Failed Payment Handling

This article explains what happens when an online recurring donation fails (for example, the donor's card has expired or the bank declined the charge), what TimelyChurch does automatically, and how you can monitor and follow up on failed payments.

Automatic Failed-Payment Notifications

When a recurring donation fails, TimelyChurch automatically emails both the donor (a friendly heads-up asking them to update their card) and a church administrator on the first failure, as long as Stripe still has retries scheduled. Stripe also keeps retrying the charge on its own. You can keep an eye on the full picture in the Stripe Express Dashboard from your Online Giving Setup page.

What "Failed Payment" Means in TimelyChurch

A failed payment is, almost always, a failed recurring charge -- a donor set up a weekly, monthly, or yearly recurring gift, and one of the scheduled charges did not succeed. Common reasons:

• The card on file has expired.
• The card was lost, stolen, or replaced and the new card number is not yet on file.
• The bank flagged the charge as suspicious and declined it.
• Insufficient funds on a debit card or insufficient credit limit on a credit card.
• The bank's risk system rejected the merchant or amount.

For one-time gifts, "failures" are caught immediately at the point of charge -- the donor sees an error on the giving page, and no donation record is created. There is nothing to remediate after the fact. This article is about recurring failures specifically.

What TimelyChurch Does Automatically

When Stripe's recurring billing system attempts a recurring charge and it fails, Stripe notifies TimelyChurch. TimelyChurch then:

1. Records the failure with details (the Stripe invoice, the recurring gift it belongs to, the amount that was due, the connected Stripe account, the attempt number, and the next scheduled retry).
2. Emails the donor on the first failure (when Stripe still has a retry scheduled) with a warm, non-technical note letting them know the charge didn't go through and pointing them to a secure link where they can update their payment method.
3. Emails a church administrator so your team is aware and can do high-touch outreach if the gift is significant.

To avoid spamming people, the donor and admin emails go out once, on the first failed attempt -- not on every one of Stripe's automatic retries.

Note on suppressed addresses: If a donor or admin email address has previously bounced or unsubscribed, TimelyChurch will skip that specific notification (it respects the email suppression list). The failure is still logged either way.

What Stripe Does Automatically

In addition to TimelyChurch's emails, Stripe also retries and notifies on its own according to your Stripe account's smart retry settings:

• Stripe will automatically retry the failed charge several times over the following days/weeks (configurable in your Stripe dashboard's billing settings).
• If you have dunning emails enabled in Stripe, Stripe will also email the donor directly asking them to update their payment method.
• If all retries fail, Stripe marks the subscription as past due or unpaid (depending on your settings), and eventually cancels the subscription. When Stripe cancels a recurring donation after exhausted retries, TimelyChurch sends your church administrator a "recurring donation cancelled" email so you know the gift has stopped.

Recommendation: Keep your Stripe smart-retry (dunning) settings turned on. TimelyChurch's first-failure emails and Stripe's retries work together to give donors every chance to update their card without you having to chase each one manually.

How to Monitor Failed Payments

TimelyChurch's automatic emails will alert you to failures as they happen, but the Stripe Express Dashboard is the place to see the complete history and decline details.

1. The Stripe Express Dashboard (Recommended)

1. Go to Finances > Giving in TimelyChurch.
2. If online giving isn't connected yet, use the Activate online giving link, which takes you to Settings > Integrations to set up Stripe. Once connected, open your Online Giving Setup page.
3. On the Online Giving Setup page, click Stripe Dashboard to open your connected Stripe Express account.
4. In Stripe, navigate to Payments and filter by status Failed.
5. Review each failure. Stripe shows:
   • The donor's email (if known)
   • The amount and date
   • The decline reason from the issuing bank
   • Whether retries are scheduled or exhausted

Set a calendar reminder to check this view periodically. Twice a month is a reasonable cadence for most churches; weekly is better if you have a high volume of recurring givers.

2. Stripe Email Alerts

In your Stripe dashboard settings, you can enable email alerts to be sent to your church's billing contact whenever a charge fails. This is a useful catch-all on top of TimelyChurch's automatic emails:

• Go to your Stripe dashboard's notification preferences.
• Turn on "Failed payments" alerts.
• Pick the email address that should receive them (typically the church administrator or treasurer).

This gives you near-real-time visibility directly from Stripe.

What to Do When a Recurring Charge Fails

When you learn about a failed payment (via TimelyChurch's email, Stripe's email alert, or by checking the dashboard), here is the recommended workflow:

Step 1: Confirm Stripe Retry Status

In the Stripe payment detail, check whether automatic retries are scheduled. If retries remain, you may not need to do anything -- Stripe will try again, and the donor has already received both TimelyChurch's and (if enabled) Stripe's emails asking them to update their card.

Step 2: Reach Out to the Donor (Pastoral Touch)

If retries have been exhausted or if you want to be proactive, contact the donor directly. Keep the message warm and donor-focused:

"Hi [Name], we noticed your most recent recurring gift to [Church] didn't go through -- the bank declined the charge. This usually happens when a card has expired or been replaced. No action is required on your end unless you'd like the gift to keep coming -- in which case, you can update your payment method on our giving page at [URL]."

A short, friendly note often resolves the issue faster than waiting for the automated emails to do the work.

Step 3: Help the Donor Restart the Subscription (If Needed)

If the subscription was cancelled by Stripe after exhausted retries, the donor will need to set up a new recurring gift on the public giving page. (TimelyChurch does not currently expose a "reactivate subscription" flow.)

Walk them through it:

1. Go to your church's public giving page.
2. Choose the same frequency (weekly / monthly / yearly).
3. Enter the same amount and fund.
4. Provide their email and updated card details.
5. Submit.

A new Stripe subscription is created, and the recurring gift resumes.

Step 4: Verify No Duplicate Donation Records

Because the failed charge never settled, no donation record was created in TimelyChurch for that failure. You don't need to delete anything. (Donation records are only created when a successful payment event fires.) If you previously saw a donation record for the failed period, double-check -- it would only exist if a separate, successful charge ran.

Recurring Gift Lifecycle Summary

What's Coming

Possible future enhancements include:

• An admin dashboard widget showing all failed recurring charges in the past 30 days.
• A "retry failed payments" button for admins to manually trigger Stripe to retry.

When those ship, this article will be updated.

Related Articles

• Recurring Giving
• Setting Up Online Giving
• Refunds and Chargebacks