Failed Payment

Overview

When a payment attempt fails, Frisbii Media provides several tools to help you understand what happened, configure automatic responses, and take manual action where needed. This article gives you a complete overview of all relevant areas and explains how to handle failed payments efficiently.

How do I find out about failed payments?

To receive proactive notifications about failed payments, we recommend using at least one of the following two options:

BCC email in Mail Settings

Where: Settings → Applications → Mail Settings

Add your email address as a BCC recipient in the email settings for the relevant templates (“Notification of a failed payment attempt” and “Notification of a failed recurring payment”). You will then receive a copy of every email that is automatically sent to the customer when a payment attempt fails.

→ To the Mail Settings

Set up the “failed_payment” callback

Where: Settings → Development → Callbacks

Set up a callback for the failed_payment event. This allows you to automatically notify your system or trigger follow-up processes as soon as a payment fails.

→ To Callbacks

1. Process Control (Automatic)

Where: Settings → Financial → Payment Methods → Process Control

Process Control defines how the system responds automatically when a payment fails or is revoked. You configure it once, and Frisbii Media applies the defined rules to all affected subscriptions.

Note

Process control applies to subscriptions only — not to single products.

What you configure

Retry schedule

Set the intervals at which payment attempts are retried automatically. You can define multiple attempts, e.g.:

• Payment attempt when due

• Payment attempt after 2 day(s)

• Payment attempt after 4 further day(s)

• Payment attempt after 6 further day(s)

The timing can be tailored to three different accounting period lengths: more than 1 month, up to 1 month, up to 1 week.

What happens if all retries fail

Once all configured payment attempts have been exhausted, you define the follow-up behavior:

Important: If customer access is blocked, the customer can no longer update their payment method via Self Service. In this case, the payment method can only be changed by a merchant employee in the Merchant Backend.

Email notifications

Each failed payment attempt automatically triggers the "Notification of a failed payment attempt" email to the customer. If all attempts fail, the "Notification of a failed recurring payment" email is sent.

→ Configure email templates in Mail Settings

→ Go to Process Control

2. Retry Payment (Manual)

Where: Customer Account → Subscriptions → [Subscription] → Action Bar → Retry Payment

In addition to the automatic retries defined in Process Control, a payment attempt can also be triggered manually at any time at the subscription level.

Two options are available:

• Past periods: Available when payments have failed for previous accounting periods (e.g., due to an expired credit card or an inactive bank account). Past periods can only be billed if product access is not blocked in the relevant period.

• Current period: Triggers a payment attempt for the current accounting period.

This is useful when, for example, a customer has just updated their payment method and you want to retry immediately without waiting for the next scheduled automatic attempt.

→ More about subscription actions

3. Transaction Log

Where: Log Center → Transactions

The transaction log serves as a technical log and records the communication between the payment service provider and Frisbii Media. If a payment fails, the PSP (Payment Service Provider) returns an error code, which is displayed here. This allows you to determine why a payment did not go through.

→ Go to Transactions

4. Invoice Generation and Failed Payments

Note

For all payment methods except invoice payment, an invoice is only generated when a payment is successful. If a payment attempt fails, no invoice is created.

This means:

• A failed direct debit, credit card charge, or PayPal payment does not generate an invoice.

• Only once payment is collected successfully will the corresponding invoice be issued and made available to the customer.

• If Process Control is configured to switch to invoice payment after failed attempts, an invoice will be generated under this payment method going forward.

This behavior ensures that invoices in the system always correspond to actual completed transactions.

Troubleshooting: What Can Customer Service Do?

If a payment fails and automated retries are not sufficient, the following manual options are available to customer service:

Option 1 — Change the payment method (Merchant Backend)

In the subscription detail view, use Change Payment Method in the action bar to update the payment method directly. This is the fastest path if the customer has provided new payment details via another channel.

Option 2 — Ask the customer to update their payment method (Self Service)

If product access is not blocked, the customer can update their payment method themselves in Self Service at the subscription level. This is the preferred approach for a smooth customer experience with minimal agent involvement.

Note

If customer access has been blocked in Process Control settings, the customer can no longer make changes via Self Service. In this case, Option 1 must be used.

Option 3 — Block access

If the customer does not respond and the payment situation remains unresolved, access can be blocked manually:

Action bar → Block/Unblock Access → Block product access (or block customer access)

The customer is not automatically notified of the block — neither by email nor in Self Service.

Option 4 — Cancel the subscription

As a last resort, if the customer does not react and the payment cannot be resolved, the subscription can be canceled.

Action bar → Cancel

If the subscription is canceled as a result of Process Control settings, no additional cancellation email is sent.

Use Case: Handling a Failed Payment End-to-End

Scenario: A customer's credit card has expired. The monthly payment for their active subscription fails.

Step 1: Automatic retries (Process Control)
Process Control triggers the configured retry schedule. Each attempt fails because the card is expired (hard decline). After all retries are exhausted, the system blocks product access and sends the customer the "Notification of a failed recurring payment" email. Customer service will also receive a notification via the BCC email.

Step 2: Check the Transaction Log
In the Transaction Log, you can see the failed attempts with the PSP error code — confirming the card is expired.

Step 3: Customer is contacted
Customer service sees the blocked subscription and reaches out. The customer is asked to update their payment method via Self Service (Option 2 above). Because product access — not customer access — was blocked, the customer can still log in and update their details.

Step 4: Customer updates their payment method
The customer adds a new valid credit card in Self Service.

Step 5: Manual retry
Customer service triggers a manual payment attempt via Retry Payment → Past Periods in the subscription action bar.

Step 6: Payment succeeds
The payment goes through. Product access is automatically restored (if configured in Process Control: "After payment"). An invoice is generated for the period.

Quick Reference