Understanding Regular Giving Failures and Retries – Raisely

Encouraging your supporters to give regularly is an excellent way to sustainably and incrementally reach your fundraising goals. In this article, we'll provide an overview of what to do when you encounter issues with regular donations. These processes may evolve over time, as we continue to make improvements to the system following best practices.

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Types of Failures

Retry Logic and Manual Retries for Credit Cards

Attempts to charge failing Direct Debit

Retry Logic for PayPal Regular Giving

FAQ

Types of Failures

When collecting regular donations via credit card or direct debit, you may occasionally encounter failures. The decline code will be displayed on the failed regular donation under the “Individual Donations” section, or you can go to the Stripe record to view the full details of the failure. This section provides an overview of the different types of errors you might face. You can also refer to Stripe’s error codes for more information.

🟢 Note: For all Soft failures, we will retry the donation according to our retry schedule, which is covered in the next section.

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# Errors During Regular Donation Setup on the Donation Form

In most instances, the reason for the error will be displayed on the donation form (e.g. incorrect credit card number, wrong CVC number etc). In those instances, the Donor should verify their payment details and attempt to set up the regular donations again.

However, there are exceptions where the attempt to set up the payment through the donation form will fail. Specifically:

Payment suspected to be Fraudulent. This could be due to the campaign’s minimum donation settings or the payment being blocked by Stripe’s Radar feature

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# Errors for Ongoing Regular Donations

In the table below, we provide an overview of common error codes and how we handle them in Raisely. This can occur for both Direct Debit and Credit Card payments.

Type of Failure	Error Code	Description	Next Steps
Soft	insufficient_funds	The donor’s account has insufficient funds to cover this payment.	Reach out to the donor and ensure they have sufficient funds available before the Next Payment Date. Or they can update their payment method.
Soft	generic_could_not_process	This payment could not be processed. This usually occurs for errors with Direct Debits.	Raisely will attempt to charge again on the Next Payment Date.
Soft	card_declined	The card has been declined. When a card is declined, the error returned also includes the `decline_code` attribute with the reason why the card was declined. Refer to Stripe’s decline codes documentation to learn more.	Based on the `decline_code` found in Stripe’s documentation, you can work with the donor to resolve the issues with their payment method.
Soft	processing_error	An error occurred while processing the card.	This usually occurs when the donor is trying to set up their regular donation for the first time. We will retry the payment according to our Retry Schedule, or the donor can choose to update their payment method.
Hard	All other error codes	All other types of errors	Reach out to the donor to verify their payment details and work with them to set up a new Regular Donation on the donation form.

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# Bacs (UK) Direct Debit Errors

These errors are covered in Stripe’s documentation.

Type of Failure	Error code	Description	Next Steps
Hard	account_closed	The bank account has been closed.	Donor will need to set up a new Direct Debit.
Hard	bank_ownership_changed	The account has been transferred to a new Payment Service Provider (PSP). Check if you have been notified of the new PSP’s details. If not, you must collect a new mandate from the customer.	Donor will need to set up a new Direct Debit if the donations fail.
Hard	debit_not_authorized	The customer has notified their bank that this payment was unauthorised or there is no mandate held by the paying bank.	Donor will need to set up a new Direct Debit.
Hard	invalid_account_number	The account number is not valid. This could mean it is not for a GBP account or that the account cannot process Direct Debit payments.	Donor will need to set up a new Direct Debit.

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# Invalid Request Errors

These errors can occur during a regular giving import or when attempting to set up a regular donation for the first time.

Type of Failure	Error code	Description	Next Steps
Hard	resource_missing	This can happen during an import process. For example, if the `Card` information we have in the import template doesn’t match the data for the donor within Stripe.	Reach out to Raisely Support with the donor(s) that are affected. Review the data that was provided within the Import Template file.
Soft	All other errors	When there are other invalid parameters or if someone tries to set up a regular donation on a campaign that is still in Test mode. Examples of error codes: `testmode_charges_only` `card_decline_rate_limit_exceeded` `charge_invalid_parameter`	Reach out to Raisely Support for further investigation.

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Retry Logic and Manual Retries for Credit Cards

The reason for payment failure determines the status we assign, which in turn dictates whether Raisely will retry the payment later or stop future collection attempts.

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# Automated Retry Schedule

Regular Donation Status	When does this happen	Retry Schedule
`RETRYING`	If the failure is due to a Soft Failure or if the error relates to timing out (e.g. issues with Stripe receiving the payment and donation information)	We will adjust the Next Payment Date and retry on the following schedule: Soft Failure* 1st attempt - Initial Next Payment Date + 3 days 2nd attempt - 1st attempt + 3 days 3rd attempt - 2nd attempt + 3 days 4th attempt - 3rd attempt + 3 days Note: We are doing smart retries on even numbered monthly subscriptions* (e.g. February, April) where the day may shift by 1 or 2 days, depending on when the next payment is and currency. Timed Out 1st attempt - Initial Next Payment Date + 6 hours 2nd attempt - 1st attempt + 6 hours 3rd attempt - 2nd attempt + 6 hours 4th attempt - 3rd attempt + 6 hours If the donation continues to fail after 4 retry attempts, the regular donation moves on to a `FAILING`status. If the donation fails due to a Hard Failure, we will set the donation to a `FAILED`status and won’t attempt to retry.
`FAILING`	Once the regular donation has been retried 5 times, it moves from a `RETRYING`state to a `FAILING` state.	We will adjust the Next Payment Date and retry on the following schedule: Soft Failure 5th attempt - 4th attempt + 7 days 6th attempt - 5th attempt + 7 days Timed Out 5th attempt - 4th attempt + 6 hours 6th attempt - 5th attempt + 6 hours If the donation continues to fail after 7 retry attempts, the regular donation moves on to a `FAILED`status and we won’t attempt to retry. If the donation fails due to a Hard Failure, we will set the donation to a `FAILED`status and won’t attempt to retry.
`FAILED`	If the failure is due to a Hard Failure	We will no longer automatically retry the donation. You’ll need to reach out to the donor, and work with them to update their payment method associated with the Regular Donation.

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# Manually Retrying the Regular Donation

Setting a Regular Donation to ACTIVE via the toggle

You can manually initiate the retry process for a Regular Donation by switching the Active toggle. The regular donation may not charge immediately, as our regular donation processing occurs every 3 hours. So if the regular donation succeeds at this stage, we will automatically update the Next Payment Date.

Note: This does not reset the attempt count if the regular donation fails again. You will need to refer to the error code and work with the donor to correct the issue. This might involve setting up a new regular donation with an updated payment method.

Trying to manually charge the donation when it is set to Active

If a regular donation is in an ACTIVE state, you can attempt to force a charge straight away by pressing the Process button. Note that if the donation fails, the regular donation will be put into a FAILED state immediately.

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Attempts to charge failing Direct Debit

For Direct Debit arrangements, we can’t retry payments like we would be able to for Credit Card payments. Instead, we can only attempt to try and charge their direct debit arrangement on their Next Payment Date.

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# Automated re-attempt for Direct Debits

Regular Donation Status	Type of Failure	What happens next
`FAILED`	Hard	The Direct Debit is set to `FAILED` and we do not retry.
`FAILING`	Soft	The Direct Debit is set to a `FAILING` status and we will wait until the Next Payment Date to try and attempt another charge. If the Direct Debit fails at the next attempt, it will move to a `FAILED` status and we will not attempt any further charges.

If the Direct Debit is set to a FAILED state, the donor will need to set up a new Direct Debit via the donation form.

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Retry Logic for PayPal Regular Giving

PayPal handles retries automatically for us every 5 days after the initial failed payment.

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# Automated re-attempt for PayPal

Here's an example for a PayPal regular donation that's set up for a monthly recurring schedule:

Regular Donation Status	Retry Behaviour	Outcome
`RETRYING`	Donation was set up on November 1st. Dec 1st: PayPal tries to collect the payment for the next billing cycle, payment fails.	Failed donation is recorded and subscription is set to “Retrying” in Raisely, send out a message to donor about the failure and future retry attempts
`RETRYING`	Dec 5th: PayPal’s first retry attempt.	Failed donation recorded, donor notified
`RETRYING`	Dec 10th: PayPal’s second retry attempt.	Failed donation recorded, donor notified
`RETRYING`	Dec 15th: PayPal’s third retry attempt.	Failed donation recorded, donor notified
`RETRYING`	Dec 20th: PayPal’s third retry attempt. PayPal’s fourth and final retry attempt.	Failed donation recorded, subscription status is set to `FAILED`, donor notified

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# Number of retry attempts

The number of retry attempts varies based on the subscription’s frequency.

Frequency	Retry Attempts
Daily	0 retries allowed (this option is only used for testing and should not be used in production
Weekly	1 retry
2 Weeks/Bi-weekly	2 retries
Monthly and above	4 retries

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FAQ

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# What happens when a Donor updates their payment method in the account management page?

If the Regular Donation is set to a FAILED state, the donor will need to update their credit card details via their Account Management Portal. This will then set the regular donation status to ACTIVE and Raisely will attempt to charge the payment method. This may not happen immediately, as our regular donation processing occurs every 3 hours. So if the regular donation succeeds at this stage, we will automatically update the Next Payment Date.

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# Why did the Regular Donation not charge after I set it to ACTIVE?

The regular donation may not charge immediately, as our regular donation processing occurs every 3 hours. So if the regular donation succeeds at this stage, we will automatically update the Next Payment Date.

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