A billing run’s status tells you where the run is in its process. Its statistics show how the planned actions ended. This article explains those statuses and statistics, what the emailed report means, and why a run can show an error while actions continue finishing in the background.
Reading a Run's Statistics
On a run’s page (Billing › Search › the run's name in the results), the Statistics tab counts the run’s planned actions by task and outcome: Pending, Processing, Error, Excluded, Successful, and Total. It also includes a totals row for all actions. If the run has no actions, the tab shows “No statistics are available for this billing run” instead of a table.
If Rhythm skips a member during execution because their expiration date changed after the run was planned, the statistics count that member as an error instead of putting them in a separate skipped category.
The Statistics and Actions tabs show what the run did, but they do not show whether a billing notice was opened or clicked. To see that engagement detail, open the recipient’s contact record and check the Email tab.
If someone pays a renewal afterward by check, ACH, or available account credit instead of through checkout, the run’s statistics may not show that payment the same way a checkout payment appears. Use these counts as a guide to what the run processed, not as a complete record of every payment that eventually came in.
When a Run Is Considered Finished
A run that is executing moves to completed after every planned action has an outcome, whether each action succeeded or not. If you cancel a run while it is still executing, Rhythm removes the remaining pending actions, and the run stays cancelled instead of moving to completed.
Cancel Run is available on a run’s page in any status. What it removes depends on where the run is in its process:
- On a run that is still executing, it deletes actions that have not yet been picked up. Actions already in progress continue until they reach their own outcome.
- On a run that already finished, it changes that finished run’s status to cancelled.
- On a run that ended in an error, it removes the pending actions that a later recovery attempt would otherwise use.
Cancelling a run only changes that run’s status and removes its pending actions. It does not cancel or reverse renewal orders or pro forma invoices the run already generated. To reverse one of those, open it from its own Order 360 page and use Cancel Order there instead.
Rhythm declares a run timed out and ended if it has been running for more than thirty minutes, or if it shows no progress across two checks ten seconds apart. Some actions may still be running in the background when that happens, so charges, notices, and drops can continue to finish after the run itself has stopped. You cannot resume or execute a timed-out run again. The error status can remain even when most notices went out and at least one member’s renewal order processed successfully; there is currently no way to mark that run completed afterward.
Warning
If a billing run reports an error, that does not always mean nothing happened. Check the Actions tab for each member’s actual outcome before you assume members were not billed, reminded, or dropped. Rhythm records the run’s status separately from each individual action’s outcome.
Some loading messages about a run do not mean processing failed. Right after you schedule a drop or terminate run, it has been reported to briefly show an “Unable to load billing run” message or a 403-style loading error. When that happens, the message is usually cosmetic, and the run itself continues and completes successfully. Separately, if the Actions tab shows “Unable to load actions” after a run appears to have finished, the page may be affected by a brief network interruption, a temporary loading delay, or something browser-specific, such as an extension or stale page state. Reload the page, wait a short time and try again, or open the run in a different or private browser to rule out those causes. If the message does not clear up, contact Support so they can check the run from their side.
If a run ends with a General Error, first check for an easy-to-correct cause, such as a setting one of the run’s actions depends on. You cannot execute the timed-out run again, but after you correct the setting, check the Actions tab to confirm what actually completed. Then create and run a new billing run for the remaining members, which typically finishes the work without sending notices manually.
If you try to plan, refresh, or execute a run when its current status does not allow that action, Rhythm refuses the attempt and records that refusal as the run’s own failure.
What the Emailed Reports Say
If the run has a notification email address, Rhythm emails that address when the run’s plan is ready. This email is sent when pre-processing actually finishes, not on the run’s scheduled date. If you scheduled pre-processing well ahead of the run date, the email can arrive earlier than the date on the run suggests. Rhythm emails the notification address again when the run finishes, whether the run completed successfully, failed, or timed out.
A failure report includes the error that caused the failure. When a run times out instead of failing with a specific error, there is no specific error to include, so the failure report says “General Error.”
A success report is sent once the run has no pending actions left. The run still counts as successful for this report even if every individual action ended in an error, because “successful” means the run finished processing its plan, not that every action succeeded. To confirm whether members were actually billed, reminded, or dropped, check the Statistics and Actions tabs instead of relying on the report alone.
Related
For what a run's plan is built from and what refreshing it changes, see How a Billing Run Plans and Refreshes Its Actions. For what happens when a planned renewal order or charge is actually processed, see How a Billing Run Bills and Charges Members.