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Manage recurring billing/payments for memberships and subscriptions

Richard Abujasen
Updated

In OptiMantra, you can set up and manage recurring billing and payments to support your memberships or subscriptions.

 

Setting Up Recurring Payments

If you are interested in utilizing recurring payment installments toward a large superbill balance, please take a look at our article Schedule Installment Payments from the Superbill.

 

To set up recurring payments, you need to access the patient’s Take Card Payment button. This can be obtained two different ways. 

  1. If you are already taking a payment (e.g., running the first month’s subscription) in a superbill, you can also set up the recurring payment in the same place.

 

  1. Otherwise you can select the Patient’s Actions menu (the three horizontal bars) like so:

Then select Point of Sale > Take Card Payment

 

Once you have accessed the Take Card Payment screen, confirm your payment processor (Authorize.net, Fiserv, or Stripe) is visible in the dropdown on the top-right. Then, you will see the Create Recurring Payment button; this button will open a pop-up box to create a recurring payment. Patients must have a card on file or credit card information must be added while creating the recurring payment. 
 

 

For your recurring payment, decide on the:

  • Type: Would you like to repeatedly charge them for a service, one of your packages or create a credit memo for them to utilize on a different visit?

    • Service - any service from your Services (Fee Schedule) can be charged (e.g., weight loss membership fee)

    • Packages - assign another package to the patient's account for each recurring payment, so during their next visit individual services from the package can be ticked off by clicking the Subscribed Packages button at the top right of the Superbill (e.g. IV Monthly Package)

    • Credit - will create a credit memo in a Superbill for the amount of the recurring charge  (e.g., each month the recurring payment adds $100 to the patient's account to use on a future visit or the clinic can apply this credit to pay off a previous balance)

  • Optionally, Service: Choose the service or package they are receiving from the dropdown

  • Subscription Title: What do you want to call this subscription? E.g., "Gold Membership", "Monthly IV Package" - make it something you'll easily be able to understand and reference later on 

  • Recurring amount: How much are you charging? (Do not adjust package prices manually, since those should only be discounted when created in the Settings)

  • Payment repeats: And how often?

  • Start date: When do you want the payments to start? You have two main options.

    • Take the first payment by Superbill today, start the subscription the following month. If a patient pays for the first month that day, set the start date to the following month. (E.g. today is July 2nd, so set the recurring payments to start on August 2nd) 

    • Start the subscription tomorrow (don’t take payment today). If you set the start day for tomorrow, since you can not pick today, then the first payment will run the following day. Make sure you do not also check out the patient on the Superbill or you’ll be double charging them their first month.

    • Keep in mind that the payment processors will be notified to run the transaction on the same date each month, but it takes 12-24 hours to settle, so the Superbill is usually created in OptiMantra the following day. (E.g. the subscription runs on the 2nd of each month, so after it settles the Superbill will appear on the 3rd or possibly 4th of each month)

  • Total number of payments: How many payments before the subscription expires? 

    • If you want the payments to continue for a long time, just put 100

    • If this is a time-bound recurring payment - e.g., for payment plans or 1-year memberships - put the number of payments you’d like to see

For each recurring payment, the program will create an entry in the patient’s Card Payment History and will create a superbill.
 

All of this can help you better manage and track your membership programs from within OptiMantra!

 

 

Viewing All Subscriptions

 

Once you are using our subscriptions feature, you can view the status of all of your Subscriptions under Shortcuts > Billing and Sales > Subscriptions.

From here you can view the subscription title, amount, how often payment is run, number of payments, active status, all transactions, and edit the subscription 

Please review the Status of your subscriptions regularly. A dashboard of each status can be found at the top of the page, clicking one will allow you to quickly view a list of subscriptions with the related status.

 

 

  • Suspended - These subscriptions require action to renew. They have been suspended by the payment gateway and will be terminated if the issue is not resolved.
  • Overdue - This status indicates a payment was missed for the current billing period and must be collected manually. Future renewals will continue automatically as scheduled.
  • Declined - This status means a payment attempt was declined by the card issuer and may require further review. If the card remains valid, the subscription will renew as scheduled; however, the declined payment must be collected manually.
  • Other Issues - This status indicates a payment-related issue that requires attention, such as an expired card or a card that needs to be re-saved on file.

 

 

Subscription Status — Processing status of a subscription.

  • Active - The subscription is being processed successfully according to schedule.

  • Suspended- The subscription is currently suspended due to a transaction decline, rejection, or error. Suspended subscriptions must be reactivated before the next scheduled transaction or the subscription will be terminated (see below) by the payment gateway.

    • Once a subscription is suspended, you can update the card information under the Shortcuts > Admin > Subscriptions, then you can reactivate the subscription inside of your payment processing account; however,  to ensure the client is not double charged and there is no confusion with the card processor we suggest instead:

      • Disable the subscription in Optimantra.

      • Cancel recurring payment in your payment processing account

      • Manually charge them for this month.

      • Recreate the recurring payment to start NEXT month.

  • Terminated - The suspended subscription has been terminated by the payment gateway. Terminated subscriptions cannot be reactivated. If necessary, they can be recreated.

  • Canceled - The subscription has been manually canceled by the merchant. Canceled subscriptions cannot be reactivated. If necessary, they can be recreated.

  • Expired - The subscription has successfully completed its billing schedule. Expired subscriptions cannot be renewed but can be recreated.

 

 Managing Your Recurring Subscriptions - 3 Critical Steps

 

With recurring subscriptions, expired, failing and declining cards are par for the course, so you need to keep an eye on your subscriptions. Follow our recommendations below to make this quick and painless
 

  • Set up notifications - one time quick and easy!
    • Make sure you have notifications enabled with your merchant processor
    • For Fiserv, 
      • Go to CardPointe (your Fiserv portal)
      • Under Administration > Users (add a new user if you want to have someone else monitor subscriptions) > Click on the User name > Email Notifications (or watch this quick summary)
      • We recommend you select (at a minimum) 
        • Declined Transaction, 
        • Rejected Transactions, 
        • Batch Summary, 
        • Statement
      • Too many notifications? you can always come back and adjust this!
  • Make sure you set up your subscriptions correctly - every time
    • Run the first month and save the card on file to make sure that the card is valid and payment is taken
    • Then, set up your recurring to run the next month, same day
  • Have a weekly review process - block off a review once a week
    • This is critical to catch mistakes and missed payments early!
      • A member of the team needs to review subscriptions at least once a week 
      • Block off a consistent time to review and take action on cards that have expired, failed, declined or suspended
      • If a subscription renewal failed or suspended, you will need to take action -
        • Run it manually - you may need to get a new card and save it to the patient profile.
        • If the card remains valid, the following month's payment will be collected automatically at the next scheduled renewal

 

 

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