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How customers pay a balance later, and why the Pay Balance button may be missing

  • Updated

A customer who owes money, for example after paying only a deposit or choosing to pay by check, can pay it later by card on your website with Pay Balance. Turn on Enable Pay Balance under Programs > Configurations > General, and a Pay Balance button appears on the customer's account whenever they owe money.

Applies to: Admins · All plans · Card payments (Enable Credit Cards? set to Yes)

Where: Programs > Configurations > General > Checkout > Enable Pay Balance

Turn on Pay Balance

  1. Go to Programs > Configurations > General.
  2. In the Checkout section, make sure Enable Credit Cards? is Yes.
  3. Set Enable Pay Balance ("Enable customers to easily pay any balance owed via credit card") to Yes.
  4. Click Save.

What you'll see: "Registration Configurations updated." The setting applies to your whole site right away.

How customers pay

  1. The customer signs in on your website.
  2. They click the red Balance Due tile on their account's home page, or go to My Account > Order History. The same Account Balance box is at the top of My Account > Enrollments.
  3. The box shows "You currently have a balance due of" and the amount. Amount starts at the whole balance; they can enter less to pay part of it.
  4. In Applies to, they choose what the payment is for: one of the items they owe, Multiple to split it across several items, or Other (offered when your site has a single payment gateway) for a payment that isn't for a particular item.
  5. They click Pay Balance. With Multiple, a Balance Payment page opens first: they enter an Amount To Apply for each item and click Add.
  6. At checkout, they enter their card details and click Place Order.

What you'll see: the card payment on the customer's Account Overview, applied to the items they chose, and their balance lowered by that amount.

Why the Pay Balance button is missing

  • Enable Pay Balance is No. Turn it on as above.
  • The customer isn't signed in on your website, or is signed in to a different family account than the one that owes. The balance belongs to the account.
  • The account doesn't owe anything overall. The button and the Balance Due tile appear only while the account's total balance is more than $0. An amount owed for one registration doesn't show when a credit elsewhere on the account covers it.

If it doesn't work

  • "Credit Card processing must be enabled for Balance Payments." You set Enable Pay Balance to Yes while Enable Credit Cards? is No. Set Enable Credit Cards? to Yes first.
  • "The amount must be at least $5.00 when making a payment." An online balance payment must be at least $5.00, or the whole balance when it's less than that.
  • "The amount you want to pay is greater then the amount owed." or "The amount you want to pay is greater then the amount owed for selected item." The Amount is more than the balance, or more than what's owed on the item chosen in Applies to.
  • "The amount you can pay can't be equal or less then zero dollars." Enter an amount above $0.
  • "Applies To selection required." Choose an item, Multiple or Other in Applies to.
  • "Applied amount is greater than the reconcile balance." On the Balance Payment page, an Amount To Apply is more than that item's unpaid amount.
  • "You cannot make a single balance payment for this group of items. Pay each item individually." The items are paid to different payment gateways, such as another associated organization's. Pay each item on its own.

Good to know

  • Pay Balance is card only, and an account credit can't be applied to it. To record a check or cash, use Add Transaction on the customer's Account Overview. To charge their card yourself, use Place Order > Add Balance Payment.
  • Pay Balance starts a new cart that holds only the payment. Anything already in the customer's cart is removed, so they should finish other orders first.
  • When Balance Block is Yes on the same page, a customer who owes can't check out new orders until they pay. Keep Enable Pay Balance on so they can pay online first.
  • Customers owe a balance when they pay only a deposit (Partial Pay), choose to pay by check or another offline method at checkout, or when you add a charge such as a Misc - Debit.

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