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.
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.
Clients will be informed that Auto Charge is enabled when they pay an Invoice and choose to save their card details for future payments.
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.
An example of the Auto Charge Override setting in a Client's profile.