Automate payment collection

Spend Less Time Managing Collections. More Time Knowing What's Next.

Bring payment collection, recurring payments, receivables, customer payment experiences and payment visibility together in Salesforce so your team can manage more of the collection lifecycle without stitching together disconnected systems and manual processes.

Powered by the Salesforce-native Bonza Payments suite
Payment collection workflow ILLUSTRATIVE
Payment expected
Invoice paymentAn amount a customer owes
Recurring paymentA scheduled arrangement
One-time paymentAn ad hoc request
Bonza Payments
Payment due
Customer payment experience
Configured gateway
Payment activity
Status recorded in Salesforce
Outcome
CollectedPayment activity recorded against the customer
Needs attentionSomething a person should look at
Collection overview
Collected$312,400
Due$52,300
Overdue$18,400
Upcoming$125,000
Needs attention7

Illustrative product interface. Every customer name, amount and date on this page is a sample used to explain the concept — none of it is real customer data, and expected or scheduled payment activity is never presented as guaranteed collection.

Definition

What Is Automated Payment Collection?

Automated payment collection is the use of connected payment workflows to reduce repetitive manual work across the process of requesting, collecting, tracking and managing customer payments.

With Bonza Payments, businesses can manage relevant payment collection activity natively in Salesforce, including one-time and recurring payments, invoice-related payments, receivables, customer payment experiences and operational payment visibility.

Automation does not have to mean removing people from the process. The goal is to automate repeatable payment activity while giving teams visibility and control when attention or judgment is needed.

Automate the repeatable parts. Keep people in control of the decisions.

The business problem

The Payment Isn't Always the Manual Part. Everything Around It Is.

A payment may take seconds to process. Finance teams can spend considerably more effort on everything surrounding it.

  • Understanding what is owed
  • Checking whether payment was received
  • Tracking due dates
  • Identifying overdue payments
  • Managing recurring payment activity
  • Moving between Salesforce and external payment systems
  • Understanding which gateway handled a payment
  • Checking customer payment history
  • Identifying payment methods approaching expiry
  • Handling refunds or customer credits
  • Understanding upcoming payment activity
  • Deciding what needs attention
Processing a payment and managing payment collection are not the same thing. When those steps live across different systems, spreadsheets and manual checks, payment collection becomes operationally fragmented — regardless of how fast the payment itself clears.

The lifecycle

Payment Collection Is a Lifecycle, Not a Pay Button.

Each stage asks a different question, and each one is somewhere manual work can accumulate.

01ObligationWhat does the customer owe?

Invoice, recurring arrangement or one-time amount.

02TimingWhen is it due?

The date that turns an obligation into something actionable.

03Payment experienceHow can the customer pay?

The path the customer actually follows.

04ProcessingWhich configured gateway processes it?

Where the payment is actually handled.

05StatusWas payment activity recorded?

What the business can now see in Salesforce.

06ExceptionDoes something need attention?

Overdue, expiry timing, or another relevant condition.

07Post-paymentIs a refund or credit needed?

The lifecycle can continue after collection.

08Next paymentWhat happens next?

For recurring arrangements, the cycle begins again.

A checkout or payment gateway addresses only part of this journey — stage four, and some of stage five. A mature payment collection operation needs visibility across the wider lifecycle, which is where the manual work tends to sit.

Where the work hides

Manual Collection Work Usually Appears Between Systems.

Fragmented payment collection

Nine hops, several of them manual

Salesforce
Spreadsheet Manual
Invoice / receivable context
Payment portal
Gateway dashboard
Status check Manual
Another spreadsheet Manual
Finance follow-up Manual
Reporting
Connected with Bonza

One lifecycle, managed in Salesforce

Salesforce
Bonza Payments
Payment context
Customer experience
Configured gateways
Payment activity
Collected  /  Needs attention
The goal isn't to automate every decision. The goal is to remove unnecessary manual steps from the payment lifecycle — so the steps that remain are the ones that actually need a person.

The operating model

Automate the Predictable. Surface the Exceptions.

This is the distinction that matters on this page: workflow automation is not autonomous collections.

Repeatable payment activity

Predictable enough to connect

  • Payment schedule
  • Recurring payment
  • Relevant customer payment journey
  • Payment processing through a configured gateway
  • Payment activity
  • Status visibility
Automate / connect where supported These are the steps that repeat the same way every cycle. Recreating them by hand is where avoidable work accumulates.
Exception / decision

Where judgment is required

  • Overdue payment
  • Expiring payment method
  • Unexpected payment state
  • Refund decision
  • Credit decision
  • Relevant AI insight
Surface for human attention These are not automated away. They are made easier to see, with the context needed to decide.
AutomationRepeatable payment activity, connected
VisibilityWhat happened, what is open, what is expected
Human controlPeople decide where judgment matters

How it comes together

Eight Places the Manual Work Actually Goes Away.

Each of these is an established Bonza capability doing one part of the job. Together they cover the lifecycle.

Pillar 01 · Recurring Payments

Stop Recreating the Same Payment Every Time.

For payments that repeat on a known schedule, manually initiating every transaction creates unnecessary operational work. Bonza Recurring Payments helps businesses manage scheduled and recurring customer payment activity while keeping it connected to Salesforce.

Each payment event is scheduled and expected. Whether it collects is determined when the payment event actually occurs — Bonza does not claim that every scheduled payment succeeds.

Explore Recurring Payments
The recurring cycle
1Set up
2Schedule
3Payment event
4Track
5Next payment
Returns to the schedule
Pillar 02 · Invoices, Receivables, Customer Payment Experience

Connect What the Customer Owes With How They Pay.

Collection becomes harder when the amount owed exists in one system and the payment happens somewhere else. Bonza connects relevant payment context and customer payment activity within the wider Salesforce payment lifecycle.

Bonza is a payment-management suite, not accounting software, an ERP, a general ledger or a revenue-recognition platform. It manages payment activity, not your books.

Explore Receivables
Owed → paid → position updated
2Amount due
4Payment
5Updated payment position
Pillar 03 · Customer Payment Experience

Make Paying Easier Without Disconnecting the Business.

Automation on the finance side only solves part of the collection problem. The customer also needs a clear path to understand and complete the payment — and whatever happens on that path has to come back into Salesforce as payment activity.

The customer should not need to understand your payment systems to pay you.

Explore Customer Payment Experience
What the customer asks
“What am I paying?”
“How much?”
“What payment options are available?”
Pay → payment activity → Salesforce
Pillar 04 · Recurring visibility

Let Recurring Payments Keep Recurring—Without Losing Visibility.

The emphasis is not only on recurring execution. It is on the whole arc: set it up, keep it running, know what happened, know what's next, and act when needed.

That last part is where payment forecasting and payment-method expiry come in — the forward view of what is expected, and whether anything about the payment relationship may require review first.

A recurring arrangement over time
OctPayment
NovPayment
DecPayment
•Status — what happened at each event
•Next payment — what is expected next
Pillar 05 · Receivables, Due & Overdue

Know What's Due Without Manually Hunting for It.

Automation is less valuable if teams still need spreadsheets or multiple systems to understand what remains outstanding. Bonza provides connected visibility into relevant paid, due, overdue and outstanding payment activity.

What this is not: automated chasing. There is no dunning sequence, no automated collection email, no SMS chasing. The value here is visibility plus prioritisation context, so a person knows where to start.

Explore Due & Overdue Payments
Outstanding by state · illustrative
Upcoming$125,000
Due$52,300
Overdue$18,400
!Attention — surfaced for a person to review
✓Collected / resolved
Pillar 06 · Payment Method Expiry

See a Payment Signal Before the Next Payment Date.

Expiry visibility can help teams identify payment relationships that may require review before future payment activity. When a payment method is recorded as expiring before the next relevant payment, that ordering is worth seeing early.

That is a statement about the order of two dates. Bonza does not say the November payment will fail, does not update the payment method, and does not contact the customer.

Explore Payment Method Expiry
Expiry against the next payment · illustrative
Payment method expires31 Oct
Next relevant payment15 Nov
!Payment method expires before the relevant upcoming payment
Pillar 07 · Payment Forecasting

Know What's Expected Next—not Just What Was Collected Yesterday.

Payment Forecasting gives finance teams a forward-looking view of relevant expected payment activity. It supports payment operations planning without pretending that expected activity is guaranteed collection.

It is payment-operations forecasting, not treasury, liquidity or corporate cash-flow forecasting.

Explore Payment Forecasting
Three horizons · illustrative
PastCollected
TodayDue / outstanding
FutureExpected payment activity
→Payment forecast — expected, not guaranteed
Pillar 08 · AI Payment Insights

Let AI Surface the Signal. Keep People in Control of the Action.

Bonza AI reads relevant payment data, surfaces a signal, explains the context behind it, and stops. A person decides what to do.

Bonza AI does not contact customers, does not decide who to chase, and does not execute collection actions. It is not an autonomous collection agent.

Explore AI Payment Insights
Payment data → signal → insight → human decision
“Overdue payment activity has increased.”
“Several payment methods expire before relevant upcoming payment activity.”
“Expected recurring payment activity changes next month.”
→Human decision — the insight ends here

Signature view

From Payment Expected to Payment Handled.

Follow a payment through the loop three ways. Choose a path to see which stages it touches.

Payment expectedAn invoice, recurring arrangement or one-time amountAutomated
Scheduled / dueThe obligation reaches its dateAutomated
Customer payment experienceThe customer's path to payAutomated
Configured gatewayWhere the payment is processedAutomated
Payment activityRecorded against the Salesforce customerAutomated
Outcome A
CollectedPayment activity recorded as collectedAutomated
Refund / credit where relevantThe lifecycle can continue after collectionHuman decision
Connected payment historyEverything stays on the customer recordAutomated
Outcome B
Needs attentionOverdue, expiry timing or another relevant conditionSurfaced
Next actionContext gathered in one placeHuman decision
Human reviewA person decides what happensHuman decision
Next payment → returns to payment expected, and the loop begins again for recurring arrangements.

Payment setup

Automate the Payment Process Without Building Around One Gateway.

Salesforce Where the customer lives Customer and payment context in one system.
Configured gateway
Gateway A Default
Gateway B Selectable
Gateway C Selectable
Payment activity flows back into the Salesforce payment lifecycle.

Bonza can work with multiple configured payment gateways while keeping relevant payment activity connected to the Salesforce payment lifecycle. A default gateway can be configured, and another configured gateway can be selected where appropriate.

This is gateway selection, not routing. Bonza does not perform smart routing, least-cost routing, automatic failover, success-rate optimisation, automatic gateway switching or AI gateway selection. Multiple payment gateways describes how the configured setup works.

Explore Multiple Payment Gateways

Experience Cloud

Bring Payment Collection Into the Salesforce Customer Experience.

For businesses using Salesforce Experience Cloud, Bonza can support customer-facing payment experiences within that environment.

Customer Already signed in In the portal they use for everything else.
Salesforce Experience Cloud The portal Bonza works inside it rather than replacing it.
Back to Salesforce Payment activity Recorded against the same customer record.

Customer experience and payment operations do not need to live in separate worlds. Salesforce is the environment; the configured gateway performs the payment processing; Bonza is the payment-management layer connecting the two.

Explore Experience Cloud Payments

Exceptions

Good Automation Doesn't Hide Exceptions. It Makes Them Easier to See.

An automated payment operation should not be judged only by how much happens without human involvement. It should also make exceptions easier to identify and understand.

Normal flow

Runs without needing a decision

Payment expected
Payment
Collected
Exception branch

Surfaced, with the context to act on it

Overdue  /  payment method expiry  /  relevant payment issue
Attention
Human review
Automate the normal flow. Surface the exception. A collection operation where nothing ever needs a person is not the goal — and would not be believable. The goal is that the things needing a person are obvious, and arrive with their context attached.

Payment Command Center

Run the Collection Operation From One Connected View.

Payment Command Center ILLUSTRATIVE
Collected$312K
Outstanding$247K
Due$52K
Overdue$18K
Upcoming$125K

Payment collection

Illustrative collected totals by month: April $214,000; May $238,000; June $261,000; July $249,000; August $287,000; September $312,000.

Due & overdue

Illustrative records.
CustomerAmountStatus
Acme Corporation$5,000Due
Northstar Logistics$8,500Overdue
Global Corp$4,250Due
Lakeside Group$2,900Overdue

Needs attention

3 payment methods expire before a relevant upcoming payment.Timing information for review.
$18,400 overdue across 9 payments.Obligations past their date.
Expected recurring activity increases next month.Payment insight, surfaced for a person to review.

Upcoming payment activity

Illustrative records. Expected amounts and dates, not collected payments.
CustomerAmountExpected datePayment type
Acme Corporation$5,00005 OctRecurring payment
Northstar Logistics$8,50008 OctInvoice payment
Global Corp$4,25012 OctRecurring payment

Automation becomes more operationally useful when teams can see the result. The Payment Command Center brings payment activity, receivables, upcoming collections and relevant attention signals into a broader operational view.

Explore the Payment Command Center

Controlled automation

Not Every Part of Collections Should Run Without Human Judgment.

Good candidates

Repeatable workflows

  • Recurring payment scheduling
  • Connected payment initiation
  • Relevant payment-status visibility
  • Payment lifecycle tracking
  • Upcoming payment visibility
  • Relevant customer payment experiences
Keep human control

Where judgment matters

  • Exception handling
  • Refund decisions
  • Credit decisions
  • Customer-specific collection decisions
  • Interpretation of AI insights
  • Operational escalation

Controlled automation, not “AI runs your finance department.”

After collection

Collection Doesn't Always End at “Paid.”

The payment lifecycle can continue after collection. Bonza supports refunds and customer credits as part of the wider payment-management experience.

Payment collected The payment is recorded And then something changes.
Change required A person decides which way Refund or customer credit — a judgment call, not an automatic one.
Refund Value returned through the relevant process

Managed through the configured payment process, with the refund recorded against the original payment.

Explore Refunds

Customer credit Value available for future payment

Customer credit is recorded and managed within Bonza Payments, available against relevant future payment activity. It is not a wallet, a cash balance, stored funds or a bank account.

Explore Credit Management

Either way, the outcome lands in the same place: connected payment history on the customer record, so the full sequence — payment, change, resolution — stays readable later.

Use cases

Where Connected Payment Collection Removes Manual Work.

Recurring customer payments

SituationCustomers pay on a repeated schedule.
ProblemFinance should not have to recreate the same payment process every cycle.
BonzaManage recurring payment activity with connected Salesforce visibility.
OutcomeLess repetitive payment administration.

Invoice-driven collection

SituationCustomers owe specific invoice-related amounts.
ProblemInvoice context and payment activity can become disconnected.
BonzaConnect relevant invoice, receivable and payment activity.
OutcomeClearer collection context.

Due and overdue payment management

SituationFinance needs to know which payment obligations require attention.
ProblemManual spreadsheet review makes the process fragmented.
BonzaSurface due, overdue and outstanding payment activity.
OutcomeBetter operational visibility.

Customer-facing payment experience

SituationCustomers need a clear way to complete payments.
ProblemDisconnected payment experiences create friction for the customer and reconciliation work for the business.
BonzaConnect relevant customer-facing payment activity with Salesforce.
OutcomeA more connected customer and business payment journey.

Expiring payment method

SituationA customer's payment method expires before relevant future payment activity.
ProblemThe team may discover the timing issue too late.
BonzaSurface relevant expiry and upcoming-payment context.
OutcomeEarlier awareness.

Where you are today

How Connected Is Your Payment Collection Process?

An educational model, not a certification or a score. Plenty of organisations operate well without reaching the last level.

There is no numerical maturity score here, and no claim that every organisation should reach the last level. The right level depends on the size and shape of your payment operation.

Business outcomes

What Connected Collection Actually Changes.

These are operational outcomes. Bonza does not claim a percentage improvement in collection speed, reduced DSO, increased revenue, higher authorisation rates, lower churn, fewer failed payments, specific time savings, a specific return on investment or guaranteed cost reduction.

Less repetitive payment administration

Reduce the need to recreate repeatable payment activity manually.

Connected collection visibility

Keep relevant customer, payment and receivable context together.

Better exception awareness

See due, overdue and other relevant payment conditions requiring attention.

Clearer customer payment journeys

Give customers a connected way to complete relevant payments.

Forward payment visibility

Understand relevant expected payment activity.

Multi-gateway flexibility

Work with multiple configured payment gateways without designing the whole operation around one provider.

Connected post-payment management

Keep refunds and customer credits within the wider payment lifecycle.

Better operational context

One connected picture of what has happened, what is outstanding and what may happen next.

Why Bonza

Automate More of the Payment Lifecycle—Without Moving It Outside Salesforce.

Salesforce-native

Keep relevant customer and payment context inside the Salesforce environment, where your team already works.

More than payment processing

Connect collection with receivables, recurring payments, refunds, credits, forecasting and operational visibility.

Multi-gateway flexibility

Work with multiple configured payment gateways instead of making the entire payment operation dependent on one provider.

Connected customer experience

Bring customer-facing payment activity into the wider Salesforce payment journey rather than a separate portal.

Forward + exception visibility

Connect payment forecasting, payment-method expiry and due/overdue visibility into one operational picture.

Intelligence + control

Use AI Payment Insights and the Payment Command Center to understand what deserves attention while keeping people in control.

Questions

Automated Payment Collection, Answered.

What is automated payment collection?

Automated payment collection uses connected payment workflows to reduce repetitive manual work across requesting, collecting, tracking and managing customer payments. It is about removing unnecessary steps from the lifecycle, not removing people from the decisions.

How can I automate payment collection in Salesforce?

By managing the collection lifecycle where the customer record already lives. Bonza Payments is a Salesforce-native payment-management suite that connects relevant payment collection activity with Salesforce customer and business context — recurring payments, invoice-related payments, receivables, customer payment experiences, configured gateways and operational visibility in one lifecycle.

Can Bonza automate recurring payments?

Bonza supports recurring payments, including scheduled recurring payment activity managed and tracked within Salesforce. Each event is scheduled and expected; whether it collects is determined when the payment event occurs, so recurring activity is never presented as guaranteed collection.

Can Bonza help manage invoice-driven payment collection?

Yes. Relevant invoice, receivable and payment activity can be connected so the amount owed and the payment that settles it are not stranded in different systems.

Can Bonza show which payments are due or overdue?

Yes. Bonza provides connected visibility into relevant paid, due, overdue and outstanding payment activity, with the customer and payment context attached so a team can prioritise what to look at.

Does Bonza automatically chase customers for overdue payments?

No. There is no automated dunning sequence, collection email, SMS chasing or automated outreach of any kind. Bonza surfaces overdue and outstanding payment activity for your team; any contact with a customer is initiated by people.

Can customers make payments through Salesforce?

Bonza supports customer-facing payment experiences connected to Salesforce, including within Salesforce Experience Cloud where that is how your customers already interact with you. The payment itself is processed by your configured gateway, and the resulting payment activity is recorded against the Salesforce customer record.

Can Bonza work with multiple payment gateways?

Yes. Bonza can work with multiple configured payment gateways while keeping relevant payment activity connected to the Salesforce payment lifecycle. A default gateway can be configured, and another configured gateway can be selected where appropriate.

Does Bonza automatically choose the best payment gateway?

No. Bonza supports gateway selection, not routing. There is no smart routing, least-cost routing, automatic failover, success-rate optimisation, automatic gateway switching or AI gateway selection.

Can Bonza identify payment methods approaching expiry?

Where the relevant information is available through your configured payment setup, yes — and it can be shown alongside the next relevant payment date, so the ordering of the two is visible. Bonza does not update payment methods, obtain replacement details or contact customers about them.

Can Bonza forecast upcoming payment activity?

Yes. Payment Forecasting provides forward-looking visibility into relevant expected payment activity by period. A forecast represents expected activity, not guaranteed cash receipts, and it is payment-operations forecasting rather than treasury or corporate cash-flow forecasting.

How does AI support payment collection in Bonza?

AI Payment Insights surfaces relevant patterns, changes and operational signals from your payment information and explains the context behind them — for example that overdue payment activity has increased, or that several payment methods expire before relevant upcoming payment activity. It prioritises what may deserve attention.

Does Bonza use AI to contact customers or make collection decisions?

No. Bonza AI does not contact customers, decide who to chase, execute collection actions, change payment terms, issue refunds, create credits or make any autonomous financial decision. It surfaces and explains; people decide and act.

How are refunds and customer credits handled after collection?

Both sit inside the same payment lifecycle. A refund returns value through the configured payment process and is recorded against the original payment. Customer credit is recorded and managed within Bonza Payments and can be applied against relevant future payment activity — it is not a wallet, a cash balance, stored funds or a bank account. Which route to take is a human decision.

How is Bonza different from a payment gateway?

Bonza Payments is a Salesforce-native payment-management suite. Configured payment gateways handle relevant payment-processing functions, while Bonza connects payment activity with Salesforce customer context and the wider payment lifecycle — obligations, timing, customer payment experience, status, exceptions, post-payment events and what is expected next.

Your Team Should Manage Exceptions—not Rebuild the Payment Process Every Day.

See how Bonza Payments connects recurring payments, receivables, customer payment experiences, configured gateways and payment visibility in Salesforce to reduce repetitive work across the collection lifecycle.