Payment links
Let clients pay an invoice online by card with a Stripe payment link, created at issue, from the invoice page or from the portal's Pay now button.
A payment link is a Stripe page where your client pays one specific invoice by card. This article shows the three ways to get one to your client. You need a connected Stripe account and a saved online payment method first; see Stripe online payments.
What a payment link is
- It belongs to one invoice and asks for what is still owed on it: the total minus the payments already recorded, in the invoice's currency.
- It can be paid once. After a successful payment the link closes.
- It does not expire, so a client can use it days later from an email.
- It is reused while the amount owed stays the same: generating it again gives you the same link.
- Offers and pro-formas never get a payment link. Payments belong on the invoice.
Option 1: add it when you create the invoice
- Create the invoice as usual.
- Tick Generate a payment link for this invoice. Bilify switches the invoice's Payment method to your online payment method and locks the choice while the box is ticked.
- Issue the invoice.
Bilify creates the link right after issuing. If you send the invoice by email when you issue it, the email has a Pay online button. The invoice, its PDF and the portal show Pay online under Payment details instead of bank details.
The box only appears when your Stripe account is connected and an active online payment method exists.
If Stripe is briefly unavailable
A problem on Stripe's side never stops the invoice from being issued. If the link could not be created, use option 2 to create it afterwards.
Option 2: from the invoice page
- Open the issued invoice from Documents.
- Click Payment link.
- If there is no current link, click Generate link.
- Copy the link with the copy button and send it to your client however you like.
The Payment link button appears only on invoices whose payment method is your online payment method, and only while the invoice is still open (Issued, Sent, Seen, Partially paid or Overdue) with an amount still owed. If generating fails you see Could not generate a payment link right now. Please try again shortly.
Option 3: the client clicks Pay now in the portal
Every open invoice with an amount still owed has a Pay now button in the client portal; offers and pro-formas do not. For an invoice that uses your online payment method, it creates a link for the amount still owed if needed and takes the client straight to Stripe. See Pay an invoice for the client's view.
Invoices paid by bank transfer cannot get a link later
The payment method is frozen when an invoice is issued. An invoice issued with a bank account has no payment link, and its Pay now button in the portal tells the client that online payment is not set up and to use the bank details instead. Choose the online payment method before you issue if you want the client to pay by card.
After the client pays
Stripe confirms the payment to Bilify, which records it on the invoice with the method Payment gateway and sets the status to Paid. Your team gets the Payment received notification, and the client lands back on the invoice in the portal. You do not record anything by hand.
Partial payments and payment links
The link always charges the balance. If you record a payment by hand after the link was made, Bilify stops showing the old link on the invoice, its PDF and emails. Click Payment link > Generate link for a new link for the rest, or let the client use Pay now in the portal. The old link is switched off at Stripe as soon as the new one is made.
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