Getting paid

Your client receives an invoice link with the amount due and the payment methods you accept. Online payments are confirmed through Stripe; cash and checks are recorded by you. This guide explains how payments, pending bank transfers, and refunds affect the balance you see.

The public invoice page

Sending an invoice emails the client’s primary contact a link to the invoice page. The page shows the invoice, the Balance at the top, and a How to pay card listing the methods you’ve turned on under Settings, Payments. Methods are read live from your account. Turn on ACH tomorrow and every open invoice offers it.

Online methods (Credit card, Bank transfer (ACH), Cash App Pay) sit under Pay online with a button that reads Pay $X. Pressing it opens Stripe Checkout on your own Stripe account. If you pass processing fees to clients, the card shows the invoice balance, the processing fee, and the total to pay before they click. See Payments and Stripe.

The button always charges the current balance, so a client who paid half sees only the half that’s left. If two people pay the same invoice, or someone pays on a stale link, the invoice can end up overpaid. You get an email saying by how much. Refund the payment from its row if the money should go back.

Cash or check

If Cash / Check is on, the page shows a Cash or check card with the instructions you typed in Settings. The client can press Report payment sent, add an optional amount and note, and press Send notice. You get an email and the invoice’s activity gains a payment notice line.

A notice isn’t a payment. The balance doesn’t move until you press Record payment on the invoice and fill in Amount, Date, Payment method (check, bank transfer, wire, cash, credit card recorded manually, other), an optional Reference number such as the check number, and Notes. Save payment drops the balance. Owners and admins record, refund, and remove payments. Accountants can see them but not change them.

What marks an invoice paid

An invoice becomes paid when its cleared payments cover the total. A Stripe payment that clears, or a manual payment you record that closes the balance, both flip the status. A paid invoice stops showing the How to pay card. So does a written-off one, which shows a banner saying it’s no longer payable.

Partial payments

Any payment can be less than the total. The invoice stays sent, the public page adds a Payment history table and a Balance due line, and the next Pay button charges what remains.

ACH takes a few days

Card and Cash App Pay payments clear at once. A bank transfer lands as pending. Both your invoice page and the public one show Payment pending clearance with the amount and date, and the balance doesn’t drop yet. When Stripe confirms the funds (usually 3 to 5 business days), the payment succeeds, the invoice marks paid if the balance is covered, you get a “Payment received” email, and the client gets a receipt. The payment is dated the day it cleared, not the day the client started it, so a transfer started December 30 that clears January 3 counts as January income in your reports. If the transfer bounces, the payment shows Failed, the activity log records why, and you get an email.

Clearing depends on the payment_intent.succeeded webhook; see Payments and Stripe.

Autopay

A client can save a card or bank account on their client portal to have your recurring invoices paid for them. Their recurring invoice email then says it’s being charged and when, instead of asking them to pay. A card is charged the day the invoice is sent, a bank account 10 days later or on the due date if that’s later. A declined charge emails the client the pay link and tells you. One-off invoices are paid the usual way. Details are in Recurring invoices.

Refunds

Stripe payments show a Refund link in the invoice’s Payments table. It refunds whatever of that payment hasn’t gone back yet, including any processing fee the client covered, after you confirm the amount. Stripe keeps its own fee. To refund only part of a payment, make the refund in your Stripe dashboard; PayPolka records each refund Stripe reports, partial or full.

Each refund shows under the payment with its amount and date, and a partly refunded payment shows how much was kept. If money is owed again after a refund, a paid invoice reopens as sent with its reminders turned off, so the client isn’t chased for money you gave back. You get an email for each refund, and another if a refund fails, in which case the invoice goes back to how it was. Refunds count in your reports on the day they happened, not the day of the payment.

Manual payments can’t be refunded through Stripe. Use the trash icon on the row to remove the payment instead.

Receipts

When a Stripe payment succeeds, PayPolka emails a PDF receipt to the client’s primary contact on its own. To send one by hand, for a cash payment say, press Send receipt on the payment row.

Reminders

Reminders are an account setting under Settings, Payments: a master switch, Send reminder emails for unpaid invoices, and a Reminder schedule (days) field. The default is -3, 0, 3, 7, 14: three days before due, the due date, and three, seven, and fourteen days after. Each invoice also has its own switch, Send automatic payment reminders for this invoice, on by default.

At 9am in your account’s time zone (Settings, Time), a job emails the primary contact once per offset per invoice. Only sent invoices get reminders. Paid and written-off ones don’t. An invoice with a bank transfer still clearing is skipped, and so is one whose client has no primary contact email. No reminder goes out on or before the day an invoice was sent, since the invoice email covers that day. For a Due on receipt invoice, which is due the day it’s issued, that means the first reminder is the three-day one on the default schedule. There are no late fees.