Some banks require customers to verify a payment before it goes through, usually with a one-time password or a tap in their banking app. This is known as 3D Secure (or SCA in the EU). It works seamlessly when the customer signs up, since they are right there to complete it.
But payment plans and subscriptions charge customers automatically on future dates, when the customer is not present. When a scheduled payment needs this verification, it cannot complete until the customer acts.
Paythen handles this automatically and keeps you informed with two clear statuses visible in your dashboard:
In progress - awaiting authentication
Overdue - awaiting authentication (if not completed in 4 days)
We go into more detail below:
What happens when a scheduled payment needs authentication
The customer status moves to In progress - awaiting authentication, which you'll see on your Paythen dashboard customers page and on the customer detail page.
The customer is notified via email, asking them to complete the verification step with their bank. Here's an example of the email they'd get:
Once they complete it, the payment goes through and the plan continues as normal. The customer status moves back to In progress. No action is needed from you.
🤖 No manual action or intervention needed
At this stage, you don't need to get involved since the vast majority of customers complete this step within a few hours of getting the email. And once they do, we'll automatically update their status back to In progress.
At the moment only one email is sent to customers. You can choose to send them more reminders using a Zapier zap or manually remind them.
The exact flow that is triggered when customers click on the AUTHENTICATE button will vary from bank to bank and across different plans. Customers might be asked to approve a notification from their banking app, verify via an sms code, or re-enter their payment info on the page. Paythen handles all the scenarios automatically.
If the customer doesn't complete this within 4 days
If the additional authentication is still pending after 4 days, the customer moves to an Overdue - awaiting authentication status. When this happens:
All future charges and automated retries are paused. This prevents new charges from stacking up while an earlier payment is stuck because it needs manual authentication.
For standard payment plans, subscriptions and pay your way plans, the Stripe subscription is automatically paused in your Stripe account with a note added as metadata in Stripe explaining why and that it will auto-resume.
🙋♀️ Human intervention recommended
This is where you should get involved and reach out to the customer to nudge them to complete this step to continue their payment plan without further delays since this authentication has been pending for 4 days.
You can send them your company link so they can access their customer page and complete authentication by clicking the AUTHENTICATE button on the banner at the top of the page. This will trigger their bank's flow to authenticate.
Once customers complete this step, their plan will go back to in progress or if it was the final payment, to a completed status.
Automate this further with Zapier
If you want to automate this further, set up more follow ups or want to trigger actions in any other apps (like removing or deactivating a customer's access to another system), you can do that using our Zapier app based on the status changes above.
Eg: When a customer's status changes to Overdue - Awaiting authentication, deactivate their access from the Acme learning management system or put their order on hold, etc.