Benefits of Payment Method Updater

Up-to-date payment methods help you avoid revenue loss caused by failed payments. In PMU, the payment method refers to the credit card that your customer uses. Zuora PMU supports Visa, Mastercard, and American Express credit cards.

PMU is intended for Zuora customers who have signed up with the Account Updater service of a supported payment service provider. Before you use PMU, register for the account updater service with your chosen provider and review the prerequisites.

Key features

• Selects default payment methods automatically and requests updated account information for credit cards before the customer's next bill cycle day. The updater service receives the requests from Zuora in a secure batch file and forwards them to the Visa Account Updater Service, the American Express Card Refresher service, or the Mastercard Automatic Billing Updater service to obtain updated card information.

• Updates credit card information in Zuora automatically.

• Creates a new payment method in Zuora when a credit card number changes, which can also include a new expiration date, and sets the new credit card as the default payment method.

• Updates payment methods with the latest expiration dates.

• Marks payment methods for closed accounts as closed in Zuora. Zuora no longer uses closed credit cards to process payments.

• Allows you to view and export updater credit card batches.

• Provides clear batch processing statuses: Processing, Completed, and Error.

Payment Method Updater workflow

The following diagrams show a top-level view of how PMU operates. Each month, you have one or more bill cycle days (BCDs) on which to bill your customers. Before each BCD, the PMU service sends a batch of credit cards to the appropriate updater service and updates the credit card information. The service typically takes 2 to 5 days to complete, because each provider's updater follows a slightly different schedule. After the batch completes, you review it for any accounts that require follow-up, and then Zuora sends the customer bills. On the BCD, Zuora bills your customers. As described in the setup sections, Zuora recommends that you submit the batch at least 5 to 10 days before the BCD.

Zuora provides a console that helps you track and monitor all batch files submitted to the updater service for account updates.

By default, Zuora processes only major PMU statuses returned from the gateway. To process additional PMU statuses, obtain the response code by using Data Source Export, and implement your own processing logic by using Workflow.

Configuration of Zuora PMU varies by provider, so a separate configuration page exists for each updater service. For more information, see Set up Payment Method Updater.