If you've noticed an invoice that paid itself using a credit balance, or a payment on your account that you don't remember making, the most common cause is a PayPal subscription. This article explains what's happening and how to fix it.
Credit Card vs. PayPal: Pull vs. Push
When you pay with a credit card on file, we initiate the charge. We only request money when there's an actual unpaid invoice, and only for the amount that's due. You're in control, and so are we, in the sense that nothing happens until there's something to pay.
PayPal works differently. When you pay an invoice through PayPal, PayPal will often automatically create a subscription behind the scenes without asking you first. That subscription then pushes a payment to us on its own schedule, whether or not there's an open invoice waiting for it. Our billing system can only react to money that arrives. It has no way to reach into PayPal and pull funds, pause a subscription, or change the amount. In some cases, after the fact, we can see the subscription ID, the next payment date, and the amount, and we can cancel it, but that's the extent of what we can do from our side.
What Happens When a Payment Arrives Without a Matching Invoice
If a PayPal payment (or any payment, including a bill pay check) comes in and there isn't an invoice for it to apply against, the amount is added to your account as a credit balance. That credit will then be automatically applied to your next invoice, and any invoice after that, until it's used up. This is why you might see an invoice marked as paid with a $0 charge to you, even though nothing was charged that day. It simply means the invoice was covered by credit already sitting on your account.
If this happens on your account and you'd rather we handle the credit a different way, whether that's refunding it, applying it somewhere specific, or something else, just let us know and we're happy to work it out with you.
Checking and Canceling PayPal Subscriptions
Because PayPal can create these subscriptions without much visibility, it's worth taking a few minutes to check your PayPal account directly.
- Log in to your PayPal account and go to your list of subscriptions or automatic payments.
- Look for any subscriptions related to us, and for any others you don't recognize or no longer need. This can happen with other vendors too, not just us, so it's a good habit to review periodically.
- Cancel anything you don't want continuing to push payments automatically.
A Better Way to Pay With PayPal
We now offer a newer PayPal integration, sometimes called a vault connection, that works much more like a credit card. Instead of PayPal pushing money to us on its own schedule, this method lets us request payment only when there's an actual unpaid balance, for the correct amount. If you prefer using PayPal over a credit card, this is the option we'd recommend, since it avoids the confusion described above entirely. To switch payment methods, simply pay an outstanding invoice manually before your subscription renewal date. When you complete that payment through our new PayPal Payments integration, our system will automatically transition your subscription billing to a secure vault token for future payments.
Questions?
If you're seeing a credit balance, an unexpected payment, or anything else on your account that doesn't look right, reach out to our support team, and we'll look into it with you.
