Online payment links
The payment link on every issued invoice — how a customer pays it by card, and what that records.
Every invoice you have issued has a payment link — a private web address that shows the customer their invoice and lets them pay it by card. There is no login and no account: whoever holds the link can see and pay that one invoice, which is the point of it.
Getting the link
You mostly do not have to. The link is put into the invoice email automatically as a Pay this invoice button, and into every automatic payment reminder as the same button. See Sending invoices and Payment reminders.
To paste it into a text message or a chat instead, open the invoice in Invoicing and press Copy pay link. The same link comes back every time, so pressing it again never invalidates one already sitting in a customer's inbox. If your browser blocks the clipboard, the link is shown on screen so you can copy it by hand.
Handing out the link lets a stranger read and pay the invoice, so it needs the same permission as emailing the document — supervisors and admins hold it on the default access levels, ordinary staff do not. See Access levels.
A draft has not been issued and its totals can still change, so it has no payment link; send it first. Voided and archived invoices have none either, and Copy pay link says so rather than producing an address that goes nowhere.
What the customer sees
Their own invoice, headed by your business — the trading name, logo, address, phone and ABN that appear on your receipts and invoices, never the platform's. Under that: the invoice number, when it was issued and when it is due, a badge reading Awaiting payment, Overdue or Paid in full, and every line on the invoice with quantities and prices.
The totals are set out in full — subtotal, any discount, the GST line when you are registered for it, the invoice total, anything already paid, anything credited, and the amount still due. The wording of the tax line follows the invoice as it was issued, so renaming your tax setting today does not retitle a document already in a customer's hands. See GST and tax.
The page is never indexed by search engines, and the address is unguessable. An unknown link, a voided invoice and an archived one all give the same "not found" answer, so nobody can tell which it was.
Paying by card
When your own Stripe account is connected, the page carries a card form. The card details are keyed into Stripe's own hosted field and go straight to Stripe — they never touch this system — and the money lands in your Stripe account. Cards only: no wallets and no redirects, so the customer finishes on the same page they started on.
The amount charged is always worked out on the server from the stored invoice. The customer's browser has no amount to send, so there is nothing to alter. When it goes through, the page says the payment was received and that the invoice is now marked as paid.
Card payment on the link uses your Stripe account, connected with your own keys. Setting it up is one job, covered on Stripe.
Without Stripe connected
The link still works and still shows the invoice — it just tells the customer how to pay instead of taking the money. If bank details are saved in your invoice settings, the page shows the account name, bank, BSB and account number, and asks them to quote the invoice number as the reference. With no bank details saved, it asks them to contact you to arrange payment, giving your store phone number and company email address.
The amount is always what is still owed
The link never charges a stale figure. It is the invoice total less everything already paid and less anything credited, recalculated each time the page is opened and again when the card is charged. So a part payment taken at the counter, or a credit note raised this morning, is already reflected when the customer taps pay. See Credit notes.
An invoice with nothing left owing shows as settled in full and offers no payment form, so an old link in an inbox reads as "already paid" rather than as a broken page.
What it does on your side
A card payment through the link is recorded against the invoice as a card payment carrying the Stripe payment reference, and it appears on the invoice exactly like a payment your team recorded by hand. The invoice moves to partially paid or paid accordingly, and a fully paid invoice is mirrored into sales reporting the same way a counter-recorded settlement is. See Recording payments.
It is recorded once, whatever happens on the network. If the customer's browser drops out after the card succeeds, Stripe tells the system separately and the payment is reconciled from that instead — the payment reference is the key, so the two paths cannot both book the same money twice.
Killing a link
Voiding an invoice revokes its payment link. The address stops resolving immediately, so a cancelled document cannot be paid by someone working from an old email. Issuing a replacement invoice gives you a new link with it.