Payment Plans
A payment plan splits what a client owes on one invoice into scheduled instalments. It is an agreement about timing, not a change to the invoice: the number, the total and the document all stay exactly as they were issued.
Creating, activating and cancelling a plan needs finance:manage_receivables.
Proposing a plan
Section titled “Proposing a plan”A plan can be put on any open invoice, and an invoice can have only one live plan at a time. You choose:
- How many instalments, from 2 to 60.
- The cadence: weekly, fortnightly or monthly. A monthly plan starting on the 31st clamps to the last day in short months.
- The first due date.
- How much, if you are scheduling less than the full balance. A plan can never be for more than the amount due.
- A note, for what was agreed and with whom.
Instalments always add up to the total exactly. Where the split does not divide evenly, the odd cents land on the earliest instalments, so the final due date clears the balance rather than leaving a stray amount behind.
A new plan is proposed, and a proposed plan collects nothing and changes nothing. Someone has to activate it.
Ru can draft a plan proposal for you as part of a collections message. A draft is exactly that: nothing is created and nothing is sent until you act on it.
Activating it
Section titled “Activating it”Activating a plan pauses the invoice’s reminder sequence, so the client is not chased while they are keeping to what you agreed. See Getting Paid for how reminder sequences work.
Cancelling a plan asks for a reason and starts reminders again.
Instalments are expectations, not cash
Section titled “Instalments are expectations, not cash”Making a plan does not move any money, and an instalment is never marked settled by the schedule itself. The only thing that settles an instalment is a real payment allocated to that invoice, whether you record it by hand, it arrives from the accounting sync, or the client pays it online once that is available.
That keeps the two things separate: the invoice’s balance is the truth about what is owed, and the plan is the truth about when it was meant to arrive.
If a credit note or a refund changes the balance, the plan rebalances the instalments that are still open. Instalments already settled are never rewritten, and no instalment ever goes negative.
When an instalment is missed
Section titled “When an instalment is missed”An instalment is missed when its due date has passed in your organisation’s own calendar and it has not been fully settled.
Two things deliberately do not count as missed:
- an invoice that is disputed; and
- a payment that is still processing on a bank rail, because the settlement that clears the instalment may yet arrive.
When an instalment is missed, the plan is marked defaulted and the invoice’s reminders start again from where the sequence left off. Nothing is written off and nothing is added: the debt is exactly what it was.
Plans and late fees
Section titled “Plans and late fees”While a plan is active, no late fee interval is assessed on that invoice. The client is keeping to an arrangement, so Runnit does not charge interest on top of it.
If the plan defaults, that protection ends and the invoice is assessable again from its next interval. See Late Fees.
What the client sees
Section titled “What the client sees”In the client portal, a client with billing access sees the plan, each instalment, its due date and amount, and whether it is settled. They never see your notes about the arrangement. See Client Portal Billing.
Next step
Section titled “Next step”Charge interest on what stays overdue with Late Fees, or go back to the ageing in Getting Paid.
Help from Ru
Section titled “Help from Ru”In a workspace conversation, Ru can explain plans and create or cancel a plan when you authorise it and hold the required permission. Activating automatic collection stays in the payment workflow. See Finance with Ru.