Collect a card payment

By the end of this article you’ll know how to charge a finished job’s balance to the customer’s card from the phone, and what the app does when it can’t.

A card charge needs a connection and is never saved up for later — the why, and what to do with no signal, is in No signal? Send a payment link instead.

Open the payment screen

1. Open the job. On a completed job, Collect Payment is the big button at the bottom; while the job is in progress it’s further down the page.
2. The screen is titled Collect Payment. If it says Invoice needed first, the job has no invoice yet — tap Create invoice and see The invoice for a job, then come back.

Only the lead technician on the job sees the button, and only with permission to collect. If you can’t find it, ask the office.

What the screen shows

• Total to Charge — the figure you’re asking the customer to agree to. It leads the screen.
• Add a tip — No tip, one of the percentages, or a Custom amount. When a tip is on, the line under the total reads Includes a … tip. How tips work is in Tips and receipts.
• Cash or check — for money handed to you instead. See Record cash or a check.
• Payment Summary — Job Total, Amount Captured so far (a deposit, for instance) and Balance Due, which is what the card charge starts from.
• Above the button, which card the charge would go to — Card on file: Visa ending in 4242, say. It’s the card the customer gave when they paid their deposit. Read it out to them before you tap.

Charge the card

1. Set the tip, or leave No tip.
2. Check the card line with the customer — the Visa ending 4242? — and get their OK.
3. Tap the button at the bottom — it reads Collect followed by the amount.
4. The app asks Charge … to the card on file?. Tap Collect to go ahead, or Cancel.
5. On success the screen shows Paid in full with the amount collected. That’s your confirmation; nothing else needs to be done on the phone.

If the charge fails, the screen says Couldn’t collect the payment. Please try again. and keeps the form exactly as it was. Trying again is up to you — the app never resubmits a charge by itself.

When there is no card on file

The app charges the card the customer used for this job’s deposit — the one they gave when booking online, or handed to the office. A job with no deposit has no card on file. The phone has no card reader and no place to type a card number.

On such a job the screen tells you as soon as it opens, in place of the charge button: No card is on file for this job. Email the customer a payment link so they can pay on their own device., with Email payment link right under it. Tap it: the customer gets an email with a Pay now button and pays on their own phone, and the payment lands on the invoice by itself. Details in No signal? Send a payment link instead. Cash or a check still works on that screen too.

Good to know

• The customer agreed to this at booking: the deposit step tells them the rest of the bill can be charged to the same card with their OK. Asking before you tap is what makes that OK real.
• If the card line reads Card on file from the booking deposit with no brand or number, the card is still good to charge; the app just doesn’t have its details to show.
• The balance is the invoice’s, not the phone’s guess. It’s read from the office when the screen opens and again whenever the connection comes back.
• A job with nothing left to pay shows Paid in full as soon as the screen opens.
• Card payments have to be set up for your business first — that’s the office’s job, in Get set up to take card payments.

Related

• Record cash or a check
• Tips and receipts
• Collect the balance on a finished job