Billing and Split payments

Billing decides how and when the customer is charged for a pre-order. Both options place a real order, the difference is when the money is collected. It is one of the reusable pre-order building blocks, for the overview see How Pre-orders Work. You set it under Functionality settings, Billing. The optional pre-order discount also lives here.

Which payment methods work with pre-orders

Pre-orders use Shopify's deferred purchase option, so the methods that can carry a pre-order are the ones Shopify supports for it, in practice Shopify Payments and PayPal Express. Shopify Payments works for every setup, including automatic collection of a split-payment balance. PayPal Express can take a full payment upfront but cannot auto-collect a later balance. For other gateways and local payment methods, choose Don't use a Shopify purchase option (see below) and every method your store offers stays available at checkout. Our support team is happy to talk through your payment setup with you.

If your payment method is not offered on pre-orders

Shopify hides the payment methods that cannot carry a deferred purchase option, so a shopper can reach checkout on a pre-order product and find your usual local method missing while your in-stock products check out normally. You can run the pre-order without Shopify's purchase option instead: in the customer experience template, open Functionality settings, and under Purchase option choose Don't use a Shopify purchase option, then click Save. Everything shoppers see stays the same, and every payment method your store normally offers stays available.

With that choice, payment is taken in full at checkout and any discount comes from Shopify admin → Discounts, so the Billing, Pricing and When to reduce stock sections are hidden and stock is reduced when the order is placed. Under Fulfillment status you choose how orders arrive: Unfulfilled, ready for you to fulfill whenever you choose, or On hold, where Timesact puts the order on hold until you release it. With On hold, choose Hold pre-order products or Hold the entire order.

Full amount

The customer is charged the full price at checkout, exactly like a normal order. The only difference from a standard purchase is that fulfillment is deferred until you ship.

• Shopper sees: a normal-looking checkout, pays in full now.
• In Shopify: a normal paid order that is not fulfillable until you fulfill it.

Split payment

The customer pays part now and the rest later. You choose the upfront amount, and this is where the common scenarios come from.

To set it up, select Split payment under Billing, then:

1. In First charge as, choose Percentage or Fixed amount.
2. In First charge, enter the amount taken at checkout. Enter 0 to take nothing now.
3. In When to charge the rest, choose On a specific date and pick the Date to charge the rest, choose A set time after checkout and enter How long after checkout with a Time unit (Days, Months or Years), or choose When you fulfill the order (PRO plan).
4. Click Save.

• 0 upfront (reserve now, pay later) — the shopper reserves the item and is charged nothing at checkout. Shopify securely stores their payment method, and the full amount is collected later. Use it for "reserve now, pay when it ships."
• Percentage upfront — the shopper pays a percentage deposit now, for example 20 percent, and the remaining 80 percent later.
• Fixed amount upfront — the shopper pays a set amount now, for example 10.00 in your store's default currency, and the remainder later. It is one figure for every market, so a shopper checking out in another currency is charged that amount converted at your store's rate rather than the same round number, for example a 100.00 deposit on a store priced in USD reads as roughly 86 EUR at a German checkout. If you want the deposit to read sensibly in every market, a percentage stays proportional to the price the shopper is already seeing.

How the balance is collected

This is the same in every split-payment scenario:

1. At checkout, Shopify takes the upfront amount (which may be 0) and securely stores (vaults) the customer's payment method. This is a card kept on file, not a temporary authorization hold, so it does not expire, but it is also not a guarantee: the later charge can still fail if the card is declined or expired by then.
2. The order carries payment terms showing the outstanding balance and when it is due, based on what you chose in When to charge the rest.
3. When the balance is due, Shopify charges the stored payment method automatically, where your payment provider supports it. In practice, automatic collection of a later balance requires Shopify Payments. Some providers cannot auto-charge a stored method (for example PayPal can take a full payment upfront but not auto-collect a later balance), in which case you send an invoice or charge the balance from the order when it is due.

Taking the balance when you ship

On the PRO plan, choose When you fulfill the order in When to charge the rest, and Timesact charges the balance once the order is fully fulfilled.

Otherwise, set a final payment date comfortably beyond your expected ship date, then collect the balance yourself when you ship:

1. In Timesact, go to Analytics and, under Pre-order, click Sales.
2. In the orders table on Pre-order sales, select the orders you are shipping.
3. Click Collect payment, then click Collect payment again to confirm. Timesact asks Shopify to charge the full remaining balance to the payment method each customer saved at checkout.

For a single order you can also do this in Shopify admin → Orders: open the pre-order and use Collect payment in the Payment pending section, or Send invoice if you would rather the customer pays from a link. The automatic date is then your backstop rather than your plan. See Capture Split payment Early and Modify Charge Date.

When the order is fulfilled under When to reduce stock is a different setting: it controls when your stock is reduced, not when the customer is charged. When the balance is charged is set only in When to charge the rest. See Inventory and Fulfillment.

Shipping sits outside the split. It is charged by Shopify through your own Settings → Shipping and delivery, so it is not divided between the deposit and the balance. If postage has to be covered up front, charge the full amount at checkout or size the deposit so it covers it.

What the shopper sees along the way

• On the product page: the pre-order button, plus the payment option, for example a "Pay Later" or deposit line describing that they pay part now and the rest later. To change the text shown under the split payment options, open the template, go to Product page, and edit Description in the Split payment section.
• In the cart: the item marked as a pre-order, at its normal price, the full price or your discounted pre-order price if you set a discount. The deposit is not shown here, the cart shows what the item costs, not how the payment is split.
• At checkout: they are charged only the upfront amount (full, a deposit, or nothing). This is where the split appears, the amount due today and the balance with its due date. So a 120.00 item with a 10% pre-order discount and a 50% deposit reads 108.00 in the cart and asks for 54.00 at checkout. If you want the deposit mentioned earlier, say it in your product page message and cart label.
• After ordering: their confirmation reflects what was charged and that a balance remains, and they are charged the remainder later without needing to do anything.

What you see in Shopify

• The order shows payment terms with the outstanding balance and its due date.
• You can let Shopify auto-charge the balance when due, send the customer an invoice, mark the order as paid if you collected another way, or charge the balance manually from the order.
• To collect a balance yourself, use Collect payment on the order (or send an invoice). To collect several balances at once, select the orders in Timesact under Analytics → Pre-order → Sales and click Collect payment. Shopify's own bulk "Capture payment" action is for authorized payments, so use one of these for pre-order balances.

Pricing: optional pre-order discount

You can reward early orders with a discount applied to the pre-order price at checkout.

• No discount: full price.
• Fixed amount off: a set amount off the price, in your store currency, for example 5.00 off.
• Percentage off: a percentage off the price, for example 10 percent.

Scenario: you offer 10 percent to early birds. A 50.00 item is charged as 45.00, or a deposit calculated from 45.00 if you also use split payment.

Who gets the pre-order discount

The pre-order discount is part of the pre-order terms attached to the product, not a discount aimed at particular shoppers, so it applies to everyone who pre-orders that product. It cannot be limited to a customer segment, a customer tag, a logged-in account, or a discount code.

If your store already prices for particular customers, a members' club, a VIP segment, trade pricing, set that part up where eligibility lives, in your Shopify admin go to Discounts and create the discount for that customer segment, then leave Pricing here on No discount so the two do not stack. The price itself always comes from Shopify, Timesact follows the price on the product and never rewrites it.

Which discounts and gift cards work with a pre-order

The pre-order discount above is set inside the app and always works. The codes and automatic discounts you run from Shopify admin, Discounts, behave differently while a pre-order uses Shopify's purchase option, which is every pre-order set to Use Shopify purchase option under Purchase option, including Full amount:

• Amount off and percentage off discounts work as normal.
• Buy X Get Y and multi-buy discounts, for example "Buy 2, get 1 free" or "3 for 2", do not work. Shopify blocks that discount type on purchase-option orders, so the shopper sees the discount fail at checkout, often with a "cannot be applied to the cart at checkout" message. This is a Shopify restriction, not a Timesact setting.
• Gift cards cannot be used as payment on a purchase-option pre-order, for the same reason.

If you need a Buy X Get Y discount or gift cards on a product you are pre-selling, run that pre-order without the purchase option, the same switch described in "If your payment method is not offered on pre-orders" above, with the same three trade-offs. It is one or the other on the same product. Place a test order with your discount applied before you go live.

The purchase-agreement message at checkout

Because a partial or deferred pre-order defers payment, Shopify treats it as a purchase option and automatically shows a short purchase-agreement note at checkout, wording that describes the deferred terms of the order. This comes from Shopify, not from Timesact, and it appears on any product sold on these terms.

Shopify only lets you edit or remove that wording on the Shopify Plus plan. On other plans it cannot be switched off while the pre-order uses Shopify's deferred purchase option. If you are on another plan, plan for the note to appear and set expectations with your own pre-order messaging, your product-page message and cart label are the best place to tell shoppers clearly what they are agreeing to.

If a scheduled balance charge fails

When the balance on a split-payment pre-order is due, Shopify attempts the charge on the stored card automatically, wherever your payment provider supports it. If that charge is declined, for example the card has expired or has insufficient funds, it is not retried automatically, and the customer is not sent an automatic notice about the failed charge. Nothing else happens on its own, so it is worth checking your pre-orders around their due dates.

To pick it back up, in your Shopify admin go to Orders and open the pre-order. The Payment pending section shows the outstanding balance. From there you can:

• Click Collect payment and charge the card again (this uses Shopify Payments).
• Click Collect payment, then Send invoice, to email the customer a secure checkout link so they can pay the balance themselves, handy when the card on file keeps failing.
• Reach out to the customer directly to arrange payment before you try again.

To retry several orders at once, open Analytics → Pre-order → Sales in Timesact, select the orders and click Collect payment. The result shows how many were Requested, Skipped and Failed. Skipped orders need nothing from you: they are already paid in full or refunded, cancelled, archived or already requested. For failed orders, use Send invoice on the order in Shopify. Timesact does not email the customer when you collect, so send them your own heads-up first.

A quick heads-up to the customer before re-charging is good practice, especially if some time has passed since they ordered.

Known limitations

• Automatic balance collection depends on your payment provider supporting deferred capture, in practice Shopify Payments. Where it is not supported, you collect the balance by invoice or from the order.
• To collect deferred balances in bulk, use Collect payment in Timesact under Analytics → Pre-order → Sales, rather than Shopify's bulk "Capture payment".
• Pre-orders with split payment are not supported for B2B or wholesale orders, this is a Shopify limitation. See How Pre-orders Workfor the B2B / wholesale workaround.

Related

• When the customer is told it ships: Shipping dates
• When your available quantity is reduced and how fulfillment is deferred: Inventory and Fulfillment
• Overview of all the building blocks: How Pre-orders Work

Updated on: 11/09/2026