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

• Issues with Zoho Sheet in Mac

  I have downloaded the Zoho App from App Store but It is failing to Save As, Open & Download Operations. App Store

• Weekly Sales Summary

  Is it possible to generate a weekly report in Zoho Books to show -$$ amount of estimates generated -# of estimates generated by Salesperson -$$ amount of Sales Orders created -$$ amount of Invoices generated

• Add Account column to Invoice screen

  Please show the account column on Invoice creation screen. It is an unnecessary step to have to click add additional info and then select the account for line item. Example : on the bill creation screen when entering description we can easily code it against an account. On the invoice screen it requires additional click. Adding the column on the Invoice screen will make it faster to enter transactions. We currently have 5-6 different accounts that we code line items against, You can imagine the extra

• Custom Footer – Zoho Writer Document

  Hello everyone, I’m having an issue adding a custom footer in a Zoho Writer document. I would like to insert my company information (including a logo + address) in the footer. The problem is that when I add these elements, the main content of my pages

• Report grouping

  I have added a grouping in a report but it is not working how i had expected. I wanted to group a summary on a field named Size but when i add the grouping the report is still showing me each record and making a summary at the bottom of the report. What

• Social Media Simplified with Zoho Social: Preview your Instagram grid before posting

  For a platform like Instagram that relies on visual appeal, it's important that you plan your image and video content in a way that holds your audience's attention. Planning your grid ahead of time gives you the benefit of understanding how your posts

• Error code 1000

  Can you please tell me why the following, occasionally causes this error via the api, not every time ?... zoho.books.updateRecord("salesorders",organizationID,salesorderID,{"template_id":"#################069","custom_fields":[{"label":"DelDate","value":"Tuesday,

• VAT rates - exempt and out of scope

  Good Evening, UK based company here. I am a bit confused in respect of setting up VAT rates for exempt goods and services; at present I am simply leaving the VAT rate blank in the transactions in order to prevent any VAT appearing in the VAT return. When

• How to loop through Multiple Upload and Display Actual File Name

  I have been reading the help on the File Upload Control and reviewed the Deluge help on files and I can not figure out how to loop through the uploaded files and do anything but get the automatically created file names. The code below will run but each

• abou arattai

  I want to use the Arattai app for business purposes, so please convert my account to a business account.I have my own invoice app, and I want to link it with the Arattai app for direct messaging.

• Configurable Zoho Cliq Notifications for Zoho People Alerts

  Hello Zoho People Product Team, Greetings and hope you are doing well. We would like to request an enhancement to Zoho People notifications, enabling a native delivery via Zoho Cliq with admin-level control, similar to the notification settings available

• Looking back at Zoho Calendar in 2025

  Hello Zoho Calendar Community, As we step into a brand-new year, we’d like to take a moment to thank you for being an active and valued part of the Zoho Calendar community. Your trust, feedback, and continued engagement motivate us to keep evolving and

• There was an error while connecting to GSTN

  I am trying to file GSTR1. Everything flows smoothly until I reach the final step of filing the return. After I enter the PAN and OTP for filing it raises the error "There was an error while connecting to GSTN"

• Zoho Books Extension: What Happens If Custom Fields Already Exist?

  When developing Zoho Books extensions, what happens if the target Zoho Books organization already has a custom field with the same API name as one defined in the extension? I’m asking because we originally created an on-Books version of this functionality,

• Internal Server Error (500) When Attempting to View Banking Transactions

  I am experiencing an Internal Server Error (500) when attempting to view transactions across all of my banking accounts. Despite multiple attempts to resolve this, I have received little more than runaround from support, and the issue remains unresolved.

• How do I add a blank line to the Organisation Address Format?

  I'd like to have my VAT number, for example, shown prominently by having a clear gap between it and the address block above, but any blank lines in the address format get ignored in PDF outputs.

• Automatic Invoice Number generation for createRecord

  Hello, while testing some custom Buttons in my Zoho Books application, I noticed that I get an error that previously did not occur. After some further digging I found that the automatic transaction numbering of invoices no longer work in my organization.

• Adding number of days to an estimate.

  I need both QTY of item and "number of days hire" in my estimates at the line item level. Any clues as to how this is done would be greatly appreciated. It needs to calculate. Thanks J

• Books Api: listing expenses created after certain dates

  Is there any parameter I can add to the List Expenses endpoint that will let me look up expenses by when they were created?

• Why can't we change the Account type from an Expense to an Asset?

  Like the question. Why in QuickBooks for example if I mistakenly created an account as an expenses and I already captured information in those accounts, I can just change the account type from expense to asset

• Is it possible to do validation for the Actions added to Reports?

  We have an all-around On Validate function that checks all the possibilities before the Created/Edited form submissions. We want to have a button in the report view, so we can change records without entering. We are able to add this button, and it does

• [Free Webinar] Environments in Zoho Creator - Creator Tech Connect

  Hello Everyone, We’re delighted to kick off the 2026 edition of the Zoho Creator Tech Connect Series and are excited to continue this learning journey with you. The Creator Tech Connect series is a free monthly webinar featuring deep-dive technical sessions

• Zoho Voice API SMS

  I made a post request in Zapier to try to send an SMS. Authentication appears to be configured correctly. I followed the documentation and I'm getting a 400 Error "Internal Server Error". Not helpful at all. Anyways, I could not find any information on

• How do I change (error) display messages

  Hi! I would like to edit display messages like "invalid entries" and "enter a value for Nome" and so on into Italian language messages. How can I do that? Already tried on Validate on form submit. Where I am failing? Thanks in advance.

• Record Overseas Transactions Along with CC charges

  Hi All, We receive payments via stripe in multiple currencies and stripe takes around 2.5% fees. The amount is settled in INR into our local bank. What should be the currency of the income account used for Stripe payments? Here is a sample flow that we

• Easier onboarding for new users with stage descriptions

  Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're happy to announce a recent enhancement we've made to Bigin. You can now add descriptions to the stages in your pipeline. Previously, when creating a pipeline, you could only add stages. With this update,

• Pieds de page personnalisé - Document Zoho Writer

  Bonjour à tous, Je rencontre un souci avec l’ajout d’un pied de page personnalisé dans un document Zoho Writer. Je souhaite insérer les informations de mon entreprise (notamment un logo + adresse) dans le pied de page. Le problème, c’est que lorsque j’ajoute

• Credit card transactions are backwards after importing statements

  I am new to Zoho Books so I'm importing my firm's bank and credit card statements in. My credit card statements have a single column with negative numbers so that is the option I chose. But when I went to categorize the credit card transactions, I can

• Permissions on Views

  Having the option of any agent creating custom views is firing back and got a situation where there are a hundred different views across the team and tickets are not being dealt in the most efficient of ways. Tickets seems to be missed by some agents,

• Function #8: Add additional charges to invoices

  Here goes one of the highly sought-after custom functions in Zoho Books. If you find yourself needing to apply additional charges to customers on their invoices (say credit card surcharges, or fuel charges applicable to customers from a certain region,

• Knowledgebase SEO

  We have a custom-domain mapped help center that is not restricted via login. I have some questions: a) will a robots.txt file still allow us to control indexing? b) do we have the ability to edit the sitemap? c) do category URLs get indexed by search

• VIsual maindmaps in Zoho notebook Ai

  Can I create and export VIsual maindmaps in Zoho notebook Ai

• 1stDibs Integration to Zoho Inventory

  Hello is it possible to integrate my Zoho inventory and 1stDibs?

• Community Question: Renewal vs Invoicing

  This is a question for the community. Does anyone else consider there to be a difference between a subscription renewal event and sending out a recurring invoice for a subscription? For example, let's say customer XYZ purchases a 1-year subscription to

• cloud console support for music websites

  Hi Friends, I am not from a very technical background.. So need support from the Zoho family. I want to build a e-commerce website which is in Musical Niche. It will help people learn music & play instruments of all types. There are a few players in the market like Chordify , Guitaa, Guitar Dashboard, ChordU & few others. But I all these websites allow only a few instruments  to play. So I want to build a better  website than the one I mentioned. So wnated to know what UI & AI should I use so that

• Scheduled Reports - Do not send empty report

  Hello, We are intensively using reports in the CRM, especially for sales managers. When data is empty, they still receive an email. Can you add an option to avoid sending the report when data is empty?

• Is Zoho One Desktop more secure than Zoho One Web SaaS?

  Is Zoho One Desktop more secure than using Zoho One in browser? Inherently, it seems desktop would be unless you don't do things like share your pw or leave pc on. I am concerned about data being on the cloud or someone else's server and database.

• Reminder Settings - Time Tracker

  On the time tracker in Reminder Settings I created a reminder according to the Zoho manual. But a manager asked me to change the message that goes in the email. Is it possible to change the message? I didn't find that in the Zoho manual. Another question: I configured to receive the reminder everyone who logged in less than 40 hours. Does Zoho consider less than 40 hours of the current week or the whole month? Another situation, I put it so that I and another specific user would receive the notification,

• Main difference of Zoho Recruit Corporte version and Staffing HR vesion

  Hi Zoho, I need help to fully understand what is the main key point differences of Recruit Corporate version versus the Staffing HR version? We are currently using Corporate HR version and we are looking on having an insightful automated reporting, does

• Out of Stock items showing in Commerce

  I have over 6000 items and most are not in stock, but all items are showing up in Commerce whether they are inventory or not. What option or feature can you use to hide items in Commerce at zero or negative quantities? I currently am using Commerce for

• Next Page