Accepting Credit Card Payments on Customer Invoices

Background

Patriot Software has partnered with Stripe to offer credit card merchant services to Accounting software customers so that your customers can pay their invoices by credit card. See Setting Up Credit Card Payments in Patriot’s Accounting Software.

Using Stripe for Payment Processing

If you don’t yet have an account with Stripe, your first step will be to apply for an account. Otherwise, you can connect your Stripe account to your accounting software. To apply with Stripe, you will need to log in to your Patriot Software account.

Go to Settings > Transaction Settings. Under the “Payment Processor” section, follow the instructions.

You’ll need some basic information to apply. Stripe has stated that account approvals are nearly instantaneous if no additional information is needed. Stripe will send you an email if more information is needed.

Once Stripe approves you, Patriot will automatically connect your Stripe accounting to your accounting software. You’ll do this by clicking a checkbox to have the Stripe payment link when creating new customer invoices.

Credit Card Payment Option on Customer Invoices

After you have created a customer invoice, you can now email the invoice to the customer.

On the Email Invoice to Your Customer page, the “Accept Credit Card Payment for this Invoice?” question will be pre-set to whatever you have chosen in your Settings > Accounting Settings > Transaction Settings page. You can change this anytime if needed.

Customer Payments Paid by Credit Card Through an Email Link

When you have set the credit card question to “Yes” and sent the invoice email to the customer, they will see a button at the bottom of the email “Click here to pay online.” This will open a new browser tab with a screen for the customer to enter their payment information.

If you send multiple invoices to a customer, the customer will need to enter their credit card and billing contact info each time unless they are using an express checkout option such as Google Pay and Apple Pay. The integration to Google Pay and Apple Pay is seamlessly integrated with your accounting software.

Once you have set up the Stripe payment link, you can also send the links with recurring invoices. See “Setting Up Recurring Invoices.”
Reminder invoice emails will not have the Stripe link functionality at this time.

Customer Credit Card Approve and Decline Messages

If the customer’s credit card is declined, they will immediately see a message. The link to try again will take them back to the previous payment entry page.

When the customer’s credit card payment has been accepted, a confirmation message will display.

Manually Recording Invoice Payments

If you need to manually record an invoice payment for an invoice that is set to accept a credit card payment, you will see a message that the credit card payment link was sent. You will first need to inactivate the credit card payment by clicking the link to prevent double payments.

Customer Payment Notification

If you have elected in your Transactions Settings page to receive email notifications when a customer has successfully made a credit card payment to your invoice, you will receive the following “Payment Received” email.

Your payment processor (Stripe) will deposit this payment into your bank account. You will see this customer payment recorded in your customer invoice reports.

Only payments made using the payment link included in the invoice email will be reflected in your customer invoice and credit card payment summary reports.

Why isn’t the amount paid by Stripe the same as the invoiced amount?

Remember that Stripe will send the customer payment amount LESS $0.30 + 2.9% to your bank account.

You should always check with your accountant if you have any questions about setting up your chart of accounts or allocating Stripe credit card payments in your accounting software.

Also check out our help article, “Accepting ACH Direct Debit Bank Payments on Customer Invoices.”