CardPointe allows you to create Billing plans for recurring payments through the CardPointe virtual terminal and in this video, updated for 2021, we’ll go through how to do it. 

This function is great for your company charges customers periodically for products, services, memberships or subscriptions and you’d like to automate the billing process so you don’t have to manually type the credit cards each month. 

FEATURED VIDEO

Using billing plans with CardPointe is the proper way to store and encrypt cardholder data within the Cardpointe system so you never have to worry about your customer’s data being compromised. 

As a quick reminder to remain PCI compliant, you never want to store cardholder data in paper files or on your own company servers.

Here’s how you do it!

Once you’re logged into CardPointe, click on the Virtual Terminal tab in the main menu and select the billing plan tab from the Sub Menu as shown here. 

To create a plan, just click the NEW BILLING PLAN button and this screen will load. 

This page will look and feel very similar to the virtual terminal because it’s the same information. 

If you’re creating a payment plan for a previously stored client or customer and they are stored in the customer vault already, you can simply search here and click to auto load the customer profile. 

If you haven’t seen the Tutorial on how to store customer profiles, click the card on the screen or the link in the description to watch that video

If you’re creating a billing plan for a new customer enter the customer information manually. 

Next you’re ready for the PLAN OPTIONS section so just scroll down

The first option you have is to choose whether to email a receipt every time the customer is charged.  Just check the box for yes and uncheck for no. 

Under the PLAN SCHEDULING section just select the frequency of the charge that you’d like and your choices are: 

• Daily
• Weekly
• Monthly
• Yearly

Let’s choose monthly for this example.

Next choose the date you wish to start the billing plan by typing in the date, or clicking on the calendar icon and selecting it from the quick calendar selection tool. 

Then you’ll choose the frequency of “monthly” billing in this case, under the “bill every” field.

In our monthly billing example if I want billing every month, I’ll leave it as 1, but If I want to bill every OTHER month, id l change this to a 2.  If you want to bill quarterly, you’ll choose 3… and so on.

Next fill in the dollar amount of the billing plan and a BILLING SCHEDULE PREVIEW will show up on the right.   This shows you a forecast of the payment plan that you are setting up. 

If I change this payment frequency or any of the variables the BILLING SCHEDULE PREVIEW automatically updates. 

***Remember that if you elect to a start billing plan in a month with 31 days and you choose  the 31st day as the billing day, the system will auto select to charge the last day of the month for every charge. 

However, if you  start the plan on the 30th day in a month with only 30 days, the system will keep the billing date on the 30th with the exception in both cases of February, where it will charge on the 28th. 

It’s always best to just set the dollar amount and the frequency as you’d like it and check the Billing Schedule Preview to make sure it’s accurate. 

The field labeled UNTIL allows you to select the duration of the billing plan. In other words, the number of payments. 

 By default it is set to “UNTIL CANCELLED”  which of course means that these payments will just keep on going until you manually change it.

You can select a specific date for the plan to stop and you can also pick a number of payments as well. 

So between the frequency of billing and the other options listed, you can customize the billing plan to whatever option you see fit for your situation. 

A new update for 2021, is that since the billing plans tab operates within the CardPointe Virtual Terminal there is a requirement to check this box that says Cardholder has given verbal or written permission to save their profile and all associated cards at all locations. 

You’re simply confirming that you have your customer’s consent to store their card and bill them accordingly. 

Finally click “Save Plan” and it will be added to your Scheduled Payments tab. 

Individual transactions that are charged within a billing plan, show up in the reporting tab and are added to normal batches. 

If a payment fails to charge within a set billing plan, the system won’t recharge the card for that payment so you must manually re-authorize the charge. 

Under the SCHEDULED PAYMENTS tab, you can view all of your payment plans. 

You can search for a cardholder in the search box and when selected, all information for that cardholder will auto populate.  

In order to cancel the plan, just click on the plan ID to open the Billing Plan Details page and then simply click on CANCEL PLAN. 

If you  want to edit the credit card on file for the customer and assign it to the current billing plan, you can click EDIT PAYMENT ACCOUNT and come over here to add the card. 

So that’s how you  create billing plans and recurring charges within CardPointe virtual terminal.

CardPointe offers a Hosted Payment Page as well, and there is also a billing plan function within that hosted payment page, so if you haven’t seen that video, it will be linked in the description and it’s clickable on the screen.