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Recurring payment schedules

The following sections discuss recurring payment concepts used in recurring payment schedules.

Payment plan vs recurring payment

Recurring Payment

A Recurring Payment is a contract between your customer and your business. The contract states that you will take a regular payment amount from their account on a schedule. You can stop a Recurring Payment to cancel the contract. You can change a Recurring Payment to change the contract. You can pre-fill some information for a Recurring Payment by using a Payment Plan.

Payment Plan

A Payment Plan is a standard recurring payment template. The following comprise a Payment Plan:

  • a unique code called a Payment Plan Code. You will use this code to reference the Payment Plan in your QuickBatch Recurring files.
  • a Frequency
  • a Regular Payment Amount
  • a Schedule Type and the details for that schedule type

Use a Payment Plan as a template for creating Recurring Payments. For example, a Gym business has three membership levels:

  • Bronze Membership
  • Silver Membership
  • Gold Membership

Each has the same Frequency MONTHLY and the schedule type is CONTINUE_UNTIL_FURTHER_NOTICE.

But they have different Regular Payment Amounts:

  • Bronze is 60.00 per month,
  • Silver 75.00 per month, and
  • Gold 100.00 per month.

The Gym business will create three Payment Plans for each membership type. For customers signing up for a membership, you can create a Recurring Payment using the details from the Payment Plan. This stops your staff from keying in the same details over and over again.

Weekends and public holidays

A Recurring Payment will take payments on weekends, public holidays and bank holidays. QuickStream sends payments to Westpac payments systems any day. But bank account payments may not process until the next banking day.

End of month and leap years

A Recurring Payment may be set up to take payments at the end of a month. QuickStream will debit your customer on the closest last day of the next month. For example, a monthly schedule starting 31st January 2017 debits your customer again on 28th February 2017.

Payment schedule types

Recurring offers five payment schedule types.

  1. One off
  2. Continue until further notice
  3. Stop after a set number of payments
  4. Stop after a total amount is reached
  5. Continue until a set date

One off

The One off type will take a single payment. Use this type of schedule when:

  • you want to create a new schedule to take a single "catch-up" payment because:
    • a declined payment on a Recurring Payment
    • an incorrectly set up Recurring Payment
  • your customer requires only 1 payment.

Continue until further notice

This schedule type will continue to take payments until you stop it.

Stop after a set number of payments

This schedule type will take payments until it reaches the Total Number of Payments. To use this schedule type, you must also provide the Total Number of Payments.

For example, 50.00 per month for 4 months will take the payments as follows:

  1. Month 1: 50.00
  2. Month 2: 50.00
  3. Month 3: 50.00
  4. Month 4: 50.00

Stop after a total amount is reached

This schedule type will take payments until the Total Schedule Payment Amount is reached. To use this schedule type, you must also provide the Total Schedule Payment Amount.

The last payment amount may be smaller than the Regular Payment Amount. For example, a schedule of 50.00 per month until the total reaches 175.00 is set up. This schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. Month 1: 50.00
  2. Month 2: 50.00
  3. Month 3: 50.00
  4. Month 4: 25.00

Continue until a set date

This schedule type will take payments until a Schedule End Date. To use this schedule type, you must also provide the Schedule End Date.

For example, a schedule starting on 1st March 2016 for 50.00 per month. When it is set to end on 17th June 2016, the schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. 1st March 2016: 50.00
  2. 1st April 2016: 50.00
  3. 1st May 2016: 50.00
  4. 1st June 2016: 50.00

Frequencies

Recurring offers 7 frequencies:

  1. Daily (test only)
  2. Weekly
  3. Fortnightly
  4. Monthly
  5. Quarterly
  6. Six Monthly
  7. Yearly

Daily

A Recurring Payment with a frequency of Daily will take a payment each calendar day from the start date.

For example, a schedule of 50.00 per day until it reaches 175.00 is set up. This schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. Day 1: 50.00
  2. Day 2: 50.00
  3. Day 3: 50.00
  4. Day 4: 25.00

Weekly

Recurring Payments with a Weekly frequency takes payments on the same day number on each calendar week from the start date.

For example, a schedule of 50.00 per week starting on 1st January 2016 until it reaches 175.00 is set up. This schedule will take payments on the following schedule:

  1. 1st January 2016: 50.00
  2. 8th January 2016: 50.00
  3. 15th January 2016: 50.00
  4. 22nd January 2016: 25.00

Fortnightly

A Recurring Payment with a frequency of Fortnightly will take a payment on the same day number every 2 calendar weeks from the start date.

For example, a schedule of 50.00 per fortnight starting on 1st January 2016 until it reaches 175.00 is set up. This schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. 1st January 2016: 50.00
  2. 15th January 2016: 50.00
  3. 29th January 2016: 50.00
  4. 12th February 2016: 25.00

Monthly

A Recurring Payment with a frequency of Monthly will take a payment on the same day number every calendar month from the start date.

For example, a schedule of 50.00 per month starting on 30th January 2016 until it reaches 175.00 is set up. This schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. 30th January 2016: 50.00
  2. 29th February 2016: 50.00
  3. 30th March 2016: 50.00
  4. 30th April 2016: 50.00

Quarterly

A Recurring Payment with a frequency of Quarterly will take a payment on the same day every 3 calendar months from the start date.

For example, a schedule of 50.00 per quarter starting on 31st January 2016 until 1st January 2017 is set up. This schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. 31st January 2016: 50.00
  2. 30th April 2016: 50.00
  3. 31st July 2016: 50.00
  4. 31st October 2016: 50.00

Six Monthly

A Recurring Payment with a frequency of Six Monthly will take a payment on the same day every 6 calendar months from the start date.

For example, a schedule of 50.00 per six-months starting on 31st January 2016 until 1st July 2017 is set up. This schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. 31st January 2016: 50.00
  2. 31st July 2016: 50.00
  3. 31st January 2017: 50.00

Yearly

A Recurring Payment with a frequency of Yearly will take a payment on the same day every calendar year from the start date.

For example, a schedule of 50.00 per year starting on the 1st January 2016 until 30th December 2019 is set up. This schedule takes payments as follows:

  1. 1st January 2016: 50.00
  2. 1st January 2017: 50.00
  3. 1st January 2018: 50.00
  4. 1st January 2019: 50.00

Card surcharges

Card surcharges can be set up for different card schemes. The surcharge is set up as a percentage of the transaction amount.

For example, if VISA has a surcharge of 0.2%, then a payment of 10.00 will have its surcharge calculated as:

  • Principal Amount: 10.00
  • Surcharge Amount: 0.02
  • Total Amount: 10.02

The total amount of the transaction will be 10.02. The amount taken from the customer will be 10.02. This amount would be credited to your merchant account.

Yet the surcharge amount is not used to determine when to stop a payment schedule.

For example, 50.00 per month until a total of 175.00 is reached will take 3 payments of 50.00 and 1 payment of 25.00. A 0.2% surcharge also set up. Each payment will have a surcharge calculated on-top of those payments:

  • Month 1: Principal amount is 50.00, Surcharge amount is 0.10, Total amount is 50.10
  • Month 2: Principal amount is 50.00, Surcharge amount is 0.10, Total amount is 50.10
  • Month 3: Principal amount is 50.00, Surcharge amount is 0.10, Total amount is 50.10
  • Month 4: Principal amount is 25.00, Surcharge amount is 0.05, Total amount is 25.05

The total schedule amount is 175.00. The total amount of money taken from the customer is 175.35.

Recurring payments are attempted at 03:00 AEST on calendar days

Transactions are attempted at 03:00 AEST each calendar day.

Handling declined payments

Your customer's financial institution may decline transactions. A declined transaction will receive a Summary Code and a Response Code. Find the full list of Response Codes at Response Codes.

Each response code may describe a hard decline or a soft decline.

  • A hard decline indicates the transaction will not likely be successful if retried. For example, Response Code 14 - Invalid Card Number may not be successful if retried.
  • A soft decline indicates the transaction can possibly be retried and by successful. For example, Response Code 51 - Not sufficient funds could be retried at a later day.

Response codes indicating a soft decline

Some response codes may indicate a soft decline. A soft declined transaction may indicate it can be retried successfully at a later date.

See Response Codes for details.

Manually retrying payments

QuickStream Portal has a function to list any recurring payments that were soft declined and can be retried. To do this, use the Retry Failed Transactions page in QuickStream Portal.

Automatically retrying payments

QuickStream Portal allows you to set up a schedule to automatically retry any soft declined payments. To do this, visit the Facility Settings section in QuickStream Portal.

Westpac Privacy Statement

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