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.
How to keep cards on file
This feature does not give you full access to customers’ credit card information. It only lets you charge the customer later from within Cognito Forms or your payment provider’s dashboard.
Card on file is supported for Cognito Pay and Square. For Cognito Pay, saving cards requires Track Submissions by Person to be configured on your form. For both providers, billing fields must be mapped with at least an email address.
- If you haven’t already, create a payment form and connect your Cognito Pay or Square account.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Save your changes.
When you enable card saving, you can’t turn off billing fields. If you enable card saving without configuring Track Submissions by Person, you will be guided to complete that setup first.
Once enabled, customers must check the I agree to save my card for future transactions checkbox before submitting the form. This checkbox is unchecked by default and gives customers explicit consent to save their card.
Customers don’t need to make a payment to save their card. If payment is not required on the form, the payment block title changes from Payment to Card Authorization and does not display line items or an amount due.
Charging a saved card
Once you save a customer’s card, you can collect payment in several ways.
From the Cognito Pay dashboard
From the Orders, Payments, or Disputes page, click a customer’s name to open their profile. From here you can select a saved card 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:
- Open the entry for the customer you want to charge.
- Go to the Order tab and click Make a Payment.
- 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.
A new customer will be created in Square 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
Check out our pre-built form templates:
- Contract – Create a contract for services that allows customers to pay a lump sum or split up their payment.
- Credit Card Authorization Form – Capture a customer’s billing information for later use. No payment is collected when the form is submitted.
- Credit Card Booking Form – Obtain payment for the full amount and authorize future charges.
- Payment Plan Agreement – Collect a down payment and capture billing information for later use.