schedule to the current card.
If a schedule fails to process with a saved card that should still be valid, reopen Update Payment Method, choose Change, re-select the same saved card, and save. This can clear the error and let missed installments process again. This re-save workaround is specific to cards. A schedule billed by ACH can fail on installments after the first one processes successfully, and re-selecting and saving the same ACH account on the schedule can produce an error instead of fixing it.
Tip
After a payments migration, a member's stored payment method may need to be re-saved before installment charges on it will process again. If installment invoices are going unpaid for members who have not touched their payment method since a migration to Rhythm Payments, ask them to re-save it here.
Stop Future Installments
There are two ways to stop a schedule from billing any further: edit the schedule and delete its open, unbilled entry, or run the Cancel Installment Schedules billing run to cancel matching schedules in bulk. Both are actions you take in the console; the customer cannot cancel their own installment or recurring-donation billing from the Portal.
Related Reading
To bill and charge one or more of a schedule's entries immediately instead of waiting for the next run, see Process Installments Now.