A member's invoice didn't get paid — the charge was declined, the card expired, or the bank bounced the direct debit. Here's what the system does next and what you can do about it.
What's happening
When a charge fails, the invoice doesn't disappear. It stays on the member's account and moves to an Overdue state. Dunning (automatic retry and reminder) takes over from there: the system re-attempts the payment and can notify the member, so you don't have to chase every failure by hand on day one.
A failed payment is almost always a payment-method problem (expired card, insufficient funds, a cancelled bank mandate), not a Base Control problem.
How to fix it
- Open Billing and find the member's invoice. Overdue invoices are marked with a red Overdue badge.
- Open the invoice. The Payment History panel shows what has — and hasn't — been collected against it. An invoice with no payments recorded is still outstanding.
- Let dunning do its job first. For most failures the automatic retry will collect on a later attempt once the member's funds clear. You don't need to act immediately.
- If the member has a new card or account, ask them to update their payment details (members can do this from their own portal). The next retry uses the updated method.
- If you've taken payment another way (cash, EFT, terminal), reconcile it from your Billing workflow so dunning stops chasing an invoice you've already collected. The invoice detail page itself only offers Download PDF, Resend, and Issue Refund — it has no "mark as paid" button, so handle manual payments through your normal billing process.
- If the member disputes the invoice or cancelled early, you may need a refund or adjustment instead — see Refund or credit-note didn't work.
If an invoice stays overdue after several retries and the member insists the payment should have worked, the blocker is on the payment provider's side (card issuer or bank). Have the member contact their bank.