Balance 
How it works
One deposit order, start to finish, with nothing hidden.
At a glance
The whole thing in one panel.
- Deposit taken by
- Shopify's checkout, your own provider
- Card held by
- Shopify, as a payment mandate on the order
- Balance charged
- 9am store time on the due date, or when you mark ready
- If it fails
- Payment link, retries after 1, 3 and 7 days
- Shipping
- Held until the order is paid in full
- Shopify plan
- Any Shopify plan
Balance Due never holds money or card details. It creates the purchase option, and afterwards it asks Shopify to charge, hold and release according to the plan you set.
One order, start to finish
A £1,200 oak table on a 25% plan, which is the example on the product-page mock above.
- 1
The product page
Nothing yet
The customer sees two purchase options: pay in full, or pay a deposit today, with the one line of copy you wrote, for example 'Pay 25% today, balance when your table is ready'.
- 2
Checkout
£300 taken
Shopify charges the deposit through your provider, records £900 as payment terms on the order, and on Shopify Payments or PayPal saves the card as a payment mandate. Tax, discounts, shipping and fraud analysis are untouched.
- 3
Minutes later
Hold placed
Balance Due puts a Shopify fulfilment hold on the order, tags it deposit:active, and emails the customer the schedule with a link to their payment page.
- 4
Weeks in the workshop
Nothing charged
The order shows as partially paid with £900 outstanding. If the spec changes, edit the order in Shopify and the balance follows.
- 5
Three days before the balance
Reminder sent
The amount, the date, and a note that the saved card will be charged. On Growth and Pro a text says the same in one line.
- 6
The due date, 9am
£900 charged
Shopify charges the mandate, the outstanding amount drops to zero, the customer gets a receipt, the hold is released and the order is tagged deposit:paid.
- 7
If the card declines
Payment link sent
The customer gets a Shopify payment link that accepts any card, and the charge retries after 1, 3 and 7 days. After the fourth failure the order is overdue and you are alerted.
- 8
Next morning
Paid in full
The order appears in your digest as paid overnight and ready to fulfil. Book the delivery.
What the customer sees, and what you see
The customer
A normal Shopify checkout with the deposit as the amount due now and the balance as due later, then a short sequence of plain messages, each linking to one page.
- Two purchase options on the product page, pay in full first
- A schedule email after checkout, a reminder three days before, a receipt after
- A payment page with the schedule, what is paid, what is left and a pay now button, no login
You
Everything in Shopify where you already work, plus a dashboard for the open plans and a digest every morning.
- Orders tagged deposit:active, deposit:paid, deposit:overdue or deposit:cancelled, so you can filter without opening the app
- The schedule on the order note, and the hold with the outstanding amount
- A digest at 8am store time: due today, due this week, failed or overdue, paid overnight
What happens at checkout
Balance Due creates a Shopify selling plan for each deposit plan you make. Shopify treats it as a deferred purchase option: the checkout charges the deposit, records payment terms on the order for the balance, and, on Shopify Payments or PayPal, saves the card as a payment mandate against that order.
That is why nothing about tax, discounts, shipping or fraud analysis changes. Shopify works out the deposit and the balance itself and the order shows as partially paid in your admin with the outstanding amount. That outstanding amount is the only figure Balance Due ever works from.
Collecting the balance
The due date comes from the plan: a number of days after the order, an exact date, or when you mark the order ready. Charges run at 9am in your store's time zone. On the due date Balance Due asks Shopify to charge the mandate for the amount due. Shopify confirms the payment, the order's outstanding amount drops, and the customer gets a receipt.
If the charge is declined it is retried after 1, 3 and 7 days; the customer is emailed a payment link each time so they can settle it with a different card. If all attempts fail the order is marked overdue and you are alerted. Stores whose provider cannot charge a saved card get the pay-link flow instead: on the due date the customer receives Shopify's invoice email and a Balance Due message with the link, then a nudge every 3 days until it is paid.
Nothing is skipped. A due payment is queued, not fired once and forgotten, so an outage on the due date means a charge at the next run.
Taking control of an order
Five actions, from the order itself.
Mark ready
For plans set to charge when the order is ready. Press it and the balance is charged within minutes.
Collect now
Charge the whole outstanding balance immediately, for a commission finished early.
Reschedule
Move any payment to a new date. The customer gets a fresh reminder before it.
Waive or cancel
Write off part of the balance and let the order complete, or stop collecting altogether.
Orders change after they are placed, and the balance follows: an upward edit adds the difference, a refund reduces it, a payment taken over the phone and recorded in Shopify closes the plan, and a cancelled order cancels the plan. Balance Due follows Shopify's outstanding amount rather than keeping a copy of its own.
Fulfilment hold
When a deposit order arrives Balance Due places a Shopify fulfilment hold on it with the reason awaiting payment. The hold is released automatically when the balance is paid in full, or by you at any time. Because it is Shopify's own hold, warehouses, 3PL connectors and shipping apps all respect it, and nobody has to remember that an order is unpaid.
Requirements
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Shopify plan | Any plan with the Online Store channel. Shopify Plus is not required. |
| Payment provider | Shopify Payments or PayPal Express for automatic saved-card charges. Other providers use the pay-link flow. |
| Payment capture | Automatic at checkout or manual. Per-fulfilment capture is not compatible with deferred purchase options and the app tells you if it finds it. |
| Theme | One that renders Shopify purchase options, which every current Shopify theme does. |
| Order types | Online orders. POS and draft orders are not supported. |
What Balance Due does not do
It is not a buy-now-pay-later service: there is no credit check and no lender, the customer owes you the balance. It does not split the balance into instalments, because Shopify treats multi-payment schedules as payment-app territory. It does not take deposits on POS or draft orders, split one order across several people's cards, or offer financing. If you need those, one of the apps on the compare pages will be a better fit.
Everything on this page is on the Free plan, which covers three orders with an open balance at any one time. That is enough to run a real order end to end before you pay anything.
Questions
Can I take a fixed deposit rather than a percentage?
Yes. A fixed deposit is applied per unit, so a £250 deposit on a quantity of two is £500. Percentages are usually simpler when a product has variants at different prices.
When exactly is the card charged?
At 9am in your store's time zone on the due date. You can also charge early from the order with collect now, for example when a commission is finished ahead of schedule.
What if the customer wants to pay the balance early?
Their payment page has a pay now button. On mandate stores it charges the saved card; on pay-link stores it opens Shopify's payment link.
Can the balance be collected when the item is ready rather than on a date?
Yes. Choose 'when the order is ready' on the plan and set an outer limit. Nothing is charged until you press mark ready on the order; the customer is told the payment will be taken that day.
Can the customer pay the balance with a different card?
Yes. Every failed-payment and overdue message carries a Shopify payment link that accepts any card, and the customer payment page has the same pay now button. The saved card is only used for the automatic charges.
Who holds the card details?
Shopify. The card is saved by Shopify's checkout as a payment mandate on the order. Balance Due never sees card numbers.
What if I edit the order after the deposit is paid?
The balance follows the order. An upward edit adds the difference to the schedule, a refund reduces it, and the customer's payment page always shows the current figure.
How long does setup take?
About ten minutes for the first plan, most of which is deciding on the percentage. A test order on a development store with Shopify's Bogus Gateway shows the whole flow before a customer sees it.
See it on your own store
Install, create one plan, place a test order with Shopify's test gateway and watch the balance collect itself.