Set up recurring billing

Create a recurring plan, put a customer on a subscription charged to their saved card, and pause, resume or cancel a subscription or repeating invoice series.

In the sidebar, open Sales & Billing, then Getting Paid, then Recurring. The page address is /payments/recurring. The page heading reads Recurring Billing.

The page holds three kinds of record: Plans (a price that repeats, such as a maintenance plan at $29 a month), Subscriptions (a customer on a plan, charged to a saved card) and Invoice series (an invoice Nova makes again on a schedule).

Before you start

• Nova Payments has to be set up. See Set up Nova Payments.
• Subscriptions, Saved cards and Charge saved cards automatically have to be on under Payment options on the Nova Payments page. See Check on Nova Payments after launch.
• A subscription needs a saved card with future charges allowed. See Save a customer's card for future charges.
• Creating plans and subscriptions are separate permissions. A greyed-out button explains when you hover it.

Steps

To create a plan:

1. Press New plan. The New recurring plan panel opens.
2. Type the Plan name and a Plan code, then the Amount and Currency.
3. Choose the Interval (Daily, Weekly, Monthly or Yearly) and the Interval count, for example 3 and Monthly for every quarter.
4. Add a Description and press Create recurring plan.

To put a customer on it:

1. Press New subscription.
2. Pick the Customer account, the Recurring price and the Saved payment method.
3. Set the Quantity and give it a Subscription label the customer will recognize.
4. Press Create subscription. Nova charges the card each interval.

For recurring invoices sent by email, the delivery message uses the shared formatting editor. On a phone, press Formatting to show the tools. The saved message formatting is reused on each invoice, including a retried delivery, and text delivery uses the plain-text counterpart.

What you see

• The list shows every Record with its Account, Status, a Summary and when it was Updated. Filter it to Invoice series, Subscriptions or Plans, or leave All records.
• A subscription's panel offers Pause collection and Resume collection, Cancel at period end (the customer keeps service until the paid period runs out), Cancel now, and Refresh subscription status.
• An invoice series panel offers Pause series, Resume series and Cancel series, plus Generate invoice now (or Generate and charge now when the series charges a saved card) to make the next invoice without waiting.
• The invoice series controls ask you to confirm before they run. The subscription controls act as soon as you press them, so check which subscription is open first.

If something looks different

• A notice at the top says "Subscriptions are turned off for your business." (or that subscriptions need Saved cards or Charge saved cards automatically, which is turned off): press Turn it on. The Nova Payments page opens on Payment options with that switch highlighted. If the notice says to ask an owner or admin instead, your role cannot change payment settings. If it says Not included in your plan, your plan does not include subscriptions. Invoice series keep working either way. The New subscription panel shows the same notice.
• The notice says Nova Payments isn't set up yet, so subscriptions can't run: press Finish setting up Nova Payments. See Set up Nova Payments.
• New subscription is greyed out: Nova Payments is not ready, one of the switches above is off, or your role cannot create subscriptions. Point at the button to see why. When a switch is off, pressing the button explains which one, and Open Nova Payments settings opens Payment options with that switch highlighted.
• The Saved payment method list is empty for a customer: their card is saved but not authorized for future charges. Save it again with Authorize future charges ticked.
• A subscription shows Action required, Retry scheduled or Failed terminally: a charge did not go through. Open it to see the reason, then ask the customer for a new card.
• You want a repeating invoice rather than a card charge: open an existing invoice and choose Make recurring from its actions menu. The series then appears here under Invoice series.
• A series' card charge is waiting because Nova Payments is paused or closed, or card payments are stopped for now: the charge stays on the invoice already made. When card payments are off for a reason you did not choose (Stripe needs information or is reviewing the account, or Nova Payments is not launched yet), the charge is tried again each day without counting as a failed attempt, and after a week the payment administrators get a message titled Recurring card charges are waiting; its button opens this list, showing invoice series. Generate and charge now (and Generate invoice now) then charges that same invoice once payments are back on, and never makes a second one. While the charge still cannot run, Nova says why, starting "This charge is on hold".
• A series' card is declined: Nova charges the card again on the same invoice a little later, a few times at most, and each try is listed under that run in Recent runs. A decline the bank will never approve (a lost or stolen card, for example) is not tried again: the series stops. When a series stops, after that decline or after the last try, everyone who manages Nova Payments gets a message that the payment failed (its button opens this list of invoice series), and the customer gets an email asking them to update their card, unless Ask customers to update a card that keeps failing is off or the customer has opted out of invoice messages or prefers texts.

Open Recurring Billing