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Charge Flows

What is a charge flow?​

Charge flows are used when you want to charge your customer without the customer being present. Depending on the payment method, we then decide whether we can charge the customer directly or whether we have to send out an email, SMS or similar message to collect their payment details. How and when this happens is decided in the charge flow levels (see below).

Primary use cases​

  • Recurring payments — ideal for subscriptions where you need control over billing timing, especially for physical goods. Charge flows support automatically retrying payments and contacting customers if their payment data is invalid or outdated.
  • Asynchronous "email payment links" — useful in call centres or webshop scenarios to avoid high MOTO (mail order / telephone order) fees. Instead, you send a payment link via email.
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Charge flows are also the foundation of Subscriptions: the charge flow feature must be active and at least one charge flow configured before you can use recurring billing.

How do I create a charge flow?​

Open the charge flow list in your space and add a new charge flow.

You first set up the charge flow, then associate the different levels with it. The levels define how you want to charge the customer and — if the charge fails — how you want to retrieve the payment information from them.

Charge flow levels​

You can set different charge flow levels. We distinguish between three different ways of charging the customer:

  1. Using a token — a token is a reference to payment information stored inside the platform. If the customer has a valid associated token, we can use it to charge them directly.
  2. Asynchronous charge — some payment methods allow you to charge the customer without their interaction. All that is needed is the relevant payment information, for example to send an invoice. In this case we can also charge the customer using the information present.
  3. Sending a payment link — if none of the mechanisms above works, a link is sent to the customer. The link points to the payment page, where the customer can select any configured payment method and complete the transaction.

Each level is attempted in order, which is what makes a charge flow a recovery mechanism rather than a single attempt: a failed token charge escalates to asking the customer for new details instead of simply failing.

Email template and sender of a level​

A level of type Email sends its message with the email settings of your space unless you override them on the level itself. Open the level and set:

  • Email Template — the template used for this level's message. Leave it empty to use the default template of the matching type.
  • Email Sender — the sender the message is sent from. Leave it empty to use the default sender of your space.

This lets a single space send its payment requests under different sender addresses or with different wording — for example one per brand — as long as a separate charge flow is selected for each case.

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Both settings apply to the messages the charge flow itself sends. Transaction emails such as authorization, completion, fulfilment or refund confirmations are not affected: they follow the email configuration of your space and are sent with its default sender.

  • Tokenization — how the stored payment details used in level 1 are created.
  • Subscriptions — recurring billing that uses charge flows to collect the money.
  • Payment Links — the standalone version of the link sent in level 3.
  • Transaction States — what happens to the transaction while a charge flow runs.