Flexible Payments

Flexible payments are the umbrella term for three powerful, cross-compatible features in Nimble AMS Staff View and Community Hub: One-time Scheduled payments, Installment Payments, and Recurring Orders with a Saved Payment. These are a must in the present-day e-commerce environment. Financial transactions with your constituents are more likely than ever with these capabilities, helping increase revenue. It's also very convenient for constituents because it empowers them to "set it and forget it" or spread a large expense out over a period of time.

Flexible Payments are compatible with Authorize.net (external), BluePay (external), and CardPointe (external).

Some Use Cases

• A constituent doesn't have the funds available yet and wants to automatically pay for their event registration two weeks from now instead of today.

• To pay for their booth, an exhibitor wants to pay $400/month over the next 6 months instead of making a single $2400 payment today. On top of that, they want to reserve their booth each year so they opt in to recur this booth purchase, so it automatically generates the same 6-month installment plan each year!

• Instead of sending out membership billing renewal notices every month, empower constituents to opt in to having their membership automatically renew each year.

• Instead of only taking in one-time donations, give constituents the option to donate monthly.

The Basics of Flexible Payments

The simplest definition of a flexible payment is that it's one or more payments scheduled for a future date, instead of being paid today. A constituent in Community Hub (or a staff person in Staff View, on behalf of a constituent) can elect to make a flexible (scheduled) payment instead of an immediate payment at the time of payment.

While there are different types of flexible payments, they all have the same general behavior in that a schedule record is created to track:

• how much to charge

• when to apply the change

• which stored payment method to charge 

The three types of flexible payments are:

1. One-time Scheduled Payments: a single payment scheduled to process in the future. This flexibility provides an alternative to paying for a product immediately.

2. Installment Payments: a series of two or more payments scheduled to process in the future. Installment payments help increase revenue by breaking down barriers to making a large purchase. For example, a large annual payment can instead be broken out into 12 monthly payments.

3. Recurring Orders with a Saved Payment: a payment that automatically renews in perpetuity until canceled. Think of things like a monthly donation or a yearly membership that automatically renews each year.

Next Steps

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