A plan starts life as a draft holding the amount and the customer's details. The plan only becomes real when the customer opens their secure setup link, chooses a deposit and schedule, and pays the deposit. Here's every way to create one.
On Shopify, WooCommerce and Odoo eCommerce, FlexiLay appears as a payment method. When a customer selects it, the plan is created from the order and they're taken straight to the setup page — order details, line items and totals carry over automatically.
Open Create Plan in your dashboard, enter the total and the customer's name, email and mobile, and FlexiLay emails them their setup link. Perfect for phone orders, in-store lay-by, quotes and deposits on custom work.
For date-sensitive orders — event tickets, bookings, hire — the form has an optional "Must be fully paid by" date. Set it and the customer's schedule options are limited so every instalment falls on or before that date; if the date is too close for instalments, they pay in full at setup. Leave it blank (the default) and the customer gets your normal schedule options.
On accounting-connected accounts a Xero or QuickBooks tab lists your unpaid invoices — choose Create Plan on one and the amount and customer details come from the invoice. See the Xero and QuickBooks guides.
Custom-built sites create plans server-side through the FlexiLay API and redirect the customer to the returned setup URL — the full recipe (including Lovable examples and the status webhook) is in the custom site guide.
| When | What FlexiLay does |
|---|---|
| Immediately | Customer receives their secure setup link (at checkout they're redirected straight to it) |
| After 2 hours unopened | Manual plans only: a friendly reminder email nudges them to finish setting up. Checkout-created plans (store gateways and the API) send no reminder — a customer who left the checkout has moved on or paid another way |
| After ~24 hours | The draft expires — no orphaned plans, and the linked order is released. Abandoned checkout drafts expire silently (no email); expired manual plans email the customer that the plan was cancelled |
You can resend a setup link any time from the plan's page in the dashboard, and delete a draft that's no longer needed. A draft never charges anyone — money only moves once the customer pays their deposit.
Invoice plans are the exception: a plan created from a Xero or QuickBooks invoice gets no reminder and never expires — the invoice itself is the touchpoint, so the link stays live for as long as the invoice is unpaid, and the plan closes automatically if the invoice is paid or voided in your ledger.
Tip: treat an order as unpaid until the deposit lands — the plan status flips from draft to active the moment it does.