Connecting Stripe
Connect the Stripe account your agency already trades under, so clients can pay their invoices by card and the money lands in your own Stripe balance.
Optivation does not open a Stripe account for you. You sign in to Stripe, choose the account you already use, and approve the connection.
Before you start
You need an admin or owner role, and a Stripe account that is already verified. Online invoice payment is a paid-plan feature. On Free, invoices in the client portal show your own payment instructions instead of a Pay button.
Opening the Getting paid page
The page lives at Settings → Getting paid. Three routes lead to it:
| From | What you click |
|---|---|
| Settings | The Getting paid tile |
| Time & Billing | Set up Stripe, on the banner above the tabs |
| Invoices | Set up online payments, above the invoice list |
The Time & Billing banner reads "Let clients pay their invoices online with a card." It disappears once Stripe confirms your account can take charges, so treat it as a prompt rather than a permanent link.
Who can connect an account
Account owners and admins only. Anyone else who opens the page gets an Access Restricted card listing the administrators they can ask, and the same limit is enforced on the server, so a direct link does not get around it.
Connecting
- Open Settings → Getting paid.
- On the Stripe account card, click Connect Stripe.
- Stripe asks you to sign in, then to pick which of your accounts to connect.
- Approve. You land back on the Getting paid page and a confirmation appears.
You are on Stripe's own site for steps 2 and 3. Optivation never sees your Stripe password, and the connection stores a reference to the account rather than your login.
Choosing the right account
If you hold several Stripe accounts, the one you pick here is the one clients pay into. Pick the account you invoice from today.
Reading the connection status
The Stripe account card states the position in a sentence. There are three:
| What the card says | What it means |
|---|---|
| "Connect your own Stripe account so payments from your clients go directly to you. Optivation never holds or touches this money." | Nothing is connected yet |
| "Connected. Payments from your clients settle directly into your own Stripe account." | Ready to take payments |
| "Connected, but Stripe hasn't finished verifying this account yet. Client payments won't work until that's done — check your Stripe dashboard." | Connected, but Stripe will not let it charge |
One thing decides whether a connected account can take money: whether Stripe reports charges as enabled on it. That is Stripe's call, not Optivation's. A brand-new account, or one Stripe has paused pending documents, shows the third message until the account clears verification.
The third state is the common one on a first connection, and it clears itself. Finish whatever Stripe is asking for in your Stripe dashboard, and the status here updates on its own once Stripe confirms it.
One connection, two surfaces
The account you connect on this page also powers paid bookings. Connect once and both invoice payments and booking payments can charge, each with its own switch.
Disconnecting
Both connected states show a Disconnect button, and it asks you to confirm first. The dialog is worth reading, because disconnecting does three things:
- Clients can no longer pay online until you connect an account again.
- Accept client payments online switches off.
- Any checkout a client already has open in their browser needs attention from you. It is not cancelled or refunded automatically.
Your own Optivation subscription is billed separately and is unaffected.
Related
- Online invoice payments — switch on the Pay button your clients see
- Where the money goes — settlement, fees, refunds and disputes
- Payment troubleshooting — when an account cannot charge
- Invoicing — generating the invoice in the first place