Getting paid online

Let clients pay an invoice by card or US bank account on its share link, without an account or a phone call. The money goes to your own bank account. OrderDen never holds it.

How it works

OrderDen takes payments through Stripe. You connect the Stripe account you already have, once. After that:

1. You send the client an invoice share link as usual.
2. The link shows a Pay $X button under the invoice.
3. They pay by card or US bank account on Stripe's form, or with PayPal's buttons if PayPal is what you connected.
4. The payment shows on the invoice within seconds, with Stripe's fee and the amount that will reach your bank, and the invoice becomes Partially paid or Paid.
5. The client gets an email receipt, sent to the email address on their client record (not to a named contact's address). The invoice's History tab records it all.

An order's share link has a Pay button too, so a client can pay before you've invoiced. See Taking payment on an order.

The Stripe account is yours. Stripe holds the money, runs its checks, handles disputes and pays out to your bank on its usual schedule. OrderDen is an app you've given access to, and you can take that access back at any time, here or in Stripe. We add nothing on top of Stripe's fee.

Stripe, PayPal, or both

PayPal isn't available yet. Its card reads Coming soon until it is. Everything below about connecting PayPal applies once it opens.

Company Settings → Online payments has a card for Stripe and a card for PayPal. Each connects on its own, and you can connect both. A card reads Coming soon, with no button, when that processor isn't offered yet.

The card at the top, How clients pay online, says what an invoice's Pay button offers:

• With one processor connected, clients pay through that one.
• With both, choose Both (the client picks Stripe or PayPal on the pay page), Stripe only, or PayPal only.
• If the one you chose stops taking payments (you disconnect it, or it needs something from you), clients are offered the other one instead, and the card says so.

You can change it for one invoice when you send it: Clients can pay with on the invoice's Send form. Workspace setting follows the top card.

Cards on file and automatic charges always use Stripe, whatever the pay page offers.

Everything on this page works the same with PayPal, except three things:

• Your client sees PayPal's buttons instead of the card form. They pay in PayPal's window, with their PayPal balance or a card they keep there, and come back to the invoice marked paid. The amount, including a part payment if you allow them, is set before the buttons appear.
• Cards on file aren't available. OrderDen can take a payment but can't keep a card to charge later, so automatic charging is off on PayPal.
• Disconnecting happens in two places. Disconnect here makes OrderDen forget the account. PayPal keeps its own record of the permission until you remove it under Account Settings → Website payments in PayPal.

Connecting your account

You need a Stripe account first. If you already take cards, connect that one. If not, create one at stripe.com and come back. OrderDen never creates a Stripe account for you.

In Company Settings → Online payments (owners and admins), press Connect your Stripe account on the Stripe card, or Connect your PayPal account on the PayPal card. Stripe asks you to sign in and approve OrderDen, then sends you back, usually in under a minute.

The page then shows three things:

• Onboarding complete: Stripe has everything it asked for.
• Payments enabled: Stripe will accept charges. The Pay button depends on this.
• Payouts enabled: Stripe will pay out to your bank.

Stripe sometimes enables payments before payouts, or asks for another document later. Finish anything it asks for in your Stripe dashboard. The page updates itself, and Refresh status checks again. Stripe dashboard opens your Stripe account, where payouts, disputes and fee statements are.

A Stripe or PayPal account can be connected to one workspace at a time. Connecting one that another workspace already uses is refused and leaves that workspace's connection as it was.

A processor that isn't offered yet reads Coming soon. Recording payments, share links and your written payment instructions all still work.

Disconnecting, or moving to another account

Disconnect gives OrderDen's access back to Stripe and forgets the account. Your other processor, if you connected one, isn't touched. Past payments, fees and receipts stay on their invoices. With nothing left connected, the Pay button goes from every share link, old ones included, until you connect an account again. Removing OrderDen under Settings → Connected applications in Stripe does the same, and the page reads Not connected either way.

To move to another Stripe account, press Connect a different Stripe account and approve the new one. It takes over from then on.

A refund of an online payment goes back through the processor that took it, Stripe or PayPal, to the account connected there now. After you disconnect or move accounts, refund a payment taken on the old account from that account's own dashboard.

Choosing what clients can pay with

On the Stripe card:

• Card: credit and debit cards, plus Apple Pay and Google Pay where the client's browser offers them. Paid right away.
• US bank account (ACH debit): cheaper on large invoices, but it takes a few business days to clear. The payment shows on the invoice once it clears.

Allow part payments is on the How clients pay online card at the top, once Stripe or PayPal can take payments. It lets a client pay less than the full balance, such as a deposit, whichever processor they pay through. Turn it off to make every online payment all or nothing, on Stripe and PayPal alike.

With both Stripe methods off, Stripe isn't offered. With nothing left to offer, the Pay button goes and the link shows your written payment instructions from Company Settings → Documents.

Fees, and what they do to your numbers

Stripe takes its fee from every online payment. OrderDen records it, so a $100 card payment shows as $100 paid, with the fee and the net under it. The client still owes nothing. The fee is your cost.

It's counted as a cost of the sale:

• The Margin card on an order adds payment fees to the cost basis, next to line costs and freight. A fee taken in another currency, such as a USD fee on a EUR invoice paid into a USD account, is left out and named on the card instead.
• The revenue reports (by client, item and period) add Payment fees and Net after fees columns.

Payments you record by hand (cash, check, a bank transfer) have no fee.

The Payments list shows Net this month at the top: what clients paid this calendar month, less the processor fees, so you can compare it with your bank. Refunds aren't taken off, and payouts stay in your processor's dashboard.

On a combined invoice, each order takes its share. A card payment on an invoice that bills several orders pays for all of them, so the fee is split in the same proportion as the invoice. An order that's $400 of a $1,000 invoice carries 40% of the fee, on its margin and in the reports.

Refunds

On the invoice page, an owner or admin can Refund any payment, in full or in part, with a reason.

• For an online payment, the money goes back to the client's card, bank account or PayPal balance through the processor. The processor keeps its fee.
• For a payment you recorded by hand, the refund is a record only. Nothing moves through OrderDen.

A refund doesn't delete the payment. It's netted out of what's been paid, so a Paid invoice becomes Partially paid, or Sent if everything was refunded, and the balance due goes back up. Refunds you make in your Stripe or PayPal dashboard are picked up and shown the same way.

A payment that isn't applied to any invoice is the client's credit, so refunding it comes out of that credit.

Undo next to a refund, on the payment's page or a credit note's page, removes a refund recorded by mistake (owners and admins). The money counts as paid again: on the invoices the payment settled, or back on the client's account. A refund that went back through Stripe or PayPal can't be undone, because the money has moved.

Disputes and chargebacks

A client can dispute a card payment with their bank instead of asking you for a refund. When they do, OrderDen marks the payment Disputed on the invoice and on Payments, writes it in the invoice's History, and sends you a Payment disputed notification (by email too, unless you've turned that off in Personal Settings → Notifications). Answer the dispute in your Stripe dashboard before its deadline. Nothing changes in OrderDen's figures while the bank decides.

• You win: the badge goes away, and the payment stands.
• You lose: the bank takes the money back. OrderDen records it as a refund with the reason Chargeback, so the invoice reopens to its balance, and reports, statements and the accounting export net it out. Stripe's dispute fee is added to the payment's fee. The payment shows Chargeback.

PayPal reversals are recorded the same way, as a refund.

Remove deletes a payment that was entered by mistake. It's on payments that didn't come in online. Money that really moved has to be refunded. A payment that isn't applied to an invoice has Delete on its own page instead, and any of it left as credit comes off the client's account.

Edit on a payment's Details card corrects its Date, Method, Note, Reference and Notes in place, for example a mistyped check number. The amount can't be changed: remove the payment and record it again. A payment taken online can only have its Notes changed, since the rest comes from the processor. Each invoice the payment settled records what changed in its history, and a receipt printed or sent afterwards shows the corrected details.

Cards on file

Once your account is connected, a client can leave a card or US bank account on file, from their copy of an invoice ("Pay automatically next time"), or you can add one on their client page with their written permission. The card number never reaches OrderDen: it's entered on Stripe's form.

An invoice for a client with a card on file has a Charge now button. A recurring plan can also charge the card on each invoice's due date. See Recurring invoices, cards on file and late fees.

Disconnecting removes the cards on file. A saved card belongs to the account you connected, so once it's gone the card can't be charged. OrderDen marks those cards as removed and says how many in Company Settings → Activity. Reconnecting doesn't bring them back. The client saves theirs again, or you add it with their permission.

On a processor that can't keep cards, saving one says so and names the processor, for example "PayPal can't keep a card on file", with what your server offers instead, if anything.

A payment's own page

Click any payment, in Payments & credits, on an invoice, on a client's Money tab or in the dashboard's Recent payments, to open its page. It shows the method, date, amount, fee and net, the reference, what it is applied to and its history. Edit is on the Details card; the card above it has Print receipt, Send receipt, Refund, Apply to invoices and Unapply. A payment that didn't come in online has Delete beside its number.

Unapply takes the payment off its invoices, which owe again, and leaves the money on the client's account as credit. Apply to invoices lists the client's open invoices with an amount box each, so one payment can be split across several. Fill puts as much of what's left as that invoice owes. What you don't put against an invoice stays on the client's account as credit, and the client's credit balance follows every change.

Recording payments by hand

Record a payment on an invoice takes Amount, Method (cash, check, bank transfer, card, bank debit, marketplace or other), Date, Payment #, Reference and Note. The amount starts at the balance, the date at today, and the method at what that client paid with last time (bank transfer if they haven't paid before). Leave Payment # blank for an automatic receipt number. The invoice counts both kinds of payment toward its balance.

A draft invoice takes no payment by hand, and no credit note either. Send it or set its status to Sent first, then record the payment.

When payments stop working

If Stripe turns off charges on your account, or you disconnect OrderDen from inside Stripe, owners and admins get a notification (A connection needs attention) in the bell and by email. Until it's fixed, a banner on the dashboard says online payments are off, and shared documents show no Pay button. Open Company Settings → Payments to see what Stripe needs. The banner goes away when charges are back on.

Troubleshooting

• The Pay button isn't on my share link. Check that Company Settings → Payments shows Payments enabled, that at least one method is on, and that the invoice has a balance and isn't void.
• A client paid but the invoice hasn't changed. Card payments show within seconds. Bank payments show when they clear, a few business days later. If a card payment still hasn't shown, find it in your Stripe dashboard and contact us.
• My client wants to pay in installments. Turn on Allow part payments on the How clients pay online card and they can pay the invoice down over several visits to the same link.

Everything tied to a job

Quotes, orders, invoices, payments and credit notes show an Everything tied to this job card once a document is part of a job. It lists the client's purchase order, the quote, the order and its shipments with their tracking numbers, the deposit and progress invoices, the invoices raised from the order, the payments and credit notes on each one, and the project. Each line links to its page and shows its status. The document you're on is highlighted. The card is the same on every page, so you can go from a payment back to the quote, or from the quote to the payment. Team members who can't see costs see the documents and their statuses without the amounts.