Glossary
Recurring payment
Charging a saved card automatically on each billing date, without the customer doing anything.
A recurring payment means the rent is collected rather than requested. The customer pays the first instalment by card at checkout; the gateway returns a token for that card, and every following instalment is charged against the token on the billing date.
The difference this makes to a self-storage business is largely about timing. A bank transfer “by the end of the month” arrives, in practice, on the 12th of the next one. A card charged on the due date either succeeds or fails immediately — and a failure starts the reminder sequence the same day instead of three weeks later.
An example. A tenant pays €67 at checkout on 14 March. On 14 April the card is charged automatically. If the charge fails, the system records the payment as due and the dunning scenario starts: an SMS, then an email with a payment link.
Card numbers never reach the storage operator’s system — only the token, which is useless anywhere else.