Payment Issues

This article covers common payment problems — declined cards, failed charges, Autopay issues, and billing discrepancies — along with steps to resolve them.

Declined Credit Card

When a credit card payment is declined, you’ll see a message that the payment could not be processed, along with a reference code. The family has not been charged.

Common reasons a card is declined:

• Insufficient funds — The card doesn’t have enough available balance to cover the charge.
• Incorrect card details — Wrong card number, expiration date, or CVV. This is especially common when entering details on behalf of a parent over the phone.
• Expired card — The expiration date has passed. The family needs to provide updated card information.
• Bank restrictions — Some banks flag unfamiliar online transactions and block them. The family should call their bank’s number on the back of the card to authorize the charge, then try again.
• Daily or transaction limits — The family’s bank may have a per-transaction or daily spending limit that’s lower than the payment amount.
• International restrictions — If the family’s bank is outside the US, international transactions may be blocked by default.

What to do:

1. Ask the family to verify their card details and try again.
2. If the card is correct, ask them to call their bank to authorize the transaction.
3. Try a different payment method — another card, ACH, or a manual method like check or Zelle.

The payment will show as Failed in the Payment Table with the reference code stored for your records.

Failed ACH (Bank Account) Payment

ACH payments can fail for different reasons than credit cards:

• Invalid routing number — The routing number must be exactly 9 digits. Double-check that the family provided a routing number, not an account number.
• Invalid account number — The account number was entered incorrectly.
• Account holder name mismatch — Some banks require the name to match exactly what’s on the account.
• Insufficient funds — Like credit cards, the account needs enough balance to cover the payment.
• Account closed or frozen — The bank account may no longer be active.

ACH payments can also appear to succeed initially but fail days later when the bank processes the transaction. If this happens, the payment status will update to Failed and (depending on your notification settings) the family and your admin team will be notified.

Autopay Payment Failed

When a scheduled Autopay payment fails, Campflow will:

1. Mark the payment as Failed in the system.
2. Send notifications based on your failed payment notification settings — the family, your admin team, or both can be notified by email and/or SMS.
3. Record the failure in the family’s collection history.

Common causes:

• Expired card — The card saved on file has expired since it was originally entered. The family needs to update their saved payment method.
• Insufficient funds — The card or bank account didn’t have enough balance on the scheduled date.
• Card replaced by bank — Banks sometimes issue new card numbers (due to fraud, expiration, or account changes) without notifying the cardholder. The old saved card will stop working.
• Account closed — The family closed the bank account or cancelled the card that was on file.

How to fix it:

1. Go to the family’s detail page and check the Autopay section.
2. Look at the failed payment to see the error message.
3. Contact the family and ask them to update their saved payment method.
4. Once updated, the next scheduled Autopay payment will use the new card or bank account.

If a family’s balance reaches zero (for example, if they paid through a different method), the Autopay schedule will automatically skip the next charge and, if configured, complete the schedule.

For more on configuring Autopay, see Autopay.

Payment Shows as “Pending”

A Pending status means the payment has been recorded but not yet confirmed. This is normal in several situations:

• ACH payments — Bank account transfers typically take 2-5 business days to clear. The status will update once the bank confirms or rejects the transaction.
• Check payments — If you record a check payment as Pending, you’ll need to manually update it to Accepted once the check clears.
• Promised payments — A Promised status means the family said they’ll pay but the money hasn’t arrived yet. Update the status once you receive it.

To update a payment’s status:

1. Go to the family’s detail page.
2. Find the payment in the Payments section.
3. Click the payment to open it.
4. Change the Status and click Save.

Balance Doesn’t Match Expected Amount

If a family’s balance looks wrong, here are the most common causes:

• Unapplied credits or discounts — Check the family’s ledger to see every charge and payment. Manual credits show as negative amounts.
• Payment recorded under wrong family — If a payment was accidentally applied to a different family, it won’t appear on this family’s balance.
• Duplicate payments — Check if the same payment was recorded twice. This can happen if someone clicked the save button multiple times during a slow connection.
• Processing fees — If your camp passes processing fees to families, the charged amount will be higher than the payment amount. The fee portion appears separately in the ledger. See Processing Fees for details.
• Refund or chargeback — A previously accepted payment may have been refunded or reversed. Check for refund records in the payment table. See Refunds & Chargebacks.
• Camper added or removed — Adding or removing a camper recalculates the invoice. If a camper was added after the initial registration, tuition for that camper is added to the balance.

To investigate, go to the family’s detail page and scroll to the Ledger section. The ledger shows every charge, payment, credit, and refund in chronological order, so you can trace exactly how the current balance was calculated.

Payment Receipt Not Received

When a payment is successfully processed with a status of Accepted, Campflow automatically emails a receipt to the family (unless the feature was turned off when recording the payment).

If the family says they didn’t receive a receipt:

• Check spam/junk folders — Payment receipts sometimes get caught by email filters.
• Verify the email address — Go to the family’s detail page and check that the correct email address is on file. Receipts are sent to the parent based on the family’s record owner setting.
• Resend the receipt — Open the payment record and click the option to resend the receipt.
• Check payment status — Receipts are only sent for Accepted payments. If the payment is still Pending, no receipt has been sent yet.

Payment Method Not Appearing

If a payment method isn’t showing up when you or a parent try to make a payment:

• Check the payment method settings — Go to Settings > General and scroll to the Accepted Payment Methods section. Make sure the payment method is marked as Active.
• Registration vs. admin settings — Payment methods can be enabled for admin use, registration use, or both. A method that works from the admin side may not appear on the parent-facing registration form if “Allow on Registration” isn’t turned on. See Payment Methods for details.
• Cardknox setup — Credit card and ACH payment methods require valid Cardknox credentials. If the credentials are missing or incorrect, the payment method won’t work even though it appears in the list.

Check Payment Appeared Unexpectedly

If you see a check payment on a family’s account that you were not expecting, it most likely came through a payment link. When check payments are enabled on your payment link, parents can submit check payments online — they enter the check details and the payment is recorded automatically.

By default, these payments may post with an Accepted status, which immediately affects the family’s balance. If you want to review check payments before they count toward the balance, change the Default Status for your check payment method to Promised or Pending. To do this:

1. Go to Settings > General.
2. Scroll to Accepted Payment Methods and expand the check payment method.
3. Change the Default Status dropdown to Promised (if you want to verify receipt before accepting) or Pending (if you want to review before confirming).
4. Save your settings.

Going forward, check payments submitted via the payment link will post with the status you chose, so you can review and accept them manually. If you don’t want parents to submit check payments through the payment link at all, uncheck Allow on Payment Link for the check payment method.

Families Show as Paid in Full but Haven’t Paid

If most of your families show a $0 balance and appear paid in full even though they haven’t made any payments, tuition charges likely haven’t been generated yet. A family’s balance is calculated from the charges on their account minus their payments — if there are no charges, the balance is zero.

To generate charges for a family:

1. Go to the family’s detail page.
2. Scroll to the Financial tab.
3. Click Recalculate Fees.
4. Review the projected charges in the preview, then click Recalculate to apply them.

This generates tuition charges based on the family’s enrolled campers, their terms, grades, and your camp’s pricing rules. Once charges are in place, the family’s balance will reflect what they owe.

If many families are affected, this usually means tuition pricing hasn’t been fully configured yet for the season. Check your pricing setup to make sure rates are defined for the relevant grades and terms.

Good to Know

• Every failed payment includes a reference code (like “ref: ABC123”). Share this code when reaching out through the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner of your screen — it helps us find the exact technical details quickly.
• Failed payments are not charged to the family. The error message will always confirm this.
• You can see all failed payments by filtering the Payment Table by status.
• If a payment fails during registration, the parent’s registration data is still saved. They can try again with a different payment method without re-entering the form.