Installment Plans Overview

Availability: all plans

An installment plan lets you offer a customer a payment arrangement on an unpaid invoice. The amount owed is split into scheduled payments, and the customer agrees to the terms before anything is collected. It is an arrangement between you and your customer about when an invoice is paid. It is not a loan from a lender, and ServiceVisit does not give legal or lending advice, so check any rules that apply to your business before you offer one.

Before you start

The invoice needs an amount still due. An invoice that is already fully paid cannot have a plan.
An invoice can have one plan at a time. If one already exists, the invoice shows View Installment Plan instead of Set Up Installment Plan.
Seeing plans needs permission to view installment plans. Setting one up needs permission to create them. Suspending, resuming, cancelling, recording payments and changing reminders needs permission to manage billing automation.
Automatic collection also needs a connected payment processor, covered in the setting-up guide.

Steps

Open an unpaid invoice and select Set Up Installment Plan. The setting-up guide covers the form.
The plan is saved as a proposal. It shows as Awaiting acceptance, charges nothing, and has no payment schedule yet.
The customer accepts from their own invoice page, or you record an acceptance that happened in person, by telephone, by email reply or on signed paper. Accepting creates the payment schedule.
Payments are then collected automatically from the customer's card or recorded by you when you receive them.
Follow the plan under Money, then Installment Plans. The managing guide covers what you can do from there.

What the plans list shows

The page shows summary cards for Total Plans, Active Plans, Total Outstanding and Overdue Payments. If the overdue count cannot be loaded, the card shows a dash rather than a number. You can filter by Status (Active, Suspended, Completed, Cancelled) and Auto-Charge (Enabled or Disabled), or search by customer name or invoice number. Each row shows the customer and invoice, the total amount, progress such as 2 of 6, status, whether payment is Auto-Charge or Manual, and the next payment date. A badge at the top links to payment setup and reads Connect a payment processor, Finish payment processor setup, Manual charges only or Auto-charge ready, depending on the connection.

Tips

Use a plan when a customer cannot pay an invoice in one go and you are willing to be paid over time.
A plan that is a proposal can be withdrawn, which frees the invoice for a different plan.
Plans bought as part of a package can also appear here. The plans and packages overview explains how a package is paid over time.

If something goes wrong

If Set Up Installment Plan is missing, the invoice may already have a live plan, the invoice may not be open for payment collection, or you may lack the create permission.
If a plan row is highlighted and shows failures next to Auto-Charge, automatic payments have failed. The managing guide explains what happens next.

Setting Up an Installment Plan — This guide walks through proposing an installment plan on an unpaid invoice. You choose how many payments, how often they fall, when the first is due and whether the customer is charged automatically…
Managing an Installment Plan — Once a plan exists you follow it from its detail page. This guide covers recording the customer's acceptance, recording payments, setting the reminder schedule, and suspending, resuming or cancelling…
What the Customer Sees on an Installment Plan — When a provider offers you a payment plan on an invoice, you see it on that invoice in your account. This guide explains the offer, how to accept it, and what you can see and change afterward. A…
View Installment Plans — An installment plan splits what a customer owes on an invoice into scheduled payments. This capability opens the Installment Plans page under Money, where a provider can see every plan for their…
Create Installment Plans — This capability lets a provider offer a customer a payment plan on an unpaid invoice. From the invoice, the Set Up Installment Plan page asks for the number of installments (at least two), how often…
Plans & Packages Overview — Plans & Packages lets you define reusable offerings that a customer buys once or subscribes to, send a customer a proposal for one, and have the customer's acceptance create the purchase or enrollment…