Handling failed payments

Payment failures are unavoidable — cards expire, get lost, or get blocked. Triton handles most of the recovery work automatically, but you should know what's happening behind the scenes.

What happens on a failure

First attempt fails

Stripe marks the invoice as past due. The member's subscription status changes to past_due in Triton. Their dashboard doesn't change visibly — they still have access.

Automatic retries

Stripe retries the charge on a schedule (default: after 3 days, then 5 days, then 7 days). You configure this under Settings → Billing → Dunning.

Final failure

After all retries are exhausted, Triton pauses the member's access and notifies both them and your team.

Notifications

The member gets

An email after the first failure ("Your payment didn't go through"), a reminder before each retry, and a final notice if access is paused.

You get

An inbox notification on the first failure and on final failure. No spam in between — Triton assumes Stripe's retries will handle most cases.

When to intervene manually

The member has a new card

Ask them to update their card via the payment page link in any of the failure emails, or you can update it yourself from their member profile under the Billing tab.

The member disputes the failure

Check the transaction in Triton → Billing → Transactions. Look at the Stripe failure reason (insufficient funds, card declined, etc.) and cross-reference with what the member tells you.

You want to write off the invoice

From the invoice detail page, click Write off. This marks it paid (for reporting purposes) without charging the member. Useful for goodwill credits.

Reports

The Delinquent Accounts report under Reports shows everyone with a past-due or paused status, sorted by amount outstanding. Check it weekly.