Invoicing & Payments
Send an invoice, collect online via Stripe, handle partial payments and credit memos.
An invoice is the customer's bill: who owes what, against which job, due when. Payments are the money in. This page covers the whole money flow: generation, sending, partial payments, Stripe collection, refunds, and credit memos.
The invoice lifecycle
The normal path is Draft (being prepared) -> Sent (emailed, portal link live) -> Partial (at least one payment, balance remaining) -> Paid (balance zero). An unpaid invoice past its due date goes Overdue. For the ones that go bad, there are the collections states: Disputed, Collections, and Written Off.
Where invoices come from
| Source | What triggers it |
|---|---|
| Job completion | From a completed job, Generate Invoice builds a Draft from the work done. |
| Estimate deposit approval | Customer hits "Approve & Pay Deposit", a deposit invoice is minted, Stripe Checkout opens. |
| Manual create | Sidebar -> Invoices -> + New. One-offs, retainers, custom billing. |
| Recurring schedule | A Recurring Invoice fires on its cadence. |
| Consolidated | Customer detail -> Jobs tab -> bill several jobs as one invoice. |
Building a draft
- Pick the customer.
- Pick the job(s), or leave it standalone.
- Line items: from the job, the Price Book, or custom.
- Tax rate (defaults to your first active rate).
- Due date (defaults to Net 30).
- Optional message.
- Save, then Send when ready.
Customer payment options
| Method | What happens | Settlement |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe Checkout (portal) | Customer clicks Pay, enters a card, Stripe processes and confirms back to Manuall. | Funds land in your own Stripe balance. Stripe pays you on your account's schedule (T+2 to T+7 in the US). |
| Apple Pay / Google Pay / Link / ACH | Stripe Checkout auto-enables every method your connected account supports. | Same as card. |
| Check / cash / bank transfer | Log it: Invoice detail -> + Payment. | Manuall records it; your bank records the cash. |
| External reader (Square, etc.) | Record manually after it settles. | Manual. |
Stripe Checkout under the hood
The customer clicks Pay in the portal, Manuall opens a Checkout session on your connected Stripe account (Settings -> Payments), they pay on Stripe's hosted page, and the charge lands on your account. Stripe notifies Manuall, which records the payment and marks the invoice Paid. Card payments run about 3.4% per transaction, all-in.
Stripe Connect (your own Stripe account).
Each shop connects its own Stripe account through Settings -> Payments in about three minutes (Stripe Express runs the onboarding). Charges land on your account and Stripe pays you directly on your own schedule. Manuall never holds your funds.
Partial payments
Common on big commercial invoices: 50% now, 50% in 30 days.
- The customer pays whatever they want on the portal, or you log a manual partial payment.
- The invoice flips to Partial.
- The portal Pay button updates to the remaining balance.
- They pay the rest whenever, in any number of installments.
- At zero balance it flips to Paid.
Refunds
A credit memo is an accounting credit, not a money-mover. So a refund is two steps:
- Move the money on the Stripe side: refund the original charge (full or partial) from your Stripe dashboard.
- Record it in Manuall: issue a Credit Memo against the invoice for your books.
For a cash or check payment, hand back the money and record the credit memo.
Killing an invoice issued in error
Mark it Written Off (a status), so it stays on the record for the audit trail instead of vanishing. If it was already paid, also refund the Stripe charge and record a credit memo.
Overdue invoices
Anything past due with a balance goes Overdue on its own. Manuall chases for you: it automatically emails past-due reminders (the invoice dunning system), the Dashboard's Overdue tile shows the count and total, and customers with overdue invoices carry a red dot on their record.
QuickBooks sync
With QuickBooks connected (QuickBooks): new invoices push to QBO, payments push when they settle, and failed syncs queue with retry and backoff (the sync queue surfaces the underlying error). Stripe's processing fee is netted on Stripe's side, so reconcile your Stripe payout statements against the synced payments.
Print invoice
Every invoice has a print view: logo, business info, addresses, line items, tax, total, terms. Print to PDF from the browser.
Email log
Every email Manuall sends (invoice, estimate, survey, notification) is logged. Insights -> Email Log, filtered by customer and type, tells you whether the invoice email actually went out.