We have had the same problem for years. We set up recurring sales receipts initially because that was the only way Quickbooks had to set up a recurring bank card or credit card payment. We had the same problem as you where sales receipts were showing PAID even when the client's card failed and we didn't even realize we never got the funds because Quickbooks showed them as paid. So we had to create a google spreadsheet with every client's name and expected payment, then go into the QB merchant services dashboard one transaction at a time to try to figure out if funds were actually collected. I can't believe this is still not resolved.
More recently we started using recurring invoices since QB was finally showing the autopay option there for awhile, but now it does not appear anymore. The only way we can get autopay set up is to call the client and have them read their card number to us over the phone, which seems very 1990. At least recurring invoices do show whether they were actually paid or not. I don't know why a sophisticated system like Quickbooks can't work this out. They will respond with instructions about how to set these things up, but the instructions *do* *not* *work* because the autopay option does not appear for clients even if you set it up perfectly. It's just annoying when they keep sending instructions that do not match reality.
