Card on file payments

This feature is available to organizations on the Team and Enterprise plans.

Securely store customer credit and debit cards for future use – while staying PCI compliant. Customers enter their card information once, and you can authorize charges or store it in your payment provider’s secure, PCI-compliant environment for later use.

Use card on file to simplify subscriptions, installments, or any time when you don’t know what the final charges will be. With Cognito Pay, returning customers can skip re-entering their card details and pay with a card already on file.

How to keep cards on file

Card on file is supported for Cognito Pay and Square. For Cognito Pay, enabling Track Submissions by Person on your form is required to save cards. For both providers, billing fields must be mapped with at least an email address.

1. If you haven’t already, create a payment form and connect your Cognito Pay or Square account.
2. In Payment Settings, find Save Card for Future Payments:
   • Always – Collect card information every time a customer submits your form.
   • When – Only collect card information when specific conditions are met. After selecting this option, the Conditional Logic builder will allow you to define when to save cards.
   • Never – Cards are never saved. This is the default.
3. Select Always or When to enable card saving. You will then be prompted to map billing fields on your form. You must map an Email field to save a card on file.
   • Cognito Pay only: Your form must include a Name and Email field, or a Person field, before card saving can be enabled. If neither is present, the card saving options will be unavailable. Once your form has the required fields and you select an option, you will be prompted to set up Track Submissions by Person if it is not already configured.
4. Save your changes.

Once enabled, a checkbox appears in the Payment section at the bottom of your form. Customers must check it to save their card. The checkbox is unchecked by default, so cards are only saved when customers give explicit consent.

Customers don’t need to make a payment to save their card. If payment is not required on the form, the Payment section title changes from Payment to Card Authorization and does not display line items or an amount due.

Paying with a saved card

Quick Tip

Customers can only pay with a saved card on forms that use Cognito Pay.

Returning customers can pay with a saved card instead of re-entering their card information. To see their saved cards, customers must log in before filling out your form.

Customers can log in as users or guests. Users are members of your Cognito Forms organization. Guests are people outside your organization, like clients or customers, who access your forms through your guest portal. Learn more about setting up Guest Access.

To make sure customers log in, require authentication on your payment form:

1. Open the form’s Workflow settings.
2. Under Public Links, set Require Authentication to Guests & Users or Users Only.
3. Save your changes.

When logged-in customers reach the Payment section, the Pay with dropdown shows the cards saved to their profile on the linked Person Form. Their most recently saved or updated card is already selected, so they can submit the form without entering anything.

To use a different card, customers open the Pay with dropdown. Each saved card shows its brand, last four digits, and expiration date. Expired cards are listed but can’t be selected. To enter new card details instead, they select Other card.

Managing saved cards

Customers and organization users can both remove saved cards. Deleting a card from any of the locations below removes it everywhere.

Saved cards can’t be edited. To update a card, such as when it has a new expiration date, delete it and save a new one.

On the form

Customers can remove a saved card while filling out a form. Open the Pay with dropdown, click the X next to the card, then click Delete. To keep the card, click Cancel.

In the guest portal

Guests with at least one saved card can view and remove their cards from the portal by clicking their profile image in the top right corner and choosing Saved Cards. This lists all of their saved cards across your organization, including any that are expired or expiring soon.

Expanding a card shows the cardholder name, expiration date, and billing address. To remove a card, click Delete Card, then click Delete to confirm.

From a Person Form profile

Cards saved to a customer appear in the Cards on File section of their profile. Organization users who can view the entry can see the full card details. Users with edit access can click Delete Card to remove it.

Because customers can remove their own cards, a card may disappear from a person entry without anyone in your organization deleting it. Check the entry’s activity log to see when and where a card was removed.

Charging customers with a saved card

Quick Tip

Cognito Forms does not support recurring payments. To set up recurring charges, manage them directly within your payment provider’s dashboard.

Once you save a customer’s card, you can collect payment in several ways.

From the Cognito Pay dashboard

On the Orders page, open the order and then click Make a Payment. Select the customer’s saved card and click Submit to collect payment.

From the Entries page

You can also charge a saved card directly from the entry. This works for both Cognito Pay and Square:

1. Open the entry for the customer you want to charge.
2. Go to the Order tab and click Make a Payment.
3. Select the Card on File option and click Submit. Alternatively, you can enter a new card or mark the amount as paid.

The entry will show a status of Paid. Learn more about managing entries with payment.

From Square

Once card on file is enabled with Square, your customers’ information is stored in your Square dashboard. From the Directory section under the Customers menu, you can charge customers in several ways.

Square will create a new customer even if a customer already exists with the same email address. Square has a function to merge duplicate customer records.

Create invoices

When you create a Square invoice, you can select a card on file to charge. Customers can receive a digital receipt and can unlink or delete their payment card from any receipt.

Create subscriptions

Use a card on file to process recurring or subscription payments. Learn more about creating and managing recurring invoices in Square.

Templates

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