Zuora provides the Cascading Payment Method feature to dynamically retry a payment with alternative payment methods according to a predefined priority list.

Zuora supports the management of multiple payment methods for a single customer account. When processing a payment, the default or a specified payment method is used for the first attempt. If the first payment fails, retries are attempted by using the same payment method until the payment method on the customer account is manually changed to another one. This approach might be ineffective if the payment failure persists because of issues such as insufficient funds or an expired payment method.

To address this issue, Zuora provides the Cascading Payment Method feature to dynamically retry the failed payment with alternative payment methods on a customer account, according to a payment method priority list. When cascading payment method consent is turned on, the first payment method in the priority list is the default payment method of the customer account. A closed payment method will not be used in retries even though it is included in the priority list.

Currently, the Cascading Payment Method feature is supported in payment runs, including:

• Manual ad-hoc payment runs
• Scheduled payment runs
• Payment runs invoked by Configurable Payment Retry , including:
  • Retry with customized retry rules
  • Smart Retry

Note that the Cascading Payment Method feature is not supported in payment runs invoked by Advanced Payment Manager.

Cascading payments logic

The following diagram illustrates the logic of using Cascading Payment Method:

Using Cascading Payment Method in payment runs increases the Consecutive Failed Payments value of a payment method, same as the behavior when Cascading Payment Method is not enabled. If the out-of-the-box Payment Run retry rules are enabled, these rules also apply to the payment methods used in Cascading Payment Method.