Collections Management: #4 Before, During & After Payment Processing

"Mark, I think the payment link isn't working. Can you send it again?" Staring at a message, Mark got on his phone. This was the third time the same customer had asked him that week.

A few minutes later, another message came, "Hey, the invoice total seems different this month. Can you check?" Before he could respond, a new email appeared: "Our payment failed. Should we try again or wait?"

Mark leaned back in his chair and laughed, certainly not from humour but with exhaustion. Payments were supposed to be simple. Why so many questions, interruptions, and follow-ups? "Isn't payment just, send invoice ---> customer pays ---> done?" he murmured.

But as his business grew, he realised something important. Getting paid is not a simple action; it's a journey that starts even before the customer begins paying for the service. Yes, it starts long before the customer clicks "Pay Now" and it continues long after the money arrives.

It is crucial to analyse where your business needs control and where it needs to be automated. Having a system with that kind of flexibility will definitely help as you scale.

Zoho Billing brings that kind of comfort to business. It doesn't just help in collecting payments; it also allows companies to manage everything before, during, and after the transaction is created.

Before Payment Process 

Preparing Customers for a Smooth Onboarding 

The payment experience begins with the invoice itself. Zoho Billing generates invoices that promptly reflect usage charges, proration, add-ons, discounts, taxes, and more. The accuracy and clarity eliminate billing disputes and prevent the confusion that delays payments, such as "why is this amount different?"

Predictable Billing 

Whether the business uses milestone billing, recurring cycles, a prepaid model or usage-based pricing, Zoho Billing aligns every billing event seamlessly. Even mid-cycle plan changes are recalculated automatically, keeping charges consistent and predictable. 

No/Less Extra Effort for Collection 

Invoices come with embedded payment options, hosted payment pages, and a customer portal, providing customers with immediate access to make payments. They don't need to search for payment instructions.

Proactive Communication 

Zoho Billing handles all reminders leading up to the due date. From invoice notifications to upcoming due alerts and expiring card notices, customers stay informed and prepared, significantly reducing the risk of overdue payments. You can even configure reminders on trial subscription where it will prompt the customer before trial is about to expire.

Reports based on upcoming payments  (Top 3) 

1. AR Ageing Summary: Displays outstanding receivables categorised by the number of days. This helps identify which customers or invoices are approaching overdue status, allowing payment follow-up to begin even before the due date.
   
   
2. Upcoming Renewals: Helps businesses forecast upcoming subscription renewals, ensuring they know who will be charged soon. This works perfectly for pre-payment communication and customer readiness.
   
   
3. Card Expiry: Payment failures mostly happen due to issues with the card or an expired card. This report helps you with the list of customer cards with expiring payment methods. This is crucial in preventing future failed transactions and ensuring smoother upcoming payments.

During Payment Process 

Multiple Payment Methods 

Zoho Billing integrates with multiple payment methods/gateways, including Stripe, Razorpay, PayPal, PayTabs, and GoCardless. This gives customers the freedom to pay using cards, UPI, ACH, direct debit or whichever works best for them. The best part is that businesses can now configure a backup payment method in addition to the primary payment method in use. This helps increase the likelihood of receiving payment successfully and without requiring manual or retry attempts.

Effortless Auto-pay 

Once a customer approves a payment mandate, Zoho Billing automatically handles renewals. Payments are charged on schedule without customer intervention, ensuring predictable cash flow.

Intelligent Failure Handling 

If a payment fails, Zoho Billing instantly captures the failure reason, notifies the customer, and triggers the configured dunning process. Customer can update their payment method directly from the notification. Retries occur automatically based on predefined rules, converting failures into recoveries.

Instant Updates 

Successful payments update invoices, issue receipts, trigger provisioning workflows in real time, making everything in sync without any manual effort or follow-up needed.

Reports based on Processing Payment  (Top 3)

1. Payment Received: Displays all recent payments collected, facilitating monitoring of the inflow as payments are processed.
   
   
2. Payment Failures: Essential during the payment phase to identify failed attempts in real-time, enabling quicker resolution or automated dunning actions.
   
   
3. Under Risk:  Displays invoices currently in dunning and at risk of churn. This acts as a key report for understanding which customers are in the middle of the recovery process.

After Payment Process 

Consistent Post Payment Communication 

Zoho Billing automates thank-you messages, renewal confirmations, usage summaries, and future billing reminders. These touchpoints maintain transparency and build customer trust.

Handling Adjustments 

Whether a customer needs a partial refund, a correction or a credit note, Zoho Billing applies all changes while maintaining accurate records across billing and accounting modules.

Visibility on Unpaid Invoices 

Zoho Billing highlights accounts that need attention, allowing businesses to intervene before revenue loss occurs. Invoices that remain unpaid enter an automated dunning flow and appear as overdue, clearly indicating the outstanding receivables.

Reposts based on processed payment  (Top 3)

1. Recognised Revenue: Shows the actual revenue recognised from payments over time. This is a crucial report that provides financial accuracy after payments are complete.
   
   
2. Refund History: Tracks refunds issued to customers. Essential for understanding post-payment adjustments and their impact on customer satisfaction.
   
   
3. Renewal Summary: Shows which subscriptions have been successfully renewed after payment. Critical for recurring revenue tracking and retention analysis.

Zoho Billing Ensuring Seamless Payment Journey 

Zoho Billing brings structure to the entire payment workflow by guiding customers even before a payment attempt is made. It delivers clear invoices, predictable billing cycles and timely reminders that reduce confusion and delays. During the payment process, Zoho Billing eliminates friction with various payment options and provides intelligent handling of failed payment attempts, ensuring the process remains smooth and dependable.

After payment, it maintains accuracy through automated receipts and proper insights on the payments collected. With Zoho billin,g payment collection becomes predictable, automated and friendly with all possibilities to scale in the future.

Up Next: Self-checkout: Next level convenience

 

 

 

• Topic Participants

• Hari Hara Sudhan. S

  

• Sticky Posts

• Zoho Billing will discontinue support for older browser versions soon

  Hello users, Starting from May 15, 2024, Zoho Billing will no longer support the following browser versions: Browsers Version Restrictions Firefox Browser Versions older than 100 Google Chrome Versions older than 100 Microsoft Edge Versions older than

• Introducing Developer Space in Zoho Subscriptions

  Hello devs! At Zoho Subscriptions, we're constantly looking for ways to empower the developer community. Our goal is to provide you with the tools you need to integrate Zoho Subscriptions with your other platforms, and we also want to make it easy to

• Recent Topics

• Add Custom Field Inside Parts Section

  How to Add Custom Field Inside Parts Section in Workorder like Category and Sub- Category

• [Important announcement] Removal of Zoho Writer's DocuFiller Add-on

  Hi users, Effective 21st Feb. 2025, we will be removing the DocuFiller add-on for Zoho Writer's Fillable Templates. From that point on, the add-on's functionalities, such as sharing or publishing fillable forms for data collection and receiving submissions

• Send Automated WhatsApp Messages and Leverage the Improved WhatsApp Templates

  Greetings, I hope all of you are doing well. We're excited to announce a major upgrade to Bigin's WhatsApp integration that brings more flexibility, interactivity, and automation to your customer messaging. WhatsApp message automation You can now use

• Weekly Tips: Manage External Images in Zoho Mail

  When you receive emails every day, whether from clients, newsletters, or services, many of them contain external images that automatically load when you open the message. While this can make emails look more engaging, it can also impact your privacy and

• Implementing a Self-Invoicing/Vendor Portal in Zoho Creator

  Hello Zoho Community / Creator Experts, We would like to build a Self-Invoicing Portal (Vendor Portal) in Zoho Creator for our external contractors. Our goal is to allow approved contractors to log in, submit their invoice details (hours worked, project

• Function #32: Schedule low stock notifications on a timely basis to specific users of the organization

  Hello everyone and welcome back to our series! For a business that heavily relies on inventory, monitoring the stock levels and getting timely notifications of low stock items will ensure a smooth sail. Zoho Books allows you to always keep a check on

• Is it really true that I can't set the default 'deposit to' account in 2025?

  I've been using Books for 7 years and the default account has never been a problem. I usually manually reconcile invoices and have never had a thought about which account. It has always been my account. However, I recently noticed that for the past 4

• SINCH HUB MESSAGEMEDIA with ZOHO DESK

  1) what I need from MessageMedia, 2) what I want to confirm on the Zoho Desk Dev Forum. MessageMedia – needs and requirements Goal: Send SMS from a Zoho Desk widget for EU users. Auth: HTTP Basic (API Key + Secret). Keys must not live in the browser.

• Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request.

  Hello, I am trying to set up a webhook to connect with an Salesforce but I receive the following error from Zoho: Configuration failed: 200 response not received for POST request I have tried testing it on webhook.site as well and receive the same error

• Function #46: Auto-Calculate Sales Margin on a Quote

  Welcome back everyone! Last week's function was about displaying the discount amount in words. This week, it's going to be about automatically calculating the sales margin for a particular quote, sales order or an invoice. Business scenario Where there is sales, there's also evaluation and competition between sales reps. A healthy rivalry helps to better motivate your employees to do smart work and close deals faster and more efficiently. But how does a sales rep get evaluated? 90% of the time, it's

• Invalid URL error when embedded sending url into iframe for my website when using in another region

  Hi team, My site is currently working on integrating your signature feature as part of the system functionality, it's working great but recently there's been a problem like this: After successfully creating the document, i will embed a sending url into

• 2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

  In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email

• New features released: Data from Picture for Web, Pattern Fill, and Translation in Zoho Sheet!

  Hello Sheet users, In 2024, the Zoho Sheet team focused on research and development to bring new features that add to functionalities like productivity, data management, collaboration, and more. This year, we're all set to roll them out incrementally

• Kaizen #59 - Creating alerts and custom messages using Client Script

  Hello everyone! We are happy to resume our Zoho CRM Developer Community series - The Kaizen series! Welcome back to the new start of Kaizen! This post is about Client Script and its simple use cases involving ZDK Client functions. What is Client Script?

• [Webinar] Zoho Writer for content creators and publishing houses

  Managing multiple drafts, edits, and client reviews doesn't have to slow you down. Join our upcoming webinar to see how Zoho Writer helps content creators and publishing houses create, edit, and publish seamlessly—all in one place. You'll learn how to:

• Universal search

  Hi, it would be useful if the search bar was universal-so if you entered a term, it would bring up results from contacts, candidates, clients etc all at the same time (but broken down under the relevant headings)

• Attachment reminder?

  My team and I often need to attach files to our messages, e.g. an explanatory screenshot or a shipping label. More often that I want to admit I mention the attachment but forget to actually attach it. Some email clients have a check-for-missing-attachments

• ZIA in Zoho Cliq

  Is It possible to use the ZIA feature from Zoho Analytics in the Zoho Cliq?

• Automating CRM backup storage?

  Hi there, We've recently set up automatic backups for our Zoho CRM account. We were hoping that the backup functionality would not require any manual work on our end, but it seems that we are always required to download the backups ourselves, store them,

• Multiple upload field CRM

  I desperately need the functionality to add more than one upload field to web to contacts form. How can I do this?

• Critical Need for Global Search in Zoho FSM

  Hello Zoho FSM Team, We are currently in the process of deciding whether to fully transition to Zoho FSM for managing our field service operations. At present, our team actively uses Zoho Desk (with over 50 users) and Service Fusion, which we are considering

• Collections Management: # 1 Payment Collection is All About Convenience

  "Sir, can you come tomorrow? My manager wasn't available for the cheque sign-off", the customer said, avoiding eye contact. Ravi forced a polite smile, but inside, he felt a sense of defeat. He had already visited the customer's office twice in the last

• Can the Product Image on the Quote Template be enlarged

  Hello, I am editing the Quote Template and added ${Products.Product Image} to the line item and the image comes up but it is very tiny. Is there anyway that you can resize this to be larger? Any help would be great! Thanks

• Audio/video quality issues with Zoho Meeting – Any roadmap for improvement?

  Hi Zoho Team, We’ve been using Zoho Meeting for both internal and external meetings, and unfortunately, the experience has been consistently poor. The video and audio quality are so unreliable that it often renders meetings ineffective—especially with

• Cash based businesses cannot use the new fixed asset module

  Hello all, If your bookkeeping is reporting in cash, you cannot use the new fixed acid module, as it does all the depreciation bookings accrual and not cash. This is definitive and you can't turn them into a cash booking. They will never appear in your

• Zoho Learn & Zoho Connect

  Hi, Is there a way to sync the knowledge base we have in Zoho Learn with the manuals section is Zoho Connect? Thanks,

• Apply Payment Received Amount Zoho Books Invoice

  Hello team here is the sample code How can apply the payment received record over a unpaid zoho books invoice. //......................... paymentID = customer_payment.get("payment_id"); organizationID = organization.get("organization_id"); paymentmaplist

• Zoho Books Finance Modules Not Accessible in Zoho CRM Mobile App

  We have integrated Zoho CRM with Zoho Books using the Zoho Finance Suite integration. In the CRM web version, we can see the Finance modules (Estimates/Quotes, Invoices, Sales Orders, Items, Payments) and are able to create invoices and quotes directly

• Making preview pane "stick"

  Hello, Is it possible to fix/dock the preview pane so that it's always there? The modern monitors are all very wide so there's plenty of space horizontally. Having the preview pane disappearing and appearing again when you click on an email message in

• [Live Webinar] New in Zoho WorkDrive: AI enhancements, Data Loss Prevention, Version Controls, and more

  Hello everyone, We're excited to bring you another round of powerful updates in Zoho WorkDrive! Join us on May 15 for an exclusive live webinar where we’ll unveil the latest features designed to enhance your team’s productivity, collaboration, and data

• Live webinar: Streamlining legal operations: Leveraging Zoho WorkDrive for law firm success

  Hello everyone, Managing legal documents across departments and jurisdictions can be complex, but it doesn’t have to be. Join us on March 6 for an exclusive webinar where we’ll show you how Zoho WorkDrive empowers legal teams to stay compliant, organized,

• Live Webinar: Optimizing back-office operations in the manufacturing industry to maximize profitability

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming live webinar on February 6! Discover how Zoho WorkDrive can help manufacturing businesses optimize back-office operations, improve efficiency, and boost profitability. Our product experts will

• Live webinar: 2024 recap of Zoho WorkDrive

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our year-end live webinar! This session will take you through the transformative features and updates we’ve introduced in Zoho WorkDrive this year, helping you streamline document management like never before.

• Live webinar: Explore WorkDrive's seamless integrations with key Zoho apps

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming live webinar, where we'll delve into the seamless integration of WorkDrive with other key Zoho applications! This is a fantastic opportunity to enhance your productivity and streamline your workflows

• Live webinar: Getting the most out of WorkDrive in Zoho Workplace

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming live webinar, where we’ll explore how to maximize your use of WorkDrive as part of the Zoho Workplace bundle. This is a fantastic opportunity to elevate your productivity and streamline your

• Live webinar: Mastering data migration, organization, and team collaboration

  Hello everyone, We’re excited to invite you to our upcoming live webinar! Discover how to seamlessly migrate your data, optimize file organization, and boost team collaboration using Zoho WorkDrive’s powerful features. This is a fantastic opportunity

• BARCODE PICKLIST

  Hello! Does anyone know how the Picklist module works? I tried scanning the barcode using the UPC and EAN codes I added to the item, but it doesn’t work. Which barcode format does this module use for scanning?

• Join our live webinar: Explore the WorkDrive TrueSync application!

  Hello everyone, We are thrilled to invite you to a live webinar focused on mastering the WorkDrive TrueSync application. Discover how to seamlessly sync your content between the cloud and your computer, ensuring smooth and efficient file management. Our

• Bug tracking

  Hi, does anyone know how to track errors during picking or packing? This way I can keep track and see how to improve and prevent errors in this area.

• Zoho Creator customer portal limitation | Zoho One

  I'm asking you all for any feedback as to the logic or reasoning behind drastically limiting portal users when Zoho already meters based on number of records. I'm a single-seat, Zoho One Enterprise license holder. If my portal users are going to add records, wouldn't that increase revenue for Zoho as that is how Creator is monetized? Why limit my customer portal to only THREE external users when more users would equate to more records being entered into the database?!? (See help ticket reply below.)

• Next Page