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

• Stop the Workarounds: We Need Native Multi-Step Forms

  After over 17 years of community requests, I'm hoping the Zoho team can finally address the lack of native multi-page form support in Zoho Creator. This has been one of the longest-standing feature requests in the community, with threads spanning nearly

• CRM x WorkDrive: File storage for new CRM signups is now powered by WorkDrive

  Availability Editions: All DCs: All Release plan: Released for new signups in all DCs. It will be enabled for existing users in a phased manner in the upcoming months. Help documentation: Documents in Zoho CRM Manage folders in Documents tab Manage files

• Queries on Project-Based Inventory Consumption and Proforma Invoice in Zoho ERP

  We would appreciate your clarification on how Zoho ERP plans to handle the following: Project-based inventory consumption without itemized sales orders Accurate project cost tracking along with inventory reduction Proforma Invoice usage We look forward

• I can't add a new customer in Zoho invoice? Anyone had this issue before?

  Ive been using Zoho invoice for over 6 years. Today I wanted to add a new customer to send an invoice to but it doesn't save when I try to access it from the pulldown menu when you go to send a new invoice.

• Spreadsheet View click & focus issue in Arabic (RTL) localization

  Hello Zoho Support Team, I am facing an issue in Zoho Creator Spreadsheet View when using Arabic localization (RTL). Scenario: My app supports English (LTR) and Arabic (RTL). I created a Spreadsheet View for a form. In English, everything works correctly.

• Fix the speed

  It takes ages to load on every step even though my dataset is quite small.

• Copy contents of File Upload Field into Workdrive

  Hello, I have set up our CRM so that a Workdrive folder is automatically created for each Deal via workflow, this adds the id of the folder into a dedicated field. We also have a field on each Deal called 'Approved Layout', which is a file upload field.

• Can I add Conditional merge tags on my Templates?

  Hi I was wondering if I can use Conditional Mail Merge tags inside my Email templates/Quotes etc within the CRM? In spanish and in our business we use gender and academic degree salutations , ie: Dr., Dra., Sr., Srta., so the beginning of an email / letter

• Customer address in Zoho Bookings

  Hello,  Is it possible to add customer address information to the Zoho bookings appointment screen? Or have it pull that information automatically from the CRM? We are wanting to use this as a field management software but it is difficult to pull the address from multiple sources when it would be ideal to have a clickable address on the appointment screen that opens up the user's maps.  It would also be advantageous for the "list view" to show appointment times instead of just duration and booking

• Ghost email notification on a form

  Hello, We have recently encountered an error where I can not see a email notification set up for a form which I am currently the owner, although neither the form nor the notification were created by me. However, neither can the Super Admin access the

• Introducing Record Category in CRM: Group options to see record status at a glance.

  Release update: Currently available for CN, JP, and AU DCs (all paid editions). It will be made available to other DCs by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to introduce Record Category in Zoho CRM - a new capability where the user can get an overview

• bulk edit records and run internal logic

  hi there is few logics in manner "it this than that" logics work well when i edit entry openning it one by one (via workflow "on add/edit - on success" , for custom field "on update/on user input") but when i try bulk edit records - logic does not work.  how can i turn on logic to work as programmed - for mass editing records via bulk edit?

• Dheeraj Sudan and Meenu Hinduja-How do I customize Zoho apps to suit my needs?

  Hi Everyone, I'm Meenu Hinduja and my husband Dheeraj Sudan, run a business. I’m looking to tweak a few things to fit my needs, and I’d love to hear what customizations others have done. Any tips or examples would be super helpful! Regards Dheeraj Sudan

• Bulk bank rule creatioin

  Hi team, I am exploring Option to create a multiple bank rule. Could please suggest the option to implement this?

• Limitations on editing a message in Cliq

  Hi I've checked the documentations and there's no mention of how many times a message can be edited. When trying with code, I get various numbers such as ~1000 edits or so. Please mention if there's a limit on how many times one can change a message via

• Zoho mail account ownership transfer

  We recently took over another company and have assumed responsibility for its Zoho account, including Zoho Mail and all related services. We would like to formally transfer ownership of this account to our organization. Could you please outline the complete

• email address autocomplete

  Is there a way to eliminate certain addresses from showing up in auto complete when entering an address? Many old and unused addresses currently show up, many of which I would like to get rid of. Thanks

• How to use MAIL without Dashboard?

  Whenever I open Mail, it opens Dashboard. This makes Mail area very small and also I cannot manage Folders (like delete/rename) etc. I want to know if there is any way to open only Mail apps and not the Dashboard.

• Introducing Radio Buttons and Numeric Range Sliders in Zoho CRM

  Release update: Currently out for CN, JP, AU and CA DCs (Free and standard editions). For other DCs, this will be released by mid-March. Hello everyone, We are pleased to share with you that Zoho CRM's Layout Editor now includes two new field formats—

• User is already present in another account error in assigning users to marketing automation

  Hello everyone Greeting, I had a problem in assigning user in marketing automation, when I try to add it I see this error: (User is already present in another account error) what should I do?

• How can i download and secure all my mails from the archive folders?

  Hi, i would like to download all my mails from my archive folders and secure it on my external HDD. Is this possible? Thx. amir

• How to open filtered report in popup using Zoho Creator Deluge?

  First report: There is so many records in Report, If I click one record, pop up is occur. Second report (Pop up): there is also so many record data, and this pop up is also Report, not Form. First report: It has got "Sales Order" field. when I click any

• Deluge Function to Update Custom Field

  I'm trying to get a Deluge function (which will run as part of a Schedule in Desk) that retrieves all tickets with the status "Recurring" and updates the custom field checkbox "cf_recurring" to "true". Here's what I have, which doesn't work: searchValue

• Make panel configuration interface wider

  Hi there, The same way you changed the custom function editor's interface wider, it would be nice to be able to edit panels in pages using the full width of the screen rather than the currently max-width: 1368px. Is there a reason for having the configuration panel not taking the full width? Its impossible at this width to edit panels that have a lot of elements. Please change it to 100% so we can better edit the layouts. Thanks! B.

• Can you default reports/charts to report the current week?

  Our data table maintains two years of data. Management wants certain report to automatically filter the report to the latest calendar week. I know I can do this manually with filters but I want the report to automatically default to the latest calendar

• Rendering PDF to view on page

  My company upload lots of PDF files onto Zoho. But every time we open it, it downloads the file instead of viewing it on the web page. Does Zoho allow uploaded PDF files to be rendered to view on web page yet? I've been trying to use <embed> or <object> but it cannot be loaded.  (similar thread: https://help.zoho.com/portal/community/topic/how-to-open-a-pdf-file-of-a-view-in-preview-mode)

• Overlapping Reports in Dashboards

  It's rare, but occasionally it would be a good feature if I were able to overlap reports, either fully or partially in the Dashboards. Also, then having the ability to move objects to the front or rear, or make them transparent/translucent would be good

• Feature request - pin or flag note

  Hi, It would be great if you could either pin or flag one or more notes so that they remain visible when there are a bunch of notes and some get hidden in the list. Sometimes you are looking for a particular name that gets lost in a bunch of less important

• Admin guide: Handling Mailbox Settings for better user management

  Managing day-to-day email scenarios, such as supporting users with multiple email addresses, ensuring uninterrupted email access during employee absences, enabling secure mailbox sharing, and enforcing organizational security and compliance, can be challenging

• "View ticket" link is broken

  The "View ticket" link in our Zoho ticketing system confirmation emails is broken (please see attached). Impacts ability to update/review details, and, refresh recollection at a later date. Any help would be much appreciated.

• Unable to attach Work Order / Service Appointment PDF to Email Notifications (Zoho FSM)

  I’m trying to include the Work Order PDF or Service Appointment PDF as an attachment in Email Notifications (automation/notification templates), but I don’t see any option to attach these generated PDFs. Is this currently supported in Zoho FSM? If not,

• Cisco Webex Calling Intergration

  Hi Guys, Our organisation is looking at a move from Salesforce to Zoho. We have found there is no support for Cisco Webex Calling however? Is there a way to enable this or are there any apps which can provide this? Thanks!

• Designing a practical Zoho setup for a small business: lessons from a real implementation

  I recently finished setting up a Zoho-based operating system for a small but growing consumer beauty business (GlowAtHomeBeauty), and I wanted to share a practical takeaway for other founders and implementers. The business wasn’t failing because of lack

• DKIM (Marketing emails) UNVERIFIED (Zoho One)

  I'm having a problem with Zoho One verifying my Marketing Email DKIM Record for MYFINISHERPHOTOS.COM. I have removed and re-entered the ownership, DKIM (Transactional emails), SPF and Marketing DKIM and all of them come back verified except the DKIM (Marketing

• Zoho Recruit Community Meet-up - India

  Namaste, India. 🙏🏼 The Zoho Recruit team is hitting the road—and we 're absolutely excited behind the scenes. Join us for the Zoho Recruit India Meet-up 2026, a morning designed to make your recruiting life easier (and a lot more effective). Date City

• Generate a Zoho Sign link

  From time to time I get a response "I never received your you e-document for electronic signature" is there a way to generate a Zoho Sign link to share.

• CRM gets location smart with the all new Map View: visualize records, locate records within any radius, and more

  Hello all, We've introduced a new way to work with location data in Zoho CRM: the Map View. Instead of scrolling through endless lists, your records now appear as pins on a map. Built on top of the all-new address field and powered by Mappls (MapMyIndia),

• Is it possible to create a word cloud chart in ZoHo Analystics?

  Hi there, I have a volume of transaction text that I would like to analyse using word cloud (or other approcah to detect and present word frequency in a dataset). For example, I have 50,000 records describing menu items in restaurants. I want to be able

• WhatsApp IM in Zoho Desk always routes to Admin instead of assigned agent

  Hello Zoho Experts, I connected WhatsApp IM to my Zoho Desk account. I only assigned my Customer Service (CS) agent to the WhatsApp channel, and I did NOT include Admin in this channel. However, every new WhatsApp conversation automatically gets assigned

• Kaizen #198: Using Client Script for Custom Validation in Blueprint

  Nearing 200th Kaizen Post – 1 More to the Big Two-Oh-Oh! Do you have any questions, suggestions, or topics you would like us to cover in future posts? Your insights and suggestions help us shape future content and make this series better for everyone.

• Next Page