If a payment fails, it means the merchant was unable to charge your Cledara card. This can happen for a number of reasons, and most are easy to fix.
This article explains how to check the failure reason in Cledara and how to resolve the most common causes.
Check decline reasons for failed payments
Common payment decline reasons:
Insufficient funds
Mismatched card details
Card limit exceeded
Invalid card status
What to do after you've resolved your failed payments:
Contact merchant to retry the card payment
Check decline reasons for failed payments
If your card does not have enough funds for a payment, you will receive an email notification (unless you deactivate the option).
For Admins, you can see the list of failed payments in the Dashboard:
For App Owners, you can see why the transaction failed at the top of the application's Payments tab:
Troubleshoot payment failures
Insufficient funds
Account available balance too low
Application budget too low
Top-up happened after the attempt
Account available balance too low
If you don’t have enough funds in your Cledara account, we will not be able to top up your fixed budget card.
Check if you have funds committed in other applications prematurely; you might be able to move the funds to where they are most needed now, and then top up the other applications later.
If your total account balance is low, you will have to top up your account. Once the money reaches your account, you will be able to pull funds to the card for the payment.
Application budget too low
If the payment amount is higher than the fixed budget (and the budget flexibility set), we will not authorise the payment request.
Review the cost of your subscription and check if the amount of the attempted payment is correct. If so, update the budget so that future payments can be authorised without issues.
Remember to increase your application balance as well, so that when the merchant likely tries to charge you again later, and the payment will go through smoothly.
Top-up happened after the attempt
If you have sufficient funds on the card, but the payment failed due to insufficient funds, the payment attempt was likely made before the card was topped up.
In this case, move funds into your application by manually setting the application balance.
Going forwards, we recommend setting the Next top up date one day before the expected payment date so that the card is topped up in time for the payment request.
Here's a step-by-step guide to resolve your failed transactions due to insufficient funds in Cledara:
Mismatched card details
Another possible reason why your payment was declined is that incorrect card information has been entered or that the billing address entered does not match the billing information assigned to the card.
Double-check the card details you've entered to make sure everything matches what is shown in Cledara, i.e. the expiry date, CVC, company name, etc.
If your card details are all correct
It is also worth checking if the merchant imposes any additional requirements as measures to prevent fraudulent transactions.
These requirements are usually cross-checking if the payment method you entered matches your account details. For example, the merchant may not allow the payment if you are not currently in the same country as the card's billing address, or if the payment method has already been added to another account.
Many failure details can only be confirmed by the merchant. If the decline reason isn't obvious, contact the merchant for clarification.
Card limit exceeded
If your cards are powered by Mastercard, then your cards are subject to a velocity limit of 10 transactions each day. After the 10th transaction, you will have to wait until you can use the card again.
If you need to make more than 10 transactions within 24 hours, you can create a supplementary card under the same application to continue making payments.
You can read more about card transaction limits here.
Invalid card status
Disabled or deleted card
Head to Cledara to check your application and card status. The card must be active to authorise payments. If the card is disabled, re-activate it; but if it’s deleted, you'll need to create a new one.
Application budget type changed
Whenever your budget type changes, a new card will be generated, replacing the old card irreversibly.
You can check if the application has gone through budget type changes in the Change history tab.
If the budget type has indeed changed, your old card can no longer be used. Update the payment method at the merchant with the new card details.
Contact merchant to retry the card payment
Once you've corrected the problem (for example, topped up your balance or updated card details), the merchant needs to attempt the payment again. Cledara does not automatically retry payments; we only receive a payment request when the merchant submits it.
In most cases, SaaS providers will retry automatically. If not, you may need to re-submit the payment or update your subscription directly with them.
If you're unsure whether the merchant will retry automatically, we recommend contacting them to confirm the next steps.