Collections Management: #3 Tackling Payment Failures

Sam refreshed the dashboard.

"Payment failed".

Same customer. Same subscription. This is happening for the third time. He sends a usual email: "Your renewal payment failed again. Could you please check and retry?"

A couple of days passed, and there was still no response. Sam calls the customer, "Hey, could you update your card details or retry the payment?"

"Oh, yes, yes.. I'll do it today. Just remind me later this evening", the customer responded casually. That "remind me later" became multiple reminders. By the time the payment finally went through, Sam had invested more time following up on one failed transaction than on handling five smooth customers.

At that moment, he realised something important. Failed payments are a niche issue, but following up on them is the real problem.

Dunning to Rescue 

Dunning management in Zoho Billing takes over the moment a payment fails and handles payment recovery automatically. All you need to do is configure the rule for it.

Standard Dunning 

The standard dunning process enables you to configure retries for both online and offline subscriptions.

For online payments, such as card, ACH, and UPI mandates, Zoho Billing automatically retries the payment at predefined intervals, for example, on Days 1, 3, and 7. Whether the payment attempt is successful or not, the customer is eventually notified. The subscription remains active during these retries until it reaches the last and final attempt. Businesses can configure whether the subscription should remain active or be cancelled after all retries are complete.

For offline payments, such as cash or bank transfers, dunning doesn't retry. Instead, Zoho Billing automatically sends follow-up reminders at increasing urgency. Every delayed payment receives a structured and consistent notification sequence. Even for offline dunning, businesses can configure the final action to be taken on the subscription after it has been escalated to the customer.

Advanced Dunning 

Pause & Resume Dunning 

Sometimes, customers genuinely need time to update their payment details, talk to their bank, or resolve a card issue. Now, dunning can be paused for a specific invoice with the following conditions:

• The resume date must be earlier than the next billing date.

• The customer can manually resume the dunning process at any time before the scheduled resume date.

When dunning resumes:

• If the selected resume date falls between scheduled retries, the next retry will occur on the next scheduled retry date.

• If the resume date is after the final retry, Zoho Billing automatically triggers a retry within a day.

This helps businesses stay structured while giving customers time to breathe.

Stop Dunning 

At any point, you can decide to stop pursuing payment retry for an invoice under dunning. Zoho Billing allows you to,

• Stop the dunning process entirely, removing the subscription from the dunning flow.

• Mark the next retry as the final attempt for the auto-charge subscription. 

If the upcoming retry is set as the final attempt (whether successful or not), the configured action under the standard dunning rule for the final action will be triggered.

On-Demand Dunning  

Zoho Billing provides an option to send a link to update payment information when we notify customers of payment failure. This enables customers to update their information instantly without needing to navigate the interface. If a customer updates their card or fixes a billing issue and says, "Can you try charging again now?"

You don't have to wait for the next scheduled dunning to attempt the payment. Zoho Billing offers an On-demand Retry option, enabling businesses to try charging the customer immediately and directly from the invoice. This avoids waiting time and reduces the risk of failure.

Multi-Dunning Rules 

Not all customers should be treated as the same. Some require more time for grace, while others need quick closure. Zoho Billing supports multiple dunning rules, allowing businesses to assign different retry strategies to different subscriptions.

Each rule includes:

• A personalised retry schedule (number of retries + interval)

• Unique email template for communication.

• Criteria that determine when the rule applies.

• Priority order (Zoho matches rules based on priority)

You can set these criteria based on,

• Customers

• Subscriptions

• Plans or Product

• Invoice value

• Currency

• Billing Frequency.

A total of six unique rules can be created, including the default one. High-value customers can receive more retries and personalised emails, while other customers can have shorter cycles.

​
Reports Based on Dunning 

When payment fails or an invoice enters a dunning cycle, it's more about the retries than the visibility that a business should get. The Under-Risk report in Zoho Billing provides businesses with a real-time view of all transactions currently under the dunning process. It highlights which customers are at risk of churn or suspension, how long payments have been pending and which retry stage each invoice is in.

​
To track down customers who dropped off due to churn, Zoho Billing offers the Churned after Retries report. This report helps businesses re-engage with those customers, as the downgrade/churn was not intended to occur. This gives a high chance of winning them back.

​
What Dunning Management Does to Business 

With these capabilities, Zoho Billing shifts the handling of failed payments from a reactive to a proactive approach. Payment retries are automated, and customers receive notifications without requiring manual intervention. Businesses can pause, stop or define a final retry action. Sending personalised emails and providing time for customers based on their worth ensures reliability and trust.

On the whole, the automated dunning process helps businesses to keep the payment process organised and, at the same time, reduce the risk of losing control over failing payments.

 

Up Next: Collection as a Journey

 

 

• Topic Participants

• Hari Hara Sudhan. S

  

• Sticky Posts

• Community Learning Series | Digest #5 — September 2020

  Dear customers, We're happy to bring you the September edition of our #CommunityDigest! Keep track of your subscription KPIs right from your smartphone: Last month, we enhanced our Android mobile app to help our customers get daily updates on their business health. We got to know from a lot of customers that this has made their job much more easier because they no longer have to keep a reminder to manually check on the previous day's revenue or activations. If you have not downloaded it yet, here's

• Community Learning Series | Digest #4 - August 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. I'm happy to bring you the fourth edition of our #CommunityDigest with some brand-new updates from us. 1. Daily Business Updates (for Android users) The Zoho Subscriptions Android app has got a cool new update: You can now get a push notification to your smartphone that lets you know how many activations and cancellations have taken place, and what's the net revenue for the previous day. The best part is, you can tell the app when exactly you

• Community Learning Series | Digest #3 - July 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you're staying safe and healthy. We're glad to bring you the July edition of our #CommunityDigest. New community members can view our previous newsletters here. This time, we have two major updates and three interesting topics for you: 1. Zoho Subscriptions Developer Community Since the inception of Zoho Subscriptions, our team believed that the recurring billing platform we provide should be able to offer an extensive API library that empowers businesses to automate most

• Introducing: Community Learning Series | Digest #1 - May 2020

  Dear customers, We hope you are staying safe and healthy. Helping businesses manage their customer subscriptions more efficiently has always been, and always will be, our goal at Zoho Subscriptions. We strongly believe this is possible if we grow together as a community and share what we know with each other. To nurture this shared learning experience, here is our brand-new Community Learning Series! ​ Welcome to the first edition of our digest! Each edition of our community digest includes guides

• Recent Topics

• Actual vs Minimum

  Hi all, I am sure I am not the only one having this need. We are implementing billing on a 30-minute increment, with a minimum of 30 minutes per ticket. My question is, is there a way to create a formula or function to track both the minimum bill vs the

• Multiple header in the quote table???

  Hello, Is it possible in Zoho CRM to add multiple headers or sections within the Quote product table, so that when the quote is printed it shows separate sections (for example “Products” and “Services”)? To clarify, I’m asking because: This does not appear

• One Support Email Managed By Multiple Departments

  Hello,  We use one support email (support@company.com). Incoming emails come to the "Support Department" and based on what the customer is asking, we route that ticket to different departments (billing, technical support, etc.). When users in these different

• RSC Connectivity Linkedin Recruiter RPS

  It seems there's a bit of a push from Linkedin Talent Solutions to keep integrations moving. My Account Manager confirmed that Zoho Recruit is a Certified Linkedin Linkedin Partner but does not have RSC as of yet., (we knew that :-) She encouraged me

• Error AS101 when adding new email alias

  Hi, I am trying to add apple@(mydomain).com The error AS101 is shown while I try to add the alias.

• New UI in Zoho One CRM

  Hello, Just switched to the new UI for Zoho One CRM, do not like it, especially the search functions. What are the steps to backstep to the previous UI? UPDATE: I found it.

• ZOHO.CRM.UI.Record.open not working properly

  I have a Zoho CRM Widget and in it I have a block where it will open the blocks Meeting like below block.addEventListener("click", () => { ZOHO.CRM.UI.Record.open({ Entity: "Events", RecordID: meeting.id }).catch(err => { console.error("Open record failed:",

• Python - code studio

  Hi, I see the code studio is "coming soon". We have some files that will require some more complex transformation, is this feature far off? It appears to have been released in Zoho Analytics already

• 🚀 WorkDrive 6.0 (Phase 1): Empowering Teams with Content Intelligence, Automation, Accessibility, and Control

  Hello, everyone! WorkDrive continues to evolve from a robust file management solution into an intelligent, secure, and connected content collaboration platform for modern businesses. Our goal remains unchanged: to simplify teamwork, strengthen data security,

• Introducing Workqueue: your all-in-one view to manage daily work

  Hello all, We’re excited to introduce a major productivity boost to your CRM experience: Workqueue, a dynamic, all-in-one workspace that brings every important sales activity, approval, and follow-up right to your fingertips. What is Workqueue? Sales

• Department Overview by Modified Time

  We are trying to create visuals to show the work our agents do in Zoho Desk. Using Zoho Analytics how can we create a Department Overview per modified time and not ticket created time? In order for us to get an accurate view of the work our agents are

• Zoho Commerce

  Hi, I have zoho one and use Zoho Books. I am very interested in Zoho Commerce , especially with how all is integrated but have a question. I do not want my store to show prices for customers that are not log in. Is there a way to hide the prices if not

• Support Custom Background in Zoho Cliq Video Calls and Meetings

  Hello Zoho Cliq Team, We hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to the video background capabilities in Zoho Cliq, specifically the ability to upload and use custom backgrounds. Current Limitation At present, Zoho Cliq allows

• Upload own Background Image and set Camera to 16:9

  Hi, in all known online meeting tools, I can set up a background image reflecting our corporate design. This doesn't work in Cliq. Additionally, Cliq detects our cameras as 4:3, showing black bars on the right and left sides during the meeting. Where

• ISO 27001 Compliance

  What are people doing to ensure ISO 27001 compliance for their Zoho environments? It would make sense for Log360 Cloud to integrate natively with the Zoho suite, but that is not the case. It requires a gateway cluster, which is not an option for a fully

• Zoho People - Retrieve the Leave Details - get("LeaveCount")

  Hi, Zoho People I need to collect all of an employee's leave requests for the calendar year and check how many half-days they have taken. If I run the script on the query he just modified, I can retrieve the information related to that query and use the

• Export blueprint as a high-resolution PDF or image file

  This would be a good feature for organizations that want to share the blueprint process with their employees but don't want them to have access to the blueprint in the system settings. At the moment all that users can do is screenshot the blueprint or

• Importing into Multiselect Picklist

  Hi, We just completed a trade show and one of the bits of information we collect is tool style. The application supplied by the show set this up as individual questions. For example, if the customer used Thick Turret and Trumpf style but not Thin Turret,

• What's new in Zoho Sheet: Simplify data entry and collaboration

  Hello, Zoho Sheet community! Last year, our team was focused on research and development so we could deliver updates that enhance your spreadsheet experience. This year, we’re excited to deliver those enhancements—but we'll be rolling them out incrementally

• Zoho CRM for Everyone's NextGen UI Gets an Upgrade

  Hello Everyone We've made improvements to Zoho CRM for Everyone's Nextgen UI. These changes are the result of valuable feedback from you where we’ve focused on improving usability, providing wider screen space, and making navigation smoother so everything

• Marketer's Space: New to Campaigns? Some common early mistakes that might occur

  Hello Marketers, Welcome back to another post in Marketer's Space. If you're just getting started with Zoho Campaigns, things can feel exciting and slightly confusing at the same time. You're not alone. Most early frustrations come from setup gaps rather

• This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details

  Hello, Just signed up to ZOHO on a friend's recommendation. Got the TXT part (verified my domain), but whenever I try to add ANY user, I get the error: This user is not allowed to add in Zoho. Please contact support-as@zohocorp.com for further details I have emailed as well and writing here as well because when I searched, I saw many people faced the same issue and instead of email, they got a faster response here. My domain is: raisingreaderspk . com Hope this can be resolved.  Thank you

• New 2026 Application Themes

  Love the new themes - shame you can't get a little more granular with the colours, ie 3 different colours so one for the dropdown menu background. Also, I did have our logo above the application name but it appears you can't change logo placement position

• Workflow Rule - Field Updates: Ability to use Placeholders

  It will be great if you can use placeholder tags to update fields. For example if we want to update a custom field with the client name we can use ${CONTACT.CONTACT_FIRSTNAME}${CONTACT.CONTACT_LASTNAME}, etc

• Need a Universal Search Option in Zohobooks

  Hello Zoho, Need a Universal Search Option in Zohobooks to search across all transactions in our books of accounts. Please do the needful Thanks

• Implement Date-Time-Based Triggers in Zoho Desk

  Dear Zoho Desk Support Team, We are writing to request a new feature that would allow for the creation of workflows triggered by specific date-time conditions. Currently, Zoho Desk does not provide native support for date-time-based triggers, limiting

• Why is my Lookup field not being set through Desk's API?

  Hello, I'm having trouble setting a custom field when creating a Ticket in Zoho Desk. The endpoint I'm consulting is "https://desk.zoho.com/api/v1/tickets" and even though my payload has the right format, with a "cf" key dedicated to all custom fields,

• How exactly does "Reply assistance" work in Zoho Desk? What context is sent to the LLM?

  Hi, Im trying to better understand the technical behavior of the feature "Reply assistance" in Zoho Desk, and I couldn’t find detailed information in the current documentation. Specifically, I have questions about what data is actually being sent to the

• Deletion Workflows

  Hello, Unless I missed it, we can't create deletion workflows. My usecase is to auto-delete junk leads. We have field called lead status, and an agent qualify all our new leads. When it's a junk lead she chose the correspondant value in the picklist. My goal is that the system delete them automatically. Is that possible? Planed ?

• URGENTImpossible to book an appointement

  J'essaie plusieurs fois mais aucun créneau n''est disponible Message d'erreur lorsque j'essaie de sélectionner une date

• Sendpulse SMTP/IMAP Issues

  It’s possible Zoho made some changes on their side. Sometimes, even if your regular password works, Zoho requires an app-specific password for external apps like SendPulse to connect via IMAP. You can create this in Zoho’s security settings and use it

• Insane mail security

  I cannot access my email... anywhere. For some reason the password for the Mail app on my Mac is being rejected, it worked yesterday but now it doesn't? Ok let's try the web interface. I can access my general Zoho login with the password but if I want

• UI issue with Organize Tabs

  When looking at the organize Tabs window (bellow) you can see that some tabs are grayed out. there is also a "Add Module/Web Tab" button. When looking at this screen it's clear that the grayed out tabs can not be removed from the portal user's screen

• Task list flag Internal/External for all phases

  Phases are commonly used in projects to note milestones in the progression of a project, while task lists can be used to group different types of tasks together. It makes sense to be able to define a task list as either internal or external however the

• HAVING PROBLEM WITH SENDING EMAIL

  Hi all, I'm unable to receive emails on info@germanforgirls.eu. I'm getting an error code 550. 5.1.1. invalid email recipients. Moreso, I would like info@germanforgirls.eu to be the default "send from" email and not solomon@germanforgirls.eu. Kindly see

• Sharing my portal URL with clients outside the project

  Hi I need help making my project public for anyone to check on my task. I'm a freelance artist and I use trello to keep track on my client's projects however I wanted to do an upgrade. Went on here and so far I'm loving it. However, I'm having an issue sharing my url to those to see progress. They said they needed an account to access my project. How do I fix this? Without them needing an account.

• Different Task Layouts for Subtasks

  I was wondering how it would be possible for a subtask to have a different task layout to the parent task.

• Subscription went to default (@zoho.com) address instead for custom domain

  Hello! So I bought a lite sub to test things out, wanting to use my own domain. However, after passing through all the verification steps (completed now), it seems that the sub I bought was assigned to the default email that I already had with Zoho and

• Canvas templates and font-family

  i dont understant why its always the smallest things that waste all of my time! why in some videos i see they have tamplates in the Canvas editor and i cant seem to fint it? and why oih why cant i cange the font? i just want simple Arial! help meeeeeeeeee

• Re: Ca.gory groups and not all email addresses being added to a group emails

  Hi, I have added emails under 'Contacts' into categories but when sending a group email and putting the category name in not all email addresses go onto the email. I have refreshed the page, deleted and redone the info etc with no luck. I only found out

• Next Page