# Follow up on a failed membership charge before it costs you the member > One person checks declines every business day, and each decline stays an open Task until the card is updated and a charge goes through. Markdown view of https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/billing-decline-follow-up — the HTML page is canonical. [](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks) 1. [Playbooks](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks) 2. [Membership & Billing](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks#membership-and-billing) One person checks declines every business day, and each decline stays an open Task until the card is updated and a charge goes through. - Hint Core - Spruce - Saves about 10 min per decline (est.) Last checked Oct 27, 2026 against Tabflows v3.10.63 ## The situation A failed membership charge is rarely a member trying to leave. It is an expired card, a card replaced after a fraud alert or a bank hiccup. The problem is how long it sits, because most billing platforms quietly retry a few times and then pause or cancel the membership if nothing changes. Hint and Cerbo produce decline reports, but a report is not a task. If nobody is responsible for checking it every day, it sits there. The member might not even notice the charge failed, so their first sign of trouble can be a cancellation notice or being unable to book a visit. ## Steps 1. **Make the daily check a repeating Task** Create a Task to check your billing platform's decline report every business day, choose one person in Assigned to, and set Repeat to Every weekday. Like opening the fax queue, this is a habit, and a habit needs a named owner. 2. **Make each decline its own Task** For every decline on the report, create a Task with the patient-page Task button on the member's page, confirm Patient, add a clinic Tag such as Billing and set Due on to today. If you use Hint Core, Sidekick can show which invoices are still due and which payment method is the default; confirm in Hint before you reach out. 3. **Reach out the same day as a routine card update** Frame it as a quick card update, not a collections notice. Ask Sidekick to draft the Spruce message, review it, choose Navigate & paste and send it yourself. 4. **Track it until the charge goes through clean** Record each attempt in a comment. Called and left a voicemail is not resolved, so keep the Task open with a new Due on, and mark it Done only when the card is updated and a charge goes through clean. 5. **Change the conversation on a repeat decline** Before you reach out, open the member's Task history to see earlier declines. A card that fails twice in three months might mean a member is quietly struggling to keep up with dues, and a phone call, not another retry, is the right next step. ## The outcome Every decline gets a contact attempt the same day or the next business day and stays open until the card is updated. A member who simply forgot to update a card keeps their membership, and you skip the awkward win-back conversation weeks later with someone who never meant to leave. ## Ask Sidekick Sidekick is the AI assistant inside Tabflows. Hey Tabflows, create a task to reach this member about their failed payment, assigned to me and due today, with a checklist for the first note, a second attempt and a heads-up to me before anything is paused. Then draft the first note for me to send. ## In the Product Library - [How to update, complete, reopen, or delete tasks](https://www.tabflows.com/university/library/tasks/how-to-update-complete-reopen-or-delete-tasks) - [Using Hint Core with Tabflows](https://www.tabflows.com/university/library/integrations/using-hint-core-with-tabflows) - [How to use Sidekick to draft and paste a Spruce message](https://www.tabflows.com/university/library/sidekick/how-to-use-sidekick-to-draft-and-paste-a-spruce-message) - [Using Tasks for reviewing patient task history](https://www.tabflows.com/university/library/tasks/using-tasks-for-reviewing-patient-task-history) - [Using Spruce with Tabflows](https://www.tabflows.com/university/library/integrations/using-spruce-with-tabflows) ## In a course - [Membership Operations](https://www.tabflows.com/university/courses/membership-operations) [Read the full guide](https://www.tabflows.com/blog/membership-billing-decline-followup) [Open it in the Automation catalog](https://www.tabflows.com/university/automations?automation=billing-decline-follow-up) ## Related markdown Section index: [Playbooks](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks.md) Alongside this page: - [Advance directive tracking](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/advance-directive-tracking.md) - [After hours answering service](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/after-hours-answering-service.md) - [After hours message triage](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/after-hours-message-triage.md) - [Call follow up loop](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/call-follow-up-loop.md) - [Chronic care check ins](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/chronic-care-check-ins.md) - [Clia and compliance renewals](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/clia-and-compliance-renewals.md) - [Dea and license renewals](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/dea-and-license-renewals.md) - [Dme order tracking](https://www.tabflows.com/university/playbooks/dme-order-tracking.md) Start here: - [Tabflows](https://www.tabflows.com/index.md) - [Tabflows pricing](https://www.tabflows.com/pricing.md) - [Tabflows FAQ](https://www.tabflows.com/faqs.md) - [About Tabflows](https://www.tabflows.com/about.md) - [Contact Tabflows](https://www.tabflows.com/contact.md) - [DPC workflow software](https://www.tabflows.com/dpc-workflow-software.md) - [Directory](https://www.tabflows.com/directory.md) - [Workflows](https://www.tabflows.com/workflows.md) - [DPC finder](https://www.tabflows.com/dpc-finder.md) Every page listed in sitemap.xml has a markdown twin at the same URL with `.md` appended, or by sending `Accept: text/markdown` to the canonical URL. Wider index: [llms.txt](https://www.tabflows.com/llms.txt), [llms-full.txt](https://www.tabflows.com/llms-full.txt), [sitemap.md](https://www.tabflows.com/sitemap.md), [sitemap.xml](https://www.tabflows.com/sitemap.xml). Support documentation: https://www.tabflows.com/university/library — append `.md` to any article URL for its raw markdown.