Handling failed online payments

When people use self-service transactions on a Wild Apricot based site, an invoice is automatically generated. If Online payments are enabled (see Payment settings) then all these invoices (including invoices manually created by the administrator) can be paid online for the contacts profile (see View account history and pay invoices) 

Typical Payment Process

Once the user has submitted their registration details, an invoice is generated and they can submit their payment. Usually they will proceed to a credit card payment screen within your site, or to an external page depending on the payment processor you have selected (see Payment settings)

Specific Cases

Unpaid transactions

Until the invoice is paid, the transaction is shown as unpaid and the record will show a balance due (this applies to membership and event transactions)

Donations In Progress

Donations, unlike all other payments, have no associated invoice, so they will appear as "In progress" until they are confirmed and completed.

Completed Payments

When an online payment is completed successfully, the system automatically updates the relevant records as follows:

• Payment is applied (settled) to its corresponding invoice and a receipt is generated (see Record Payment and Settle to Invoice)
• If the payment is for a member, the membership details are updated according to your membership workflow settings (see Member applications workflow)
• If it's an event registration, the registration status is marked as completed

Incomplete, Abandoned or Failed Payments

However, in some situations payment might not get completed. See below for a list of some possible causes:

Causes of Incomplete or Abandoned Payments

• Unintentional - Person has tried to process payment but it has failed and he could not complete it
• Intentional - Person has decided to abandon the transaction and left
  • Membership and Event payments - nothing changes, the transaction will just remain as unpaid 
  • Donations - the transaction will stay marked "In progress" for 24 hours, and after that it will automatically be marked "Probably abandoned"

Resolving Incomplete or Abandoned payments

When these online payments occur there are some common solutions. If, however, you believe that there is no possibility for a particular transaction to be completed, you can find and delete the originating transaction and archive the related contact record if necessary.

Membership and Event Related

• If the payment is for a membership, event, or any other manual invoice, the user can just log in and try again to pay for these unpaid invoices
• Alternatively, the two of you can arrange manual payment instead, e.g. send a cheque. In this case, you would manually record the payment once it is received. See Reconciling transactions and invoices

Technical Error

There is also a possibility (although very rare) that a person has in fact completed payment, but due to a technical malfunction this was not recorded in the Wild Apricot system. In this case the only resolution is for the person to contact you and report the problem. Once you investigate this and confirm that payment has indeed been received to your merchant account (feel free to contact our technical support at any time), you can find the transaction in question and manually the payment on the invoice. See Reconciling transactions and invoices