Payment Integration Case Study
Executive Summary
A Scalable Payment Infrastructure for Global Membership
NIRA Systems implemented Blackthorn Payments integrated with Stripe within Salesforce — introducing a flexible, automated payment framework that eliminated manual renewal operations and created a seamless member payment journey fully integrated with Salesforce.
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The Challenge
1 — No Automated Membership Autorenewal: Organizations currently do not have a mechanism to automatically charge members on their renewal due date. Renewals were entirely manual — dependent on members returning to the site and initiating payment. This led to avoidable membership lapses, revenue leakage, and high staff involvement in chasing expired memberships and re-activating lapsed accounts.
2 — No Retry Logic for Failed Payments: When a payment failed — whether a declined card, insufficient funds, or a bank-side issue — there was no automated recovery workflow. Failed transactions required manual identification and member outreach, consuming staff time with no guarantee of recovery within the renewal window.
3 — Card Expiry Not Proactively Managed: Members on autorenewal with expiring cards received no advance notification to update their payment method. This resulted in preventable failures at the point of renewal — entirely avoidable with proactive monitoring of card expiry dates stored within Blackthorn payment method records.
4 — Refund and Status Reversal Gaps: Refund processing was handled externally in Stripe but did not automatically reflect in Salesforce. When a refund was issued — whether full or partial — the corresponding membership status and renewal date were not reverted, creating data inconsistencies and inaccurate member records.
Our Solution
NIRA Systems implemented a unified Blackthorn Payments and auto-renewal solution across the organization's member portal through five structured workstreams.
1 — Blackthorn Payments & Stripe Integration
Blackthorn Payments was deployed natively within Salesforce org. Stripe was connected as the payment processor, with a unified gateway configuration supporting Card, ACH, and other Stripe-supported methods — all mapped directly to the existing member data model.
2 — Website Payment Flow (Member-Initiated)
A seamless end-to-end payment flow on the Experience Cloud portal allows members to select their preferred payment method. Blackthorn processes via Stripe and writes the result back to the Salesforce member record in real time — no manual reconciliation required.
3 — Custom Autorenewal Engine
Custom Apex logic monitors membership expiry dates and triggers Blackthorn to capture the charge automatically on the renewal due date. On success, membership status is renewed and the next renewal date advanced in Salesforce — with no action required from the member or staff.
4 — Retry Logic & Card Expiry Notifications
A 3-day retry window automatically retries failed autorenewal charges on subsequent days before escalating to staff. A separate notification workflow proactively alerts members on autorenewal when their stored card is approaching expiry, reducing preventable failures.
5 — Refunds & Membership Status Reversal
Full and partial refunds processed by staff in Stripe are automatically reflected in Salesforce via a custom integration that reads the Stripe refund event. For full refunds, custom logic reverts membership status and renewal date — rolling back to the pre-payment state and eliminating data inconsistencies without any manual intervention.
Results & Impact
60%+ Autorenewal Adoption
Among eligible members within the first renewal cycle
70%+ Failed Payment Recovery
Within the 3-day automated retry window
65%+ Fewer Card Expiry Failures
Through proactive expiry notification workflows
Zero Manual Reconciliation
All payment events and refunds sync automatically to Salesforce
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