Where the money goes
Client payments settle straight into your own Stripe account. Optivation never holds the funds, takes no cut of them, and has no ability to move them.
That is worth understanding properly, because it decides who you talk to when something about a payment needs fixing.
The path a payment takes
- Your client clicks Pay on an invoice in their portal.
- Stripe's checkout page collects the card, under your Stripe account.
- The charge is created on your account. The money is yours from that moment.
- Stripe pays it out to your bank on whatever schedule your Stripe account already uses.
At no point does the payment pass through an Optivation-controlled balance and get forwarded on. There is no holding account, no float, and no settlement delay that Optivation could introduce even if it wanted to.
Fees
Stripe's processing fee comes off the payment, the way it does for every other charge on your account. The rate is the one on your Stripe pricing, and it is deducted by Stripe.
Optivation adds nothing on top. There is no percentage and no per-transaction charge for taking client payments; the plan fee is the whole cost.
Payouts
Payouts are a Stripe matter, set by your payout schedule in Stripe. Optivation does not show your Stripe balance, your payout history, or the individual transactions behind them, so use your Stripe dashboard for anything to do with money leaving Stripe.
What Optivation shows is the invoice side: which invoices are paid, and what is still outstanding.
Refunds
Refunds are issued from your Stripe dashboard. There is no refund button for invoice payments inside Optivation, because the charge lives on your account rather than on a platform account.
After refunding in Stripe, the invoice in Optivation still reads Paid. Optivation is not told about the refund, so set the record straight yourself:
| What you want | What to do |
|---|---|
| The invoice to show as unpaid again | Open the invoice and click Mark Unpaid |
| A record of the refund | Keep it in Stripe, which holds the authoritative trail |
Partial refunds
Optivation records an invoice as paid or unpaid, with nothing in between. A partial refund in Stripe has no matching state here, so note it against the invoice or the client in whatever way suits your bookkeeping.
Disputes and chargebacks
A disputed payment is between your client, your bank and Stripe. Stripe notifies you, Stripe holds the evidence process, and the outcome lands on your Stripe account.
Optivation is not part of that conversation and will not change the invoice's status when a dispute is opened or resolved. Update the invoice yourself once you know where it settled.
Currencies
The invoice is charged in its own currency, with no conversion anywhere in the path. Stripe must accept that currency on your account for the payment to go through.
A small number of currencies cannot be charged this way at all, including those with no decimal places such as JPY and KRW, and the three-decimal currencies such as KWD and BHD. A client on one of those invoices sees a message rather than a checkout page. See payment troubleshooting.
What this means in practice
| Question | Who answers it |
|---|---|
| When will I be paid out? | Stripe |
| Why was this card declined? | Stripe |
| How do I refund a client? | Stripe |
| Why can't my client see a Pay button? | Optivation, on the Getting paid page |
| Why is this invoice still showing unpaid? | Optivation, in the invoice list |
Related
- Connecting Stripe — connecting the account the money lands in
- Online invoice payments — switching the Pay button on
- Payment troubleshooting — when a payment does not work