I need to set up an auto-charge payment plan/schedule.
My clients collect deposits from their customers but, they don't collect the full deposit all at once. They collect a down payment, and then the client pays the remaining balance over the course of several months. Once the customer has paid the entire amount, my client then performs the service.
They are currently using Zoho Books recurring billing to create an invoice, which automatically charges the customer's credit card. If the client doesn't pay, the system just keeps creating invoices and attempting to charge the card, which is amassing an insane amount of unpaid invoices, and is overstating revenue. My client doesn't want to cancel the payment plan right away, they want to continue attempting to rebill the customer every month for a time, in an attempt to collect, similar to if a customer's subscription payment fails.
Is there any way to create some type of a recurring subscription or payment plan that automatically charges the customer's payment method, applies the successful payments as a credit to the customer account (NOT TO SALES), and automatically stops once the correct amount or number of successful payments have been collected? If we could set up one retainer invoice, split the amount over X number of payments, and automatically charge the card until the balance has been paid, that would work absolutely perfectly. Or, if retainer invoices could be set up to be automatically recurring, and they could automatically be charged to the payment method on file upon creation, that would also work. Heck, if I could set up payment links to automatically be produced and charged, that would also work, because payment links automatically apply to the customer account as a customer credit.
I really don't understand why this isn't already a feature. I've seen posts going back to 2010 requesting the ability to set up a payment plan. Zoho really needs to get on top of providing some of these features that keep getting requested, over and over.