Payment methods on file, and auto-charge
A client can save a card or a Canadian bank account, and you can then charge an invoice rather than waiting to be paid. They enter the details themselves — you never handle them.
Chasing an invoice a client always intended to pay is wasted time on both sides. A client who has left a method on file can be charged instead.
Getting a method on file
You cannot enter a client's card details, and you should not want to. Instead, Send a link to add one emails them a link where they enter it themselves. The page says so plainly: Your details are entered with Stripe. We never see your card or account number.
They can save Credit or debit card or a Canadian bank account. Later, Send a link to replace it swaps it and Remove takes it off.
Two things have to be true first: Stripe is connected, and the client has a portal link already — which means you have sent them an engagement. Vylan tells you if either is missing rather than failing quietly.
The other route is better, because it happens while the client is already saying yes. A proposal can Ask for payment details before they agree: The client puts a card or bank account on file as part of accepting, and their invoices then collect automatically.
Collecting the payment method during acceptance avoids a separate request later. A saved billing configuration that needs one can mark it Required so the payment requirement is clear before sending.
Charging one
With a method on file, an unpaid invoice offers Charge now. A card settles in seconds. A bank debit does not — Charge accepted. Bank debits take a few business days to clear. — and sits at Processing meanwhile.
A Processing bank debit is not a promise. It can still come back as Payment failed days later, so do not treat it as money in the bank until it clears.
When a charge is declined
Nothing happens automatically. There is no retry schedule, and Vylan does not email the client about it. You get Try again and Ask client to update payment method, and the decision is yours.
That is deliberate. An automatic retry loop against a client's bank account is the kind of thing that gets a firm phoned.
Charging without being asked
Automatic charging requires the client’s permission and a billing configuration that requests a charge: both have to agree before any money moves on its own.
On the client — Charge invoices automatically. One switch, per client, off unless you turn it on. This is the client's permission, and nothing overrides it.
Existing records may also contain a saved payment-stage collection rule. Those rules can still send and chase an invoice, leave it for a person to charge, or attempt to charge the method on file. The workflow editor is no longer available for configuring these rules.
A saved automatic-charge rule still requires the client’s permission and a usable payment method. Removing the workflow setup screen does not cancel that saved behavior.
If an existing rule was set to ask before charging, it does not charge by itself or create a task to do it. Review the unpaid invoice and act from its payment controls.
A method saved while Stripe was in test mode cannot take real money, and Vylan says so on the card rather than failing at the charge. Ask the client to add it again.