When the ‘Auto charge’ checkbox is enabled under System > Settings > Accounting > General, any Clients with a valid Direct Debit or credit/debit card can be automatically charged for their Invoices.
Note: this checkbox applies to every Client with a saved payment method, not just the Clients you had in mind. If you only want some Clients auto charged, leave this checkbox unticked and use the per-Client ‘Auto charge override’ described below instead.
Which of those two methods is used depends on the Client's default payment method, set under People > Clients > select the Client > Actions > Edit Profile > Accounting & Client Manager.
Note: Direct Debit is never used to Auto Charge an Invoice raised using Split Payments or Automated Payouts, which includes every Invoice raised while operating as an Employment Agency. Those Invoices can only be paid through Stripe. If such a Client has Direct Debit set as their default payment method, Auto Charge will not collect the Invoice at all - it will simply remain Unpaid, with no error shown. To have these Invoices collected automatically, the Client needs saved card details and their default payment method set to card.
The deferral period is controlled by the ‘Auto charge and deferred payment delay’ field in the same place, which defaults to 5 days. The minimum value allowed is 0, which means the Client’s primary payment method will be charged approximately two hours after the Invoice is raised. For example, setting a value of 5 applies a five-day delay before the charge is attempted.
Note: the ‘Auto charge and deferred payment delay’ field controls the delay only, and that delay applies only to payments taken through Stripe. It does not set the delay for Direct Debit payments, where the timing is controlled by GoCardless instead - this does not mean Auto Charge is unavailable for Direct Debit. The same delay is also used when you take payment on an Invoice using the ‘Take Deferred Payment’ option.
Auto charge enabled & a custom deferred payment delay set, under System > Settings > Accounting > General.
What happens when an Invoice is raised with Auto Charge on
When you raise an Invoice under Accounting > Draft Invoices for a Client who will be auto charged, that Invoice is given a Pending status rather than Unpaid, and its charge date is worked out and stored on the Invoice at that moment. Pending Invoices are listed under Accounting > Raised Invoices on the ‘Pending’ tab.
Note: a Client cannot pay an Invoice while it is Pending. Pending Invoices do not appear on the ‘Unpaid Invoices & Credit Requests’ panel of the Client dashboard, so there is no ‘Pay Now’ button for them, and the secure link in a payment request email will not collect payment for them either. If a Client needs to pay before the charge date, cancel the pending payment first.
Note: because the charge date is stored on each Invoice when it is raised, changing the ‘Auto charge and deferred payment delay’ field afterwards has no effect on Invoices that are already Pending. Those keep the delay that applied when they were raised. The new value only applies to Invoices raised after the change.
Cancelling a pending payment
To stop a Pending Invoice being auto charged, or to let a Client pay it now, go to Accounting > Raised Invoices, open the ‘Pending’ tab, select the Invoice, then click Actions and select Cancel Pending Payment. The Invoice returns to an Unpaid status, its scheduled charge date is cleared, and it will not be auto charged later.
Once it is Unpaid you can collect it yourself under Actions > Take payment, or leave it for the Client to pay. For a Credit Request, the same option is found under Accounting > Raised Credit Requests.
Auto charging only some Clients
You can override Auto Charge settings for individual Clients. To do this, go to People > Clients > select the Client > Actions > Edit Profile. Under the ‘Accounting & Client Manager’ tab, use the ‘Auto charge override’ dropdown menu to enable or disable Auto Charge specifically for that Client.
The dropdown has three options:
Follow the Branch setting - the Client is auto charged only if the ‘Auto charge’ checkbox is ticked under System > Settings > Accounting > General. This is the default.
Override: Client will be Autocharged - the Client is always auto charged, even when the Branch checkbox is unticked.
Override: Client will not be Autocharged - the Client is never auto charged, even when the Branch checkbox is ticked.
So to auto charge one Client and leave everyone else as they are, leave the ‘Auto charge’ checkbox unticked under System > Settings > Accounting > General and set that single Client's override to ‘Override: Client will be Autocharged’.
An example of the Auto Charge Override setting in a Client's profile.
Clients will be informed that Auto Charge is enabled when they pay an Invoice and choose to save their card details for future payments.