Dunning & Recovery

When a subscription payment fails, the invoice enters recovery. QuickBill then follows your recovery policy:

1. 1

   It retries on a fixed-day schedule

   Each attempt charges the customer's saved payment method on the days your policy sets.
2. 2

   It emails the customer when an attempt fails

   Emails go out the moment an attempt fails — never on a day of their own.
3. 3

   It stops as soon as a payment clears

   Any attempt that clears ends recovery — we send a payment-received email.
4. 4

   If it's still unpaid at the end, it applies your end-of-recovery action

   See What happens at the end

Only one policy is active at a time. Open Billing → Dunning to see it.

The numbers at the top

Turning recovery on or off

The switch on the Your Recovery Policy card turns recovery on or off for all customers. While it is off you see "Failed payments won't be retried automatically and no reminder emails are sent. Invoices stay due for manual follow-up." Click Turn recovery on to switch it back on.

To stop recovery for just one invoice, use Pause on that invoice instead.

Your Recovery Policy card

Shows the active policy — its retries, payment attempts, recovery window and timezone — and What the customer experiences, day by day. Click Edit in Policy Settings → to change it.

Search by invoice number or customer, or filter by status.

Statuses

When a subscription payment fails, the invoice shows up here automatically. With nothing in recovery you see "All caught up — no failed payments right now."

1. 1

   Click Retry now on the invoice

   Use it instead of waiting for the next scheduled day.
2. 2

   Add a Note (optional) and confirm

   The note is saved to the Dunning Logs.
3. 3

   Watch the result

   The dialog walks through Fetching the saved card, Charging the saved card and Emailing the customer, then shows Payment recovered, Retry failed or Retry queued.

If the customer has no saved payment method the retry fails with "The customer has no saved payment method to charge."

Pause

1. 1

   Click Pause on the invoice

   Available while the invoice is In Progress.
2. 2

   Set the Expected payment date

   Recovery resumes on its own after this date if the invoice is still unpaid.
3. 3

   Add a Note (optional) and confirm

   The invoice shows Paused until that date.

Resume

Click Resume on a paused invoice. It rejoins the schedule at its next step.

1. 1

   Click Stop recovery on the invoice

   Available on a paused invoice, or on the final attempt.
2. 2

   Enter a Reason

   It is saved to the Dunning Logs.
3. 3

   Confirm

   This can't be undone from the queue.

The invoice stays payable and no end-of-recovery accounting action is applied.

Click View timeline on any invoice in the queue. You see:

• Amount Due, Attempts made, the Next Attempt, and what happens If Still Unpaid.
• What has happened so far — each attempt (with its transaction ID) and each email sent.
• Manual actions on this invoice — who retried it, or that the customer paid through the payment link.

Go to Dunning → Edit in Policy Settings →, or Settings → Dunning & Recovery → Policy Settings. Click Create policy, or Edit on an existing one.

1. 1

   Name the policy

   It starts as “New recovery policy”.
2. 2

   Set the Recovery window (days)

   How long we keep trying before the end-of-recovery action applies. 1 to 90 days, and at least as many days as attempts.
3. 3

   Build the retry schedule

   Each row is one payment attempt: the Day it runs and the Email if it fails. Click Add step for another attempt — one attempt per day, inside the window. Payment attempts is the number of rows.
4. 4

   Check What the customer experiences

   A live preview of the schedule, day by day.
5. 5

   Choose what happens at the end

   See What happens at the end
6. 6

   Save & Close or Publish

   Save & Close keeps it as a draft; Publish makes it the active policy.

The default schedule

Retries run on a fixed-day schedule, in your organization timezone. Reset to default brings this schedule back.

Subscription

Invoice

The invoice outcome affects your receivables and revenue recognition.

Publish

Publishing a policy makes it active immediately and moves the previous active one to archived history.

Delete

Deleting a draft changes nothing for your customers, because it was never published. Deleting an archived policy removes it from your history permanently — this can't be undone.

Pick No email on failure on a row to skip the email for that attempt. Click Preview on a row to read the full email. Emails use your Portal Branding and fill in the customer name, subscription, invoice number, amount, attempt number, next retry date and your support email.

Open Dunning → Dunning Logs →. Filter by:

• Invoice number or customer name.
• Case status — In Progress, Paused, Exhausted, Stopped or Recovered.
• Action — Retry, Pause, Resume, Stop, Recovered, Policy published or Changes saved.
• Actor — Anyone, Automatic only or People only.

Each entry shows When, What happened, the Invoice / Customer, the Case status, the Change, By (System for automatic actions) and the Reason.

Under RBI and NPCI rules, a saved card can't be charged without a registered e-mandate. We're building an NPCI e-mandate–compliant recovery flow. In the meantime, customers still get a secure payment link to settle failed invoices.