All About AutoPay

What is AutoPay?

In Skimmer Billing, AutoPay enables you to store a customer's payment method for future invoices.

What payment methods can be used for AutoPay?

Credit cards, bank accounts (ACH), and digital wallets (Apple and Google).

How can a customer opt into AutoPay?

Your customers (the pool owners), can opt into AutoPay upon receiving their invoice. Here's a video that shows that in action.

Pool Pros can also opt customers into AutoPay on their behalf if they're paying with a credit card (this option is not available for bank/ACH or digital wallet payment methods). If a customer provides their payment card information and grants permission to automatically charge them for future invoices, you can pay their current invoice and enroll them in AutoPay by entering their payment card information and checking the Enable box.

Customers can also enroll themselves in AutoPay via the customer portal. Once they have access to their portal, they can select Payment Method, enter payment info, and choose to opt into AutoPay by clicking a checkbox. This choice is not permanent–if they choose to opt out at a later date, they need only uncheck the box. 

How does AutoPay work?

AutoPay is designed to cover routine pool services, along with the chemicals, products, and installed items associated with pool service. 

AutoPay can also apply to invoices with Work Orders. For each work order type (such as a Filter Cleaning), you can check an "Allow AutoPay" box on their Settings screen, so that generated invoices which include those work order types can also be paid automatically. The box must be checked at the time of invoice creation for AutoPay to apply. Keep in mind that if you include multiple work orders on a generated invoice, and at least one work order is not set to allow AutoPay, the entire invoice will not be paid automatically. AutoPay applies to entire invoices, not individual line items.

AutoPay does NOT apply to manually created invoices. You must use the Invoice Generator to trigger AutoPay.

When does AutoPay Trigger?

When the "Pay Days Before Due" field under Settings > Invoicing is blank, automatic payments (AutoPay) will be charged within 15 minutes of an invoice being sent. The AutoPay Scheduler runs every 15 minutes. Therefore, an invoice that is sent may not be automatically updated from "sent" to "paid," but it will be updated within approximately 15 minutes.

When the "Pay Days Before Due" field under Settings > Invoicing is set to 0 (zero), AutoPay triggers based on the DUE DATE of your invoice, which is set at the point of invoice generation. 

If you want AutoPay to trigger a set number of days before the DUE DATE of your invoice, enter that number in the "Pay Days Before Due" field. For example:

• If you generate an invoice with a due date of July 15 and "Pay Days Before Due" set to 5, the invoice will be paid on July 10th, five days before the due date.
• If the invoice due date is set to July 15 and "Pay Days Before Due" is set to 0, the invoice will be paid on July 15th.
If you would like to restore the default, in which payment is submitted within 15 minutes of the invoice being sent, ensure "Pay Days Before Due" is blank.

So, what is the "Payment Due Date" on the Settings > Invoicing screen for?

• If you want payment to be charged as soon as the invoice is sent, choose the "Upon Receipt" option and leave "Pay Days Before Due" blank. (This is the default setting)
• The Net 15, 30, and 45 options only set the default DUE DATE determined by the generator. These defaults will be replaced if the user modifies the due date when generating the invoices

How can a customer opt out of AutoPay?

The customer must contact the Pool Pro to have their form of payment removed from AutoPay. The Pool Pro can then delete the card on file from the customer's profile screen on Skimmer's website.