Paying Through the Portal
How clients pay invoices and deposits online from the Client Portal and manage their saved cards and bank accounts.
Once you accept online payments, the Client Portal becomes a self-serve payment desk: clients pay open invoices, cover deposits or pay jobs in full up front, and keep cards or bank accounts on file for next time. This article covers each of those flows from the client's side, and what they see when online payment is not available.
Note: Everything here depends on your payment gateway being connected — see Get paid online. Without an active gateway, the portal still shows invoices and balances, but not a payment button.
Pay an invoice
When a client opens an unpaid invoice from the portal's Invoices page, a bar pinned to the bottom of the Invoice Summary shows the Balance due and a Pay Now button. Clicking it starts a secure checkout where the client enters a card or bank account.
During checkout, the client can tick Save my payment info & enroll in autopay to store that payment method with your company and opt in to automatic payment of future invoices — see Autopay.
After paying:
- Card payments usually confirm within moments; while one settles, the invoice shows "Your payment is processing. Please check back shortly."
- Bank transfers take longer — the invoice notes that the transfer "can take a few business days to complete."
- Once settled, the invoice moves to the Paid tab and shows "This invoice has been paid in full."
When online payment isn't available
If an invoice has a balance but your company can't take online payment right now, the client isn't left at a dead end: a How to pay card appears in place of the payment button, telling them online payment isn't available and listing your customer contact email and phone so they can arrange payment with you directly.
Pay a deposit — or pay in full
On the portal's Proposals page, an accepted job with money due up front shows a Make a payment link. It opens a payment page for that job which can offer, depending on how the job was set up:
- Pay Deposit — "A deposit of [amount] is required to get this job started."
- Pay in Full — prepay the whole job, with the savings called out when a prepay discount applies.
Both go through the same secure checkout as invoice payments. If nothing is currently payable on the job, the page says "There's nothing to pay on this job right now." Deposits and prepay options are configured on the proposal — see Deposits and prepay.
Manage saved payment methods
The portal's Payment Methods page lists every card and bank account the client has on file with your company, with the last four digits, card expiry, and badges for Default and Autopay. From here a client can:
- Click Add payment method to save a new card or bank account through a secure setup checkout.
- Click Make default to choose which method is charged first.
- Click Enable autopay or Disable autopay to control automatic invoice payment.
- Click Remove to delete a method — a confirmation warns "This payment method will be removed from your account. This can't be undone."
Note: A payment method can't be removed while an autopay payment made with it is still in progress; the portal explains this if the client tries.
Staff see the same stored methods on the client's record inside BranchSite — see Stored payment methods.