Restart a Failed Payment Request

Topic

Payment Requests

For

Front Office Team

Read Time

~4 minutes

When AutoCollect has chased a payment request for its whole collection window without being paid, the request is marked Failed and the reminders stop. The money is still owed. Restart Collection puts that request back into active collection with a fresh window, so it starts getting chased again.

Failed is not a declined card

A failed transaction is a card that was declined, where no money moved. A failed payment request is one that ran out of chasing time. Same word, different things. See Payment Request Statuses.

Where the button is

Open the payment request and look in the information column on the left, in the same area as the Status dropdown.

Restart Collection only appears when the status is Failed. On a Failed request the AutoCollect toggle is hidden, and the button sits in its place. Underneath it, a small line reads Last attempt started with the date the previous collection window began.

On any other status the button is not there at all.

Restarting a request

1. Open the request. Find it under Payments, then Payment Requests, and click into it. The Failed tab across the top of the list is the quickest way to find them.
2. Click Restart Collection. The button is below the Status dropdown.
3. Read the confirmation window. It tells you what the last attempt actually did and what will happen if you continue. This is the part worth slowing down for, and the next section covers it.
4. Confirm. Click Restart Collection in the window, or Cancel to back out.

You will see Collection restarted for payment request and its number. The status goes back to Sent, the collection clock restarts at zero, and AutoCollect turns back on if your office uses it.

Reading the confirmation window

The window exists so you do not commit to another round of chasing without knowing what the last round achieved. It has up to four parts.

1. What the last attempt did

If reminders went out, you get a single line, for example The last collection attempt sent 12 reminders.

If nothing went out, you get an amber box reading No reminders were sent, with the reason:

What the box says	What it means
This patient has no email address or mobile number on file, so restarting will not reach them either.	Nothing to send to at all. Fix this first.
This patient has no email address on file.	Email is not possible, and text was not available either.
This patient has not opted in to text messages.	Text is not possible, and email was not available either.
Delivery may have been failing. Check the patient contact details before restarting.	The details are on file but nothing sent, so the address or number may be wrong.

Restarting will not fix a patient nobody can reach

This is the most common wasted restart. A request that reached nobody for 90 days looks exactly like one that was chased a dozen times. Whichever reason you see, follow the Update this patient’s contact details link in the box before you restart. If a detail is missing, add an email address or a mobile number the patient has opted in to. If the box says delivery may have been failing, the details are already there but may be wrong, so check them against what the patient actually uses and correct anything that looks stale. Restarting first just buys another 90 days of silence.

2. When the patient was first asked

A quiet line reading First requested with a date and time, shown only if the patient was ever actually contacted.

This is genuinely the first time this patient was asked for this money, across every restart. It does not reset. Use it to judge how long the balance has really been outstanding.

3. Whether this has happened before

If the request has been restarted at least once already, the window says so, for example This payment request has already been restarted once, and collection has run out of time twice.

There is no limit on restarts, and nothing blocks you. This line is the only safeguard, so it is worth reading. A patient who has been chased through several full windows without paying is usually a phone call, not another 90 days of automated reminders.

4. What happens next

Under a What happens next heading, one of three messages:

• Your office uses AutoCollect, and nothing is holding the schedule back. The request moves back to Sent and AutoCollect resumes. The first reminder goes out on the next daily AutoCollect run.
• Your office uses AutoCollect, but the patient heard from you recently. The request moves back to Sent and AutoCollect resumes, and the window names the date the first reminder is due.
• Your office does not use AutoCollect. The request moves back to Sent so you can collect on it yourself. No reminders will be sent automatically, and the window says so.

In all three cases there is a smaller line reminding you that restarting does not send anything now.

What restarting does and does not do

• It does not send anything immediately. Restarting re-arms the reminder schedule. If you want the patient contacted right now, click Email Payment Request or SMS Payment Request on the same page. Those work on their own and are limited to one send every 10 minutes each.
• A manual send delays the first automated reminder. AutoCollect will not send if the patient has heard anything about this request in the last 10 days, and that includes emails and texts you send by hand. So if you email the patient and then restart, the first automated reminder is about 10 days out rather than tomorrow.
• It does not change what the patient owes. The amount, the due date, and anything already paid are untouched. Only the collection schedule changes.
• It only works on Failed. The button does not appear on Paid, Cancelled, Sent, Partially Paid, Overdue, or Draft.

Use the button, not the Status dropdown

Changing a Failed request to Sent with the Status dropdown looks like it works, and it does not. It only changes the label. The collection window underneath has already run out, so the request goes straight back to Failed on the next run and nothing tells you. If you learned this as a workaround, Restart Collection is what replaces it.

If the request was cancelled instead

Cancelled is a deliberate decision that the money is no longer expected, and it takes the balance out of what the practice is owed. That is a different thing from running out of time to collect, so Restart Collection does not apply. Use the Status dropdown to bring a cancelled request back. See Payment Request Statuses.

Common questions

Will the patient be emailed the moment I press Restart Collection? No. Restarting puts the request back into the reminder rotation. The first reminder goes out on the next daily AutoCollect run, or later if the patient heard from you in the last 10 days. To reach them right away, use Email Payment Request.

How many times can I restart the same payment request? As many times as you need. The confirmation window tells you how many times it has already been restarted so you can decide whether another round is reasonable.

My office does not use AutoCollect. Is this any use to me? Yes. Restart is not an AutoCollect feature. It returns the request to Sent so it is back among the balances you are working, and the confirmation window says plainly that nothing automated will follow.

The confirmation says no reminders were sent. What do I do? Read the reason in the box, then follow the link to the patient’s record and fix it before restarting. If an email address or mobile number is missing, add one, and for texts make sure the patient has opted in. If the box says delivery may have been failing, the details are on file but are not working, so check the address and number against what the patient actually uses and correct them.

For how the reminders themselves work, see AutoCollect Payment Reminders.