Set up an installment plan

An installment plan splits an amount the customer already owes into equal payments, and stops by itself once the plan is satisfied. Use it when the total is known up front — a $6,000 invoice paid over six months, say.

If the billing should carry on indefinitely instead, you want a subscription.

Before you start

• You need the Charge action on the record's page layout — see Part 6 of the quick start guide if it is missing.
• The gateway must support Installment billing under its Supported Payment Modes. See the gateway reference.
• You need either a saved payment method for the customer, or you plan to charge by Payment Link instead.
• The background jobs must already be scheduled, or nothing you set up here will ever charge — see Part 7 of the quick start guide.

The three ways an installment plan ends

Every installment plan ends. What differs is which of the three you fix, and what ChargeOn works out for you:

Bill until	You enter	ChargeOn works out
N payments	Number of Payments — between 2 and 600	The amount of each payment
Total reached	Per-Installment Amount	How many payments it takes to reach the total
End date	End Date	The amount of each payment, spread evenly until that date

In all three the total comes from the Payable Amount already on the charge screen. You never enter the total twice.

Steps

1. Open the record and click Charge.
2. Choose Card, ACH, or Payment Link as the payment type.

3. Choose Installment Plan.

   

4. Under Bill until, choose N payments, Total reached, or End date.

5. Choose a Frequency: weekly, fortnightly (labelled Biweekly on screen), monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or yearly.
6. Set the Start Date, and fill in the one field that matches your choice at step 4 — Number of Payments, Per-Installment Amount, or End Date.
7. Optional: enter an amount under Upfront Payment to charge something today, before the regular cycle begins.
8. Click Preview Installments.
9. Check the preview — it lists every charge by number, date and amount before you confirm anything.
10. Click Set Up Installments to confirm.

What you should see

A new record showing the basis, frequency and next payment date you chose. If you set an upfront payment, or a start date of today, the first charge processes immediately.

If you chose Payment Link instead of a saved payment method, no charge happens yet — ChargeOn emails the customer a link for the first amount due, and the plan waits for them to pay it.

The preview never lies

The dates, amounts and sequence shown before you confirm are exactly what gets scheduled — they are computed by the same logic that runs the plan, not a separate estimate.

If it does not work

Symptom	Likely cause	What to do
Installment Plan does not appear as an option	The selected gateway is not configured to support that mode	Check its Supported Payment Modes — see the gateway reference
The plan was created, but no charge has ever happened	The background jobs are not scheduled	Part 7 of the quick start guide
A charge came from a gateway you did not expect	The first charge failed over to a fallback gateway, and the plan is now permanently pinned to it	This is expected behaviour — see the warning in Installments and subscriptions
The plan stopped early, with charges left unmade	Each genuine decline uses up one of the fixed number of charges, the same as a success	Check the plan's history for the declined cycle, and fix the payment method going forward