The Admin Controls section gives you powerful tools to manage and monitor your customers' payment plans. This section is only visible to you and your team when logged in to your Paythen account—your customers never see these controls or information.
Most of the same functions are also accessible via the "more" menu when viewing customers in the list view in your Paythen dashboard.
Plan Status and Progress
At the top of the Admin Controls section, you'll see two key pieces of information about the payment plan – Status and Progress:
Status
Shows the current state of the customer's plan. Your customers can have different statuses depending on where they are in their payment journey.
In progress - The plan is active and payments are being processed
Completed - All payments have been made
Paused - The plan has been temporarily stopped (by you)
Cancelled - The plan has been terminated (either by you or based on your Stripe settings)
Overdue – Retrying - A payment failed and the system is automatically retrying
Overdue – At Risk 👀 - Payment has failed multiple times but still being automatically retried
Overdue – Manual action required - All automatic retry attempts have been exhausted and no further retries are scheduled. This is the status which requires you to jump in and take actions – like contacting the customer directly
For a complete overview of all possible statuses and what they mean, see:
Customer statuses in Paythen.
Progress
Shows how far along the customer is in completing their payment plan. It displays both a percentage and a fraction and uses the number of payments made vs remaining to calculate progress. In the future, we will support progress based on the actual paid vs. remaining amounts.
Example: "14% completed (1 / 7 payments)" means the customer has made 1 out of 7 total payments.
Available Actions
Below the status information, you'll see a row of icons. Each icon represents an action you can take to manage the customer's plan.
1. Edit Customer Details
Update the customer's name, email address, or any custom field answers. When you click this, a modal appears with editable fields for name, email and
When to use: When a customer's contact information changes or if there was a typo or missing custom field answers when they signed up.
2. Change Payment Info
Opens a secure page where you can update customers' payment card on file. This opens a new page with a card input field where you can enter new payment details.
When to use: When a customer's card expires, is lost, or they want to use a different payment method. There is a separate "Change my payment info" field visible to customers when they are viewing their customer page to allow them to directly update their card info.
3. View Customer in Stripe
Opens the customer's profile in your Stripe dashboard in a new tab. This gives you access to detailed payment history including failed attempts, decline reasons, and some other Stripe-specific features.
When to use: When you need to see a more detailed payment history, process refunds, or access Stripe-specific info. Most actions are available directly through Paythen but some, like refunds, are handled via Stripe.
4. Pause / Resume Plan
Pauses all future charges (and any pending retries for overdue payments) on the payment plan. When you click this, a confirmation modal appears and once you confirm, the customer's plan remains paused unless you manually resume it (same button, but will show pause / play icons ⏯️ depending on the current status)
We expect to add support for "auto-resume on a specific date" in the future.
Important: Pausing the plan will prevent any future charges on this plan, unless it is resumed. You can resume the plan at any time. For plans that are resumed, no skipped payments are automatically charged – reach out to us via the chat icon to assist with this.
When to use: When a customer requests a temporary break from payments due to financial hardship or other circumstances.
Related article: Pausing a customer's payment plan or subscription in Paythen
5. Change Payment Dates
Reschedules when the next payment will be charged. The behavior of this feature depends on whether the customer has overdue payments and what type of payment plan they are on – date-based, standard, etc.
The way you change dates varies depending on the customer's plan type:
Date-based payment plans:
You can set each individual payment date separately
Gives you complete control over the exact schedule
Useful for irregular payment schedules or specific arrangement dates
Regular payment plans (weekly, monthly, etc.):
You only choose the next payment date
All subsequent payments automatically adjust to maintain the same frequency
For example: If you move the next payment on a monthly plan from the 10th to the 20th, all future payments will also be on the 20th of each month
Related article: Change a customer's plan dates
For Customers with Overdue Payments
If the customer has one or more overdue payments, you'll first be prompted to choose how to handle them:
Option 1: Extend the plan
Cancels any scheduled retries for the overdue payments
Moves the overdue payments to the end of the plan, extending the plan completion date
Removes the overdue status from the customer and moves them back to an "in progress" status
Use this when: You want to give the customer a fresh start and clear their overdue status
Option 2: Leave as is
Overdue payments remain as they are
Scheduled automatic retries for any overdue payments will continue
The customer will continue to show as overdue until these payments are completed
Use this when: You only want to adjust future payment dates without changing how overdue payments are handled
For date-based plans, you'll see any overdue payments highlighted in red and a small "OVERDUE" label and those will have to be allocated to a future date to make changes to any other dates.
6. Cancel Plan
Permanently ends the payment plan and stops all future scheduled payments and any scheduled retries of overdue payments.
⚠️ Critical: This action cannot be undone easily (but we can help resume a cancelled plan if needed), and no notification will be sent to the customer.
Important: Always communicate with the customer before or after canceling their plan, as they won't receive an automatic notification from Paythen.
In some instances, customer plans can get cancelled automatically based on your Stripe retry settings. We recommend changing your settings so this doesn't happen, but if it does, you will see a relevant message at the top of the customer page. If you need a hand in this scenario, just reach out to us via chat and we can assist.
How to prevent customer plans being auto-cancelled by Stripe after multiple failed attempts
We recommend changing this default Stripe setting since it gives you more flexibility to easily resume overdue plans instead of requiring us to help each time. Here's what we suggest changing in Stripe:
Go to this settings page in Stripe (Settings > Subscriptions and emails).
Scroll down to the Manage failed payments section.
Adjust the Retry schedule to be whatever suits your business (this is what we recommend):
For the Subscription status field, change the setting from If all retries for a payment fail, "cancel the subscription" to "mark the subscription as unpaid" and set the Invoice status to "leave the invoice as-is"
Click the "Save" button and you're done!
Implementing this change will allow you or customers directly to retry and overdue payments and resume the plan automatically once all overdue payments are made.
7. Add an Internal Note
Lets you create private notes about this customer for additional internal context. Anyone in your team on Paythen can view, edit and add internal notes.
Important: Internal notes are not visible to customers but can be viewed by all logged-in team members. You can format notes with bold, italic, links, and lists.
When to use: For tracking conversations, special arrangements, payment agreements, or important details about the customer's account that your team needs to know.
Related article: Internal notes 📝
Collect a Standalone Payment
Below the action icons, you'll find "Collect a standalone payment".
This feature allows you to charge the customer's payment method on file for an amount that's completely separate from their regular payment plan.
How it works:
Click "Collect a standalone payment"
Enter the payment amount (and optionally change the payment currency)
Add a description of what the payment is for—this description will be visible to the customer
The charge processes immediately when you click "CHARGE NOW"
Important: This payment does not affect the customer's existing payment plan in any way. It's treated as a completely separate transaction.
These will show on the customer page in a separate section.
When to use:
One-time fees or charges
Additional products or services purchased outside the plan
Special charges or adjustments that aren't part of the original payment plan
If you have collected a standalone payment, but need it adjusted to the plan's total, just reach out to us and we can help.
Need Help?
If you need a hand with any of these or other changes to a customer's plan, reach out via the chat icon and we can help.