Recurring payments to accounts

Hi!

I own a therapy center where due to the crazy high deductibles in the current healthcare industry, clients accrue rather high balances at the start of each year.   Many of them need to make smaller payments over the course of the year to pay off these balances.   They want to set up automatic charges to their credit cards to pay smaller amounts monthly.  In QB desktop we were able to set up recurring payments that applied to the customers accounts as credits that we could go back and apply to invoices.   

However, in QB online the only way I can figure out to do automatic credit card changes is with recurring sales receipts.  The problem with this is that then I have to go into each invoice and apply the credits from the sales receipts as discounts on the invoices.   Which then shows the client and insurance companies (HSA etc) that they had a zero invoice once it's paid instead of a paid invoice.   

Anyone know how I can do this more efficiently and actually reflect what is going on vs. making fake sales receipts to get the recurring charges?

Thanks so much for any and all help you can give me!

Amy