Payment Plans
Overview
Payment Plans allow you to break down your outstanding balances into manageable payments, giving end-customers a more affordable way to pay off their balance, reducing the churn rate for Aria clients. In this initial phase, we introduce capabilities to support collecting outstanding balances for struggling customers, in which case a payment plan is negotiated case-by-case depending on the customer's balance and financial situation.
For collection and dunning purposes, a payment plan provides new dates and due dates for a payment plan schedule created to pay past due invoices or charges while leaving financial reporting and revenue recognition untouched: the invoices or charges will retain their original billing dates or due dates.
If a subscription or a master plan instance is in dunning, creating a payment plan will automatically take it out of dunning.
Customers with ongoing subscriptions must stay current on both their payment plan due and any new invoice obligations. Falling behind on either can place the account back to a dunning status.
You set up a payment plan for an account by:
- Selecting specific invoices and transaction IDs to include.
- Choosing a billing group.
- Picking a payment plan type: aligned (where the due amount appears on the master plan instance statement) or independent (where the due amount uses a new email notification template class).
- Defining the payment interval (frequency), period type (days, weeks, or months), and length.
- For independent plans, setting the start date and due day. If you do not specify these values, the system calculates the schedule using bill lag days plus days until due from the payment method or terms.
- Previewing the plan via API before the customer agrees.
Payment Management
Payment collection and payment application methods (First-In-First-Out, First-Due-First-Out, Manual, and Statement First-In-First-Out) support payment plans due.
Note: The system makes a single collection call to the payment processor when a statement includes both a payment plan due and new invoice obligations.
Similar to how Aria allocates payments to regular charges/invoices: when Aria receives a payment, it prioritizes applying the payment based on the payment application method specified in the client configuration (Configuration > Payments > Payment Settings > Default Payment Collection method) or specified by your customers via your user self-service portal.
Payment Application Scenarios
Use Case #1: Payment is less than the due amount.
A customer has a subscription for 'Bundle 5G Internet' and has not been paying his last two invoices, past due balance of $300. Below are the invoice details:
| Date | Invoice No. | Master Plan Instance | Due | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Jan-25 | Invoice #1 | Bundle 5G internet | $ 150.00 | 20-Jan-25 |
| 1-Feb-25 | Invoice #2 | Bundle 5G internet | $ 150.00 | 20-Feb-25 |
On Feb 25th, he called and negotiated a payment plan to pay off his outstanding $300 balance starting with his next anniversary statement (March 1st). The payment plan schedule is as follows:
| Seq. No. | Notification Date | Due | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1-Mar-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Mar-25 |
| 2 | 1-Apr-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Apr-25 |
| 3 | 1-May-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-May-25 |
| 4 | 1-Jun-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Jun-25 |
| 5 | 1-Jul-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Jul-25 |
On March 1st, a new statement was generated for his March subscription of 'Bundle 5G internet' and a payment plan sequence #1, with total due balance of $210.
| Date | Invoice No. / Payment Plan Seq No. | Due | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Mar-25 | Payment Plan Seq #1 (invoice #1) | $ 60.00 | 21-Mar-25 |
| 1-Mar-25 | Invoice #3 | $ 150.00 | 21-Mar-25 |
| $ 210.00 |
On March 22, he makes a payment of $175 without specifying anything (thus payment application will be driven by client-level configuration). The system will allocate payment to due charges as follows:
- First-In-First-Out (FIFO): because the payment plan sequence #1 and invoice #3 are communicated on the same day, the system will prioritize the oldest charge first to be applied.
Date Invoice No. / Payment Plan Seq No. Due Due Date Payment Remaining 1-Mar-25 Payment Plan Seq #1 (Invoice #1) $ 60.00 21-Mar-25 $ 60 $ 0 1-Mar-25 Invoice #3 $ 150.00 21-Mar-25 $ 115 $ 35 $ 210.00 $ 175 Since Invoice #3 is not fully paid by the due date, Aria will evaluate the remaining due amount for dunning.
- First-Due-First-Out (FDFO): because those two charges are due on the same day, payment plan Seq #1 (effectively paying Invoice #1) also takes priority over a new invoice because it is the oldest charge.
In a different case where the new invoice and payment plan are communicated on different dates and due on different dates, Aria will apply the payment differently.
Use Case #1a: A new invoice and payment plan Seq #1 have different billing dates and due dates.
For example:
In March, Aria communicates the following charges to the customer. While the new invoice is communicated earlier than payment plan Seq #1, it is due later. Below are the details:
| Date | Invoice No. / Payment Plan Seq No. | Due | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Mar-25 | Invoice #3 | $ 150.00 | 21-Mar-25 |
| 5-Mar-25 | Payment plan Seq #1 (Invoice #1) | $ 60.00 | 10-Mar-25 |
| $ 210.00 |
On March 22, he makes a payment of $175 without specifying anything. Aria will apply payment to due charges as follows:
- First-In-First-Out (FIFO): Aria will apply $175 payment in the following order:
Date Invoice No. / Payment Plan Seq No. Due Due Date Payment Remaining 1-Mar-25 Invoice #3 $ 150.00 21-Mar-25 $ 150 $ - 5-Mar-25 Payment Plan Seq #1 (Invoice #1) $ 60.00 10-Mar-25 $ 25 $ 35.00 $ 210.00 $ 175 - First-Due-First-Out (FDFO): because the payment plan sequence #1 is due earlier, Aria will prioritize it for payment first. The system will apply the $175 payment received on March 22nd in the following order:
Date Invoice No. / Payment Plan Seq No. Due Due Date Payment Remaining 5-Mar-25 Payment Plan Seq #1 (invoice#1) $ 60.00 10-Mar-25 $ 60 $ - 1-Mar-25 Invoice #3 $ 150.00 21-Mar-25 $ 115 $ 35.00 $ 210.00 $ 175
Use Case #2: Payment exceeds the due amount.
This use case is similar to Use Case #1, but here the customer makes a payment that exceeds the due amount. Below are the details:
A customer has a subscription for 'Bundle 5G Internet' and did not pay his last two invoices, resulting in a past due balance of $300. Below are the invoice details:
| Date | Invoice No. | Master Plan Instance | Due | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Jan-25 | Invoice #1 | Bundle 5G internet | $ 150.00 | 20-Jan-25 |
| 1-Feb-25 | Invoice #2 | Bundle 5G internet | $ 150.00 | 20-Feb-25 |
The payment plan schedule is as follows:
| Seq. No. | Notification Date | Due | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1-Mar-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Mar-25 |
| 2 | 1-Apr-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Apr-25 |
| 3 | 1-May-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-May-25 |
| 4 | 1-Jun-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Jun-25 |
| 5 | 1-Jul-25 | $ 60.00 | 21-Jul-25 |
On March 1st, Aria generates a new statement for his March subscription of 'Bundle 5G internet' and a payment plan Seq #1, with a total due balance of $210.
| Date | Invoice No. / Payment Plan Seq No. | Due | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Mar-25 | Payment Plan Seq #1 (Invoice #1) | $ 60.00 | 21-Mar-25 |
| 1-Mar-25 | Invoice #3 | $ 150.00 | 21-Mar-25 |
| $ 210.00 |
On March 22, he makes a payment of $300 without specifying anything. Aria will allocate payment to charges that are due, then future payment plan sequences.
| Date | Invoice No. / Payment Plan Seq No. | Due | Due Date | Payment | Remaining Due |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-Mar-25 | Payment Plan Seq #1 (Invoice #1) | $ 60.00 | 21-Mar-25 | $ 60 | $ 0 |
| 1-Mar-25 | Invoice #3 | $ 150.00 | 21-Mar-25 | $ 150 | $ 0 |
| 1-Apr-25 | Payment Plan Seq #2 (Invoice #1) | $ 60.00 | 21-Apr-25 | $ 60 | $ 0 |
| 1-May-25 | Payment Plan Seq #3 (Invoice #1) | $ 60.00 | 21-May-25 | $ 30 | $ 30 |
| $ 300 |
Since payment plan Seq #2 is fully paid, nothing will be due for the payment plan on the next statement (April 1st), and only a partial amount is due for Seq #3 on his May 1st statement.
Payment Plan APIs
- create_payment_plan_m: Creates a new payment plan for an account, allowing the balance to be split into scheduled payments over time.
- get_payment_plan_list_m: Returns the list of payment plans on the account.
- get_payment_plan_details_m: Returns details of a specific payment plan at the time of API call.
Dunning
The system adjusts dunning once you create a payment plan: it assigns new due dates to the outstanding balance and only triggers dunning if the customer misses a scheduled payment. If services were already in dunning, the system removes them upon payment plan creation.
Related Notifications and Events
These notifications and events support payment plans:
- The "Account Payment Plan Created" event under "Account and Master Plan Instances."
- The "Payment Plan Due Reminder" email template class to notify customers of upcoming dues.
Note: Aria groups this email template class by account, billing group, and notification date. Therefore, Aria only sends one email reminder when an account's billing group has multiple payment plans with the same notify date.
- Strings and loops for statement templates to show upcoming payments due on anniversary statements.
- Support for bill lag days in payment terms and methods, which the system applies to payment plan notify dates and due dates.