Switching Payment Methods
Changing a Customer’s Payment Method
Amberflo allows you to schedule a payment method change for your customers. This is useful when moving between providers like Stripe and AWS Marketplace due to internal policy or customer requirements.
Changing the payment method is done by scheduling a switch. This ensures billing consistency and avoids mid-period disruptions.
Key Concepts
Scheduled Only: You can only switch payment methods at the start of a billing period. Mid-cycle changes are not supported.
Supported Providers: Currently supports Stripe and AWS Marketplace.
Forward-Looking: Switches are scheduled in advance and will apply to all invoices from that scheduled billing period onward.
When to Use
You might need to switch payment methods:
- To consolidate billing under a specific provider.
- To align with procurement or finance policies.
- To support usage-based billing via AWS Marketplace.
How It Works
The flow consists of three simple steps:
Step 1: Schedule a Switch
Use the API to define:
- The source payment method (e.g., Stripe)
- The target payment method (e.g., AWS Marketplace)
- The timestamp for when the change should take effect (must be the beginning of a billing period in the future)
Note: The switch does not retroactively apply to past invoices. It will only apply to future billing periods.
Step 2: Confirm Required IDs
Each payment method has a unique paymentId that you must reference. To find these IDs, call the /payments/billing-settings/list endpoint. This will return the list of available payment methods for your account.
Save the appropriate id from the response and use it as the source; PaymentId and targetPaymentId.
You will also need the targetCustomerIdentifier, which is the customer ID as recognized by the target payment provider.
Step 3: Monitor or Cancel as Needed.
You can:
- See scheduled switches
- Cancel a scheduled switch
Limitations
- You must configure both payment providers (Stripe and AWS Marketplace) in your Amberflo account.
- You cannot change payment methods mid-billing-period due to how different processors calculate and emit invoices. For example:
- Stripe invoices at the end of the billing period in one transaction.
- AWS Marketplace invoices incrementally, usually hourly.
Final Notes
After scheduling a payment method change you should update the customer’s traits in your system to reflect the change.