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.

Note

A plan does not need Stripe. Instalments are kept by any payment you record, however it arrived.

Credit notes adjust their original invoice and do not have a balance to chase, pay or write off. They cannot receive reminder sequences, payment plans or late fees. Review the original invoice or any separate credit on the client account. See Credit notes.

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.
• A note, for what was agreed and with whom.

The invoice form schedules the full amount due. The public API also supports scheduling a smaller agreed amount. A plan cannot exceed the amount due.

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

Open Finance > Invoices, choose the invoice and expand Payment options and collections. Choose Activate the plan on the proposed schedule. If its total now exceeds the invoice balance, cancel the proposal and create a new one for the remaining balance.

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

1. Open the invoice and expand Payment options and collections, or open the plan in Finance > Payments.
2. Choose Cancel the plan.
3. Enter a reason of up to 500 characters, then choose Cancel the plan in the confirmation. Choose Cancel to close it and keep the plan.

Cancelling stops the remaining schedule and starts reminders again. Paid instalments keep their payment history, and the invoice balance does not change.

If the save fails, the confirmation shows why and keeps your reason. Review the current plan before trying again. Closing and reopening the confirmation clears the old reason and error. Moving to another invoice or organisation closes it.

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.

A payment recorded while the plan is active updates the invoice and the oldest unpaid instalments together. This includes payments entered with Record a payment and receipts confirmed through Bank Reconciliation. Part payments can combine to settle an instalment. The same recorded receipt is applied to the plan only once. Completing a plan resumes reminders if the invoice still has a balance.

Payments recorded before activation are already reflected in the invoice balance. They do not count again towards a later plan.

Refunds and reversed receipts update the unpaid schedule when the returned payment belonged to the current active plan. Credits, credit notes and write-offs reduce its unpaid amount. A plan for part of the debt stays limited to that agreement. When no scheduled amount remains, the plan completes and reminders resume if the invoice still has a balance.

Paid instalments keep their receipt history. Completed, defaulted and cancelled plans are not reopened by later adjustments. If you need a new agreement for returned debt, propose a new plan for the verified balance.

For older payments or adjustments that were not reflected in the schedule, check the agreement against the invoice and recorded cash. Cancel and propose a new plan where needed. Do not record the payment again to repair a schedule.

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

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

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

Charge interest on what stays overdue with Late Fees, or go back to the ageing in Getting Paid.

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.