Billing
Overview
How the billing cycle works Billing fields
How to retry a payment
How to cancel a recurring donation How to change donation amount Stripe Customer Portal
Overview
The Billing tab is the profile of a member's donation status for all One-Click transactions that have occurred between a station and its member. The tab displays only if the membership record was created via TVault (e.g.: One-Click donations made through PBS Stripe, PBS Fonteva, or PBS FireTV). If the membership record was created by your station through your own form, or manually in MVault, this tab will not display.
How the billing cycle works
The TVault Transaction History table lists all transactional details that have transpired with each membership. Each time a payment is attempted, a line item is added to the table, whether the transaction was successful or not.
Once the initial donation date is established, the next billing date occurs on the same day every month regardless of whether or not a payment fails or the donation amount is adjusted. The only time the next billing date will be different is if the initial donation was made on the last day of the month. This is because each month contains a different number of days (e.g., months can have 28, 29, 30, or 31 days).
Billing fields
Field Definition Values
Gift Type
Frequency of the user’s donation. Can be Recurring or One-time.
Recurring One-Time
Donati on Amount
The dollar amount charged to the donor’s credit card at the time of donation. This field can be modified in the TV section of the Billing tab if the amount of the donation is more than $5 and less than $100.
ault Payment Details
The option to change the donation amount is only available if the donation status is Active or Past Due.
$5.00/month (recurring)
$60.00 (one-time)
* Dollar value may vary by station
Donati on Status
The current status of the donor’s membership and donation.
Active Recurring donations - TVaul t subscription Status Active &
last transaction charge successful One-time donations - One- time donation transaction date under 12-months old
Past-Due - (Recurring donations only) The latest recurring transaction charge for an Active TVault subscription failed.
Expired - (One-Time donations only) One- time donation transaction date over 12-months old.
Canceled - (Applies to recurring donations only) TVault subscription status is Canceled or Closed.
Suspended - (Recurring donation only) TVault subscription status is suspended.
Refunded -
(Recurring donations) TVault subscription status Canceled, Suspended, or Closed AND last transaction charge type is Rollback.
Chargedback Recurring donations - TVault subscripti on status Canceled, Suspended, or Closed AND last transaction charge type is Chargeback.
One-time donations - The last transaction type is Chargeback.
Donor Portal
An automatically generated link to a self-service interface where a member can access and modify their billing information. The link is good for a 24-hour period of time and can only be used by members who donate through Stripe. Learn more
N/A
Platform The platform through which the donation was made by the donor.
Amazon Fire TV Fonteva Stripe
Initial Donati on Date
The date the donor’s original donation was made. This is the subscription start date for recurring donations and the transaction date for one-time donations. Once the initial donation date is established, the next billing date falls on the same day each month and is consistent throughout the life of the membership. If a donation is made on the last day of the month, the donor is charged on the last day of each month. The date of the last day of the
DD/MM/YYY
Next Billing Date
The date the donor's credit card will be charged next. Since each month contains a different number of days (e.
g., months can have 28, 29, 30, or 31 days), this date can vary if a donation is made on the last day of the month. If a donation is made on any other day of the month (i.e., not the last day), the same day is billed each month for the life of the membership.
DD/MM/YYY
Date (Time Zone)
The date the transaction was made. Converted to your local time zone, not displayed in UTC. 03/22/2021, 1:18 AM
* Time varies by station Payme
nt Method
The method by which the donor made their donation.
Amazon Pay Credit Card Apple Pay Google Pay
Amount The recurring or one-time donation amount for the transaction record. $7.50
* Dollar value may vary by station
Transa ction Details
The transaction status after the donor's credit card has been charged.
Donation Succeeded - Type: Charge;
Status: Successful Donation Failed - Type: Charge; Status:
Failed
Donation Refunded - Type: Rollback;
Status: Successful (Ignore Rollback status failed) Donation Chargeback - Type: Chargeback;
Status: Successful Donation Started - Type: Charge; Status:
Successful; Initial Donation
Type Indicates if the transaction was a charge, rollback, or chargeback.
Charge Rollback Chargeback
Status Indicates if the charge, rollback, or chargeback type was successful or failed
Successful Failed
How to retry a payment
If a payment has failed, you can retry the payment submission through the Billing tab. If you retry a payment and it still fails, contact the donor and ask them to update their payment information. Donors can update their payment information in Amazon but it is up to stations to update the donor's payment information in each tool.
Stripe: Log in to your Stripe account and update the donor's billing information.
Fonteva: Update the donor's billing information in the payment gateway that is connected to Fonteva.
The following are steps illustrating how to retry a payment in MVault.
The failed donation displays in the Transaction History table (Figure 1.1).
The Transaction Details and Status both display a "Failed" message
In the Donation Status section in the upper section of the page, click Retry Payment (Figure 1.2).
Figure 1
When the confirmation popup displays, click Yes, I'm sure to continue the retry attempt (Figure 2).
Figure 2
If the payment goes through successfully, the Transaction Details and Status columns in the Transaction History table display a successful message (Figure 3).
Figure 3
How to cancel a recurring donation
When a member requests to have their recurring donation cancelled, cancel it through the Billing tab. After the cancellation is complete, the user's membership expiration date in MVault changes to the end of the user's current billing period and the grace period adjusts to reflect the new expiration date.
In the Donation Status section, click Cancel Recurring Payment (Figure 1).
Figure 1
With each payment attempt, even if the payment fails, the billing cycle is changed to display the date of the last attempt. This date and time is displayed in the first column of the TVault Transaction History table. Learn more about the billing cycle
If the user has made a one-time donation, this link does not display.
Membership information that has changed because of the cancellation displays.
The Expiration Date adjusts to reflect the end of the next billing cycle.
The Grace Period extends to three months after the cancellation date.
Click Yes, I'm sure to confirm the cancellation (Figure 2).
Figure 2
The cancellation date displays in the Donation Status section (Figure 3.1). Because the cancellation is not a transaction, it does not display in the TVault Transaction History table, however, it can be viewed in the Membership History table.
In the upper right corner of the page, click History (Figure 1).
Figure 1
The cancellation displays (Figure 2).
Figure 2
Click the Membership tab to return to the membership record (Figure 3.2).
Figure 4
If member access should be revoked immediately, click the Status toggle so that it displays OFF (Figure 4).
Figure 4
Once the toggle displays OFF, the member can no longer access Passport (Figure 5).
Figure 5
At the bottom of the Membership tab, click Save to save your changes (Figure 6).
Figure 6
How to change donation amount
At any time, use the Billing tab to change the dollar amount that a donor should contribute. If your station requests a dollar amount that is different from the PBS standard donation ($5 per month/$60 per year), be sure the amount is reflected on all platforms.
In the Donation Amount section, click Change (Figure 1).
Figure 1
In the textbox provided, type the number that reflects the new dollar amount or click the up and down arrows to adjust the dollar amount (Figure 2.1).
When finished, click Save (Figure 2.2).
Figure 2
Stripe Customer Portal
When a donor's credit card has been declined or has experienced some other failure, stations can send a link directly to the donor so that they can correct their credit card information on their own. This section walks you through how to send the link to your station donor and how the donor can update their information.
From the top of the membership page, click the Billing tab (Figure 1.1).
Passport Reset and Save buttons do not display on the Billing screen, only on the Membership tab.
Figure 1
Click Copy to Clipboard to copy the URL to send to the donor (Figure 2.1).
Figure 2
The following donor information displays:
The current dollar amount that the donor is currently donating (Figure 3.1).
The donor's current credit card information with the error message (Figure 3.2).
A link to add a new payment method (Figure 3.3).
The donor should click Add payment method to add their new credit card information. If the credit card number is the same but has expired, the donor must enter the entire card number again.
The donor's email address (Figure 3.4).
The donor should click the pencil icon to the left of Update information to modify the email address associated with their membership.
The donor's invoice history (Figure 3.5).
The donor should click View more to view additional rows (Figure 3.6).
When finished, the donor should click the link to their local station portal on the left side of the screen to return to PBS.org (Figure 3.7).
Figure 3
The link expires after 24 hours so be sure to send it within that timeframe (Figure 2.2). If the time has expired before the donor has accessed the link, follow the same steps to access and send the link again.
