When I email an invoice to a client, and credit card payments are activated, can they opt in to have monthly payments automatically charged to their card?

Welcome back to the QuickBooks Community, HPitters!

It sounds to me like you're using QuickBooks Payments alongside your QuickBooks Online subscription, which is a great way to ease up some of the work needed to get paid by your customers. I can absolutely appreciate wanting to take it a step further and have them authorize monthly payments, and I can go over the options for doing this sort of thing in QuickBooks Online.

While there isn't a way for the customer to authorize you to bill them monthly when they pay an invoice, there are steps you can take to process the payment on their behalf while still getting their authorization. There are two ways you can go about this: with processing invoice payments and with recurring sales receipts.

When a customer's credit card information is on file from them using Payments previously or if they've given you their credit card information to enter into the system, you can process invoice payments for them using the QuickBooks Payments system. To do this, you'd click Receive payment through the +New menu, select the customer you want, and choose the invoice you need. Next, select Credit card from the Payment method drop-down window. If the customer already has the credit card info on file from previous payments, the program will display something underneath like Visa xxxx-1234. If they haven't, you'll be able to select Enter credit card details. This'll bring up a window where you can enter the credit card information as well as download an authorization form that you can send to your customer. Whether the payment method is already on file or you're entering it, make sure to tick off the checkbox Process credit card before saving to charge the card.

Next is the recurring sales receipt option. Keep in mind that sales receipts and invoices are two separate transaction types, so this may not be the appropriate choice for your needs. All the same, I wanted to highlight it for you just so you have this information. This article goes into more detail about it: Set up a recurring sales receipt.

I'd also like to share this image with you so you can see an example of the fields to look for on these forms. This is for a recurring sales receipt, but the fields I've highlighted are also the ones you'd see on your Receive payment form.

That should get you on your way, but don't hesitate if you'd like clarification about anything I've said. You're also welcome to submit feedback about the features you'd like to see when working with QuickBooks Payments so that our product development team can learn the updates they can consider to evolve the program. This walks you through it: How do I submit feedback? To see product updates, check out our QuickBooks Online Feature and Product Updates page.

Take care!