Authorize a finite installment payment plan

A finite payment plan lets a client approve the exact remaining amounts and collection times for two to twelve issued installments from one signed proposal. It uses a separate private review link. A single invoice link cannot disclose other installments or cancel their authorizations.

Prepare the client review

Open Finance → Installment autopay, choose a signed proposal and select Prepare client review. The proposal must have an intact signed payment schedule, its matching issued USD invoices, and at least two unpaid installments of $0.50 or more. The studio needs a connected payment account before it can prepare the review. Mini-session deposits and balances, external payment links and unsigned drafts are excluded.

The offer freezes the issued terms and the remaining balances, including any recorded partial payment. It does not save a payment method or authorize a charge. Share the resulting private link only with the intended payer. Anyone holding it can read this plan and cancel its unstarted payments. Preparing an offer does not send an email automatically.

Each offer is available for fourteen days. Close an expired, changed or superseded offer before preparing another. Closing a plan preserves the original proposal, invoices, consent and payment history.

Approve every amount and time

The client opens the private review, checks every amount, and chooses increasing collection times in the displayed studio timezone. Times must be at least one hour and no more than two years ahead. Ambiguous or missing daylight-saving times are unavailable. The collection time does not rewrite an invoice’s contractual due date.

For example, a $900 retainer and $1,800 final installment require separate dates and one consent that lists both payments and the $2,700 total. The review adds no gratuity and does not authorize later projects, subscriptions or automatic decline retries. The client enters their name and email, checks the consent box and continues to Stripe’s secure setup. A bank account is available only when every included unpaid invoice permits it.

Submitted choices remain frozen while the outcome is checked. If the response is interrupted, use Check original request or Continue setup / check status. Reload to inspect the saved outcome before reviewing different choices. Do not create replacement requests merely because the browser lost a response.

Read payment and review states

An active authorization is permission to request the approved payments, not proof that money has been collected. Each installment uses its own durable payment attempt. Its status can show pending, requesting, processing, paid, cancelled, requires action or uncertain.

A charge can start at its approved time or during the following twenty-four hours, after earlier installments have settled. A processing bank payment can therefore delay the next installment. If the next payment window closes first, remaining payments require a new review; the system does not extend the client’s approved window.

A changed issued invoice, balance, payment account, refund, dispute requiring review, or invalid payment authorization holds the remaining plan. The system does not silently adjust amounts. A decline or extra-authentication requirement also holds later payments without an automatic retry. Use the original invoice’s appropriate payment or recovery flow after resolving existing attempts, or close the plan and request fresh authorization for the remaining installments.

A verified successful payment creates one immutable receipt for that invoice and one receipt-email record. Repeated callbacks do not create additional cash receipts. Receipt email can be queued, accepted, delivered, failed or uncertain independently of payment settlement. The payment notices use the email saved in the client’s authorization. See invoice payments and disputes for refunds and accounting records.

Cancel future payments

On the private payment-plan page, confirm Cancel future payments. A full workspace operator can also close the plan from Finance. This revokes the plan’s future collection permission and cancels unstarted attempts. It does not refund settled money, void the signed agreement, or guarantee cancellation of a payment already processing.

If a payment was accepted before cancellation but its response was lost, the system continues checking that same provider attempt. Its actual settlement remains in the ledger. It does not create a replacement charge to guess the outcome. Keep the original private plan link for these updates.

Changing the dates, amounts or payment method requires closing the old plan and reviewing a new finite authorization. A single remaining invoice can use the separate one-time automatic payment flow.

What stays deferred

Connected-account credentials, provider sandbox rehearsal, signed callbacks, durable worker scheduling and email delivery are part of the coordinated launch setup. Automatic payments remain disabled until that activation passes. Development tests use deterministic payment simulators and isolated databases; they are not evidence of live card or bank processing.

This flow does not offer subscriptions, indefinite recurring charges, a shared card wallet, automatic payment retries, or mini-session autopay. Unknown payment outcomes require reconciliation before another payment path is allowed.