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Online payments

Your clients can pay your invoices in their portal, by card, and by debit from their Canadian bank account if you allow it. The money goes into your firm's own Stripe account, then to your bank. Stripe charges your firm its usual fees; Firmdesk takes nothing on top.

Turn them on

Owners and admins do this once.

  1. Go to Settings › Online payments and click Turn on online payments.
  2. Stripe opens. Give it what it asks for: your firm's details, the person who represents it, and the bank account it pays out to. If your firm already has a Stripe account, Stripe can reuse its details.
  3. Stripe sends you back to Firmdesk. Once Stripe has everything, the page says your clients can pay online.

If Stripe still needs something, the page lists it: click Continue with Stripe to finish. Once Stripe has everything, it checks your details, usually in a few minutes, sometimes a day or two: the page says so meanwhile. Open your Stripe dashboard takes you to your own Stripe account, where you see each payment, Stripe's fees and your payouts.

What your clients see

On an invoice you've marked sent, with a balance due of at least $0.50, the portal shows Pay online: on the invoice, in the list of invoices and on the overview. Invoice emails say it can be paid online.

Pay online opens Stripe's payment page for the balance due at that moment. Once they've paid, they're back on the invoice, which shows it paid.

When a client pays

  • The payment is recorded on the invoice at once, as Online (Stripe), and the invoice shows Paid or Partly paid. Its page lists it under Paid online, with Open in Stripe.
  • The people on the client's team who see billing get an email (owners and admins, when none of them is assigned to the client), and your firm's automations hear the invoice was paid.
  • A payment by bank debit takes about 5 business days. Meanwhile it shows as On its way, and the invoice can't be edited, voided or deleted. If the bank refuses it, you get an email, and the invoice still shows its balance due; the client's portal says their bank refused it.
  • Editing, voiding or deleting a sent invoice closes any payment page a client has open for it, so nobody pays what it said before. If they paid at that very moment, nothing changes, and the page tells you: look at the payment first.

Bank debits

Under Settings › Online payments, Let clients pay by bank debit lets clients pay by Canadian pre-authorized debit. Stripe's fee for it is lower than a card's. Turn on "Canadian pre-authorized debits" in your Stripe dashboard's payment methods first: until then, the switch can't be turned on.

Refunds and disputes

Refund a payment from your Stripe dashboard. Firmdesk hears of it and lowers the payment recorded on the invoice, or removes it if it's all refunded.

If a client disputes a payment with their bank, you (and the firm's owners and admins) get an email. Answer a card payment's dispute in your Stripe dashboard before the deadline Stripe gives. A bank debit's dispute can't be answered: the money goes back to the client. When a dispute is lost, Firmdesk takes its amount off the recorded payment, so the invoice shows what's due again.

Stop taking payments

  • For a while: turn off Take payments in the portal. The Pay online buttons go away, and your Stripe account stays as it is.
  • For good: remove Firmdesk from your Stripe account, in your Stripe dashboard's settings. Payments already made stay on their invoices. A bank debit on its way then shows Check in Stripe: Firmdesk can't follow it any more, so check it in your Stripe dashboard and record the payment once it's through. From then on, refunds made in Stripe aren't seen by Firmdesk: change the recorded payment yourself.

Good to know

  • A sample firm can't take payments online.
  • A client can pay even while your firm's Firmdesk plan is read-only.
  • Invoices under $0.50 can't be paid online.