Real-World Example
ABC Collections is charged for its monthly membership renewal. The charge should appear in Billing History with the amount, status, and invoice option. If that renewal payment fails and the plan expires, ABC Collections should see the failed record and be able to retry the payment after confirming a valid membership payment method exists. If a weekly platform or Additional Hosted Account payment fails, the situation is different: the creditor is sent to a billing-resolution page, the complete unpaid balance remains visible, and normal portal work is restricted until that balance is paid.Visual Flow
Billing Categories
Failed Weekly Platform Payments
The recovery flow applies to weekly platform usage and Additional Hosted Account charges. Membership renewals and membership-plan add-ons keep their existing separate billing flows. Campaign payments remain prepaid. If a campaign payment fails, that campaign is not sent, but the creditor’s membership and platform access are not changed by the campaign failure.Billing Records and Invoices
Each billing record should identify its type, billing date and period, invoice number, amount, status, payment method summary, invoice availability, and retry status. Invoices must remain tied to the charge that generated them and should be downloadable only when the creditor is authorized and the file exists. A weekly platform payment appears as one billing record because it is one actual provider charge. The creditor can expand that record to reconcile the total against its component line items, including consumer payment share, profile and automated communications, member notifications, secure payment vault hosting, and delivered EcoLetters. Multiple provider charges made on the same date remain separate records.How It Should Work
- It should show billing records for the creditor’s company.
- It should show one row per actual charge rather than one row per charge category.
- It should allow a weekly platform row to expand into its component line items.
- The expanded line items and downloaded invoice should total exactly to the recorded charge.
- It should include membership billing, YouNegotiate share billing, communication-related billing, and over-limit billing where applicable.
- It should allow invoice downloads for supported billing records.
- It should allow billing history export when records exist.
- It should allow failed membership payment reprocessing only when payment is actually due.
- A retry should require a current valid payment method and keep failed attempts visible for audit review.
- A successful retry should update the billing record and restore the related plan or billing state when applicable.
- Failed weekly platform and Additional Hosted Account charges should be combined into one outstanding balance for the creditor.
- A credit-card balance should be retried only on Days 2, 4, 6, and 7. Later scheduled contacts are notices, not payment attempts.
- An ACH balance should never be retried automatically; it should follow the same notice dates.
- The billing-resolution page should remain available while normal portal work is restricted, together with payment-method update, support, and logout.
- Full access should return only after the complete outstanding balance is paid.
- Billing cases, attempts, notices, and history should remain available for audit review.
How It Should Not Work
- It should not show billing records from another creditor.
- It should not allow invoice downloads for records that do not exist.
- It should not retry a payment when no payment is due.
- It should not retry a failed payment without a valid membership payment method.
- It should not retry against an expired, invalid, or missing payment method.
- It should not show invoice totals that disagree with the related billing record.
- It should not combine separate charges merely because they occurred on the same date.
- It should not export an empty billing history as if it contains records.
- It should not send duplicate notices for the same scheduled day.
- It should not restore portal access after a partial payment.
- It should not automatically close a creditor account on Day 14.
- It should not automatically delete consumers or payment methods because a weekly platform payment remains unpaid.
- It should not apply these rules to membership renewals, membership-plan add-ons, or prepaid campaign failures.
A future membership option may charge a per-account amount for each active account. That option is planned product work and is not part of this failed-payment recovery flow.