Online invoice payments
Switching on online payments puts a Pay button next to sent invoices in your client's portal, so they can settle by card without leaving the page you shared with them.
The switch is the last step rather than the first. Four things have to line up before a client sees anything.
What has to be true
| Condition | Where you set it |
|---|---|
| Your plan includes online payments | Paid plans only. Free shows payment instructions instead |
| A Stripe account is connected | Settings → Getting paid |
| Stripe says that account can take charges | Stripe's verification, not a setting in Optivation |
| Accept client payments online is on | Settings → Getting paid |
Miss any one of them and the invoice still appears in the portal. It simply cannot be paid there.
Switching it on
On Settings → Getting paid, find the Client payments card and turn on Accept client payments online.
It is off by default. The switch stays greyed out until a connected account can actually take charges, and the card tells you so: "Connect your Stripe account above before turning this on." Once it saves, a confirmation reads "Clients can now pay invoices online."
Turning it back off is never blocked. Switch it off at any time and invoices revert to showing your own payment instructions.
It applies to the whole team
This is one switch for every client and every invoice. There is no per-client or per-invoice override.
Getting the invoice in front of the client
An invoice is payable only once you mark it as sent, and only inside a client portal.
Publish the invoice
In the invoice list, tick Mark as sent. That publishes the invoice to the client's portal. It does not email anything, so you still send the portal link yourself.
Build the portal
From the Create New menu, choose Client Portal, then pick the client. Optivation builds the page with four sections already in place: Needs from you, Time, Invoices, and Deliverables. The Invoices section is the one that carries the Pay button.
When the portal is ready you can open it, or send the link straight to your client from the same dialog.
Share links that can view only
A view-only share link never shows the Pay button. Give the client a link with comment or edit access, or they can read the invoice and not pay it.
What your client sees
The Invoices section lists each invoice with its number, whether it is Sent or Paid, the issue and due dates, and the amount. An Outstanding total sits above the list whenever something is unpaid. Every invoice can be downloaded, whether or not online payment is switched on.
A sent invoice shows Pay. Clicking it opens Stripe's hosted checkout page, where the client pays by card. Cards are the only method Optivation sends to Stripe, so bank transfer, wallets and pay-later options do not appear.
Paying returns them to the portal with a short confirmation: "Payment received — thank you!" If they close the checkout instead, they land back on the portal and nothing changes. They can try again whenever they like.
With payments switched off, the same invoice reads "Pay [your agency] directly — contact them for payment details" in place of the button.
What happens on your side
The invoice moves from sent to paid on its own. You do not need to mark it.
Whoever created the invoice gets an email titled "Invoice [number] was paid", giving the amount received and, when Stripe captured one, the payer's email address. The portal's badge flips to Paid the next time the page loads.
Receipts to the payer come from Stripe under your own account's email settings, so check those in your Stripe dashboard if you want your client to get one.
Payments taken any other way
Bank transfer, cash, a card machine at your end: mark those invoices paid yourself with Mark as Paid in the invoice list. Online payment sits alongside that rather than replacing it.
Related
- Connecting Stripe — the account setup this depends on
- Where the money goes — settlement, fees, refunds
- Payment troubleshooting — no Pay button, failed checkout
- Invoicing — generating and sending the invoice