Creating payment schedules allows you to easily apply payment criteria to your various invoices. Payment schedules can ensure that all events follow the same due date and increment cadence.

To locate payment schedules, select the templates icon in the left-hand navigation bar and select “Payment Schedules” from the list that appears. You should see a sample payment schedule that has been loaded to your account. Feel free to use this sample, or even work from this as an example of what can be established in the system regarding payment collection.

To create a new payment schedule from scratch with the “add payment schedule” button at the top of this page.

When creating a payment schedule, create a name for the schedule to indicate what type of event this schedule might be for, or how the payments are broken up. Your clients will not see the schedule name, this is for your internal reference only.

You will see your connected payment processor underneath the schedule name.

Next, you can set a specific convenience fee for credit card or ACH transactions. If you don't see ACH listed, it is because you've connected Square for your payment processor. Here you can set the same convenience fee for both or set the fees at different rates. This is the percentage amount you would like to pass on to your client. Keep in mind that these fees are percentage rates and not flat rates. They will adjust based on the amount of the transaction they apply to.

As an example, to pass on 2.95%, type 2.95 into this text field.

You have the option to relabel the convenience fee as it appears on the invoice. You can leave this as is or provide your own naming convention in this field.

If you are using Stripe, you have the option here for Stripe Payment Management. If enabled, your clients will have a larger selection of payment options available to them as provided via Stripe. You will be able to choose which options your client has access to in your Stripe payment dashboard. You can determine these payment methods and options via your Stripe account.

Click the hyperlink here in Releventful that reads “stripe management dashboard” to view these options in your Stripe account.

Stripe Payment Management allows for even more flexibility and customization for your clients in how they pay during these set payment reminders. For example, Stripe provides an after-pay option for clients to book now and pay later.

This might be a service that you enable to provide to your clients via the Stripe Payment Management setting. For more information and detailed examples of the Stripe Payment Management options, please refer to the Stripe Payment Management article at help.releventful.com.

If Stripe Payment Management is enabled, automatic payments will not be available to your clients. This is due to the custom conditions applied via the Stripe Payment Management availability. If automatic payments are important to you, we suggest not enabling Stripe Payment Management.

If Stripe Payment Management is not enabled, you will proceed to indicate the available payment methods to your clients. You can select both Credit Card and ACH if you are utilizing Stripe or limit the method to one or the other. If none are selected, the system will allow both Credit Card and ACH payment methods by default. You will only be presented with the credit card option if you using Square.

If you have additional questions about Stripe, Stripe Payment Management, or credit card fees, we encourage you to review our payment processing article at help.releventful.com.

At the bottom of the payment schedule configuration page, you can set up your payment increments. These payment increments each come with their own settings to build out how much is due and when that payment is due in the process.

In today’s example, you can see that I have two payment increments in this payment schedule. You do have the option to add more than two with the “add payment” prompt at the top of the page. Open one of the payment reminders to view the details for that specific payment increment.

For each payment, start by building out the payment reminder notification that will accompany the payment request.

If you have an existing email template loaded to Releventful, you can select that email template with the hyperlink here. If you do not have an existing email template, no worries, you can build the message from scratch with the available subject line and body fields on this page.

Utilize the token manager to customize the email for the specific client and the event receiving the email.

Select your delivery method under the email body. You can use the option of email, or SMS text message if you have added the SMS add-on to your plan. If you do not have the SMS add-on or would like to explore more about the SMS add-on, you can message us by clicking the help button in the bottom right-hand corner of Releventful and we will be happy to assist you.

Next, you can indicate if it is a deposit with the deposit checkbox. As a best practice, the first payment is generally considered the deposit payment, but you do have this option to check the box on a different payment reminder if your workflow is different.

For the deposit payment, you have the option to set the invoice deposit amount. This can be a percentage of the total invoice amount or a set flat rate. For payments that are not indicated as a deposit, you only have the option to set a percentage and not a flat rate.

There is a spot in each payment installation to allow for customer tips. Enable this with the available toggle setting under the allow tips section of this configuration window. If enabled, you can rename the “gratuity” label to one of your choice. Enter your desired text in this text field or leave as is. This text will be displayed on the invoice that the client reviews.

We suggest enabling tips for one of your payment increments, but you do have the option to enable tips for every single requested transaction. Leaving tips as an option on the final payment and not the initial invoice is a great best practice.

Set the payment due date at the bottom of the page. Select the three dots to the right of the due date text and select “change payment due date” to the set date.

Configure the trigger rule with the fields provided. Select the third field to open the date options available to you. Here you can indicate the due date off of the event start date, event end date or automation start date. Use the “number of days” field to indicate how many days before or after the date that this should be due.

For example, a final payment might be due 2 weeks before the event. You can configure that type of due date as 14 days before the event start date.

If you want to request an initial deposit immediately, you can select “automation start date” as your trigger rule. The automation start date indicates that the payment request would go out immediately after the invoice is generated. For an immediate due date request for an initial deposit, it would look like “on automation start date.”

Select the “Notification Settings” tab at the top of the page to configure the payment reminder notification details.

Add a specific user to the “from” field if you would like this email to come from a specific user. This is not a required field but is an available option for you if desired.

Next, you will set the date that the payment reminder email is scheduled to be delivered to the client.

Select the three dots to the right of the scheduled email text and select “change email schedule” to the set date.

Configure the trigger rule with the fields provided, just as you did for the payment due date setting. Select the third field to open the date options available to you. Use the “number of days” field to indicate how many days before or after the date that this email should be sent to the client.

As a best practice, send the email a few days before the payment due date to provide a warning to your client before the payment is officially due.

When all these settings are populated, select the “Save” button at the bottom of the window to add these details to your payment schedule.

After you have created your deposit payment your remaining payments will add up to 100% of the remaining balance total. For instance, if a client’s invoice total is set at $1,00 dollars and your deposit payment is for a flat rate of $100. The remaining balance will be $900. If you want to split up the remaining balance into 2 separate payments from your customers, you can split them using any percentage amount adding up to 100%. You could set up a 40% and 60% payment layout, or two 50% payments. If you choose to use a percentage amount for your deposit payment, subtract the percentage amount from your remaining payment requests. For example, if you have 1 deposit payment in the amount of 10%, your remaining payment requests will need to add up to 90% of the remaining balance.

In Chapter #2 of the Releventful onboarding program, we will discuss how to automatically apply and enable a payment schedule to your event types through the portal templates settings. If you are interested in learning more about that process now, please locate the tutorial titled, “Automating Payment Schedules.”