Invoices (Advanced): Pay on client's behalf or accept payments made outside TaxDome

There are situations where your clients can't or don't want to pay in the client portal. In this case, we got you covered. Whether you're using a client’s credit card or recording a payment made via cash, check, or bank transfer, these methods ensure that invoices are handled efficiently and flexibly. This guide covers how to pay on behalf of your clients and how to record various types of payments.

Accept cash payments and transfers

Offline payments, explained

A firm owner, admin or team member with access rights to manage payments can issue offline payments. 

Offline payments can be used in the following ways:

• They can be added to the client account as credits. Then, they can be used to pay invoices in the future. This option is more commonly used to add credit notes.
• You can also settle the existing invoices while adding the offline payment. This option is more suitable for charging clients who don't pay in the client portal.

Record offline payments

Follow these steps to manually record a payment made outside of TaxDome (cash, check, Square, Venmo, Wire transfer, etc.):

1. Create an offline payment using one of the following ways:

• If you just want to pay without an invoice or settle multiple invoices – click New at the top left of your screen, select Offline payment, and then choose the client account.
• If you want to settle a particular invoice quickly – go to Billing > Invoices, click three dots to the far right of the invoice you want to settle and select Record offline payment.

2. Select the payment source. If it is Credit note, the payment will not be used for revenue calculations but will be added to the client's account as credit note.

3. Add a description outlining what the payment is for.

4. That’s it! Click Save to make the offline payment. Credits are added to the client account or used to settle existing invoices.

Here's a bit more on other options for offline payments:

a. Link to jobs: Link your offline payment to an existing job to make it immediately available in your workflow when needed. Click Link to Jobs, then select the jobs. Once linked, the Jobs section is displayed at the bottom. You can see the job title and the pipeline it’s in (here's more on linking payments to jobs).

b.  Date: This is when the client made the payment. By default, you’ll see the current date.

c.  Send client email notification: Select this if you want an email about the offline payment to go out to the client.

d.  Sync payment to QuickBooks Online: Select this option if you want to sync this payment with QuickBooks (this could lead to duplicating payments). Here's more on syncing payments with QuickBooks.

e. Settle invoices paid outside of TaxDome: You’ll see the list of invoices issued for the selected account. The sum of the selected invoices will autofill the payment amount. You can settle only the full invoice amount. The workaround for adding a partial offline payment is described here.

Pay on the client's behalf

Before you start

Your clients can pay invoices in full or partially. But when paying on behalf of a client, you can only pay the invoice (or the rest of the total amount) in full. 

Attention! Paying on the client's behalf is available only if you have a payment provider connected.

There are two options: 

• Paying by payment method. Payment is made by specifying a client's credit or debit card or entering bank account details.
• Paying by credits. If the available credits cover the full invoice amount, the invoice is marked as paid. If the credits cover only part of the invoice, they are applied first, and the remaining balance can be paid using the client's credit or debit card.

Pay invoice by processing payment method

To pay an invoice for a client with their credit or debit card or by entering their bank account details:

1. Go to either your firm’s Invoices page or the Invoices tab of the client’s profile.

2. Either click the three-dots icon next to the invoice, then select Pay invoice, or select several invoices from the list and click Pay invoice.

Note! For scheduled invoices, the pay invoice option is available only once they have been issued.

3. Enter the bank account or credit card details, then proceed with the payment.

The invoice will then be marked as paid, and you’ll receive a notification about the payment in your Inbox+.

Pay invoice with credits

If a client has available credits in their account, you can pay an invoice for them when creating it or anytime after.

• To pay an existing invoice with available credits, go to either your firm’s Invoices page or the Invoices tab of the client’s profile, click the three-dots icon next to it and select Apply credits. Then, you can apply all available credits to fully or partially cover the invoice.

• To fully pay an existing invoice with credits or apply all available credits and pay the rest with credit/debit card, go to either your firm’s Invoices page or the Invoices tab of the client’s profile, click the three-dots icon next to it and select Pay invoice.

• When you create an invoice and the invoice is equal to or less than the client’s available credits, you can select the Pay invoice using client credits checkbox. If that is the case and you issue the invoice, it will automatically be marked as paid.

If you make a payment on a client's profile Invoices page, you can select multiple invoices for payment (but you cannot select Partially paid in bulk).

Once the invoice is marked as paid, you’ll receive a notification about the payment in your Inbox+.

Pay recurring invoice with credits

You can apply credits to a single invoice generated by a recurring invoice the same way it works for one-time invoices:

• If the recurring invoice is set up with manual payment authorization.
• If the recurring invoice is set up with automatic payment authorization, but the automatic payment fails.

However, you cannot apply credits if the recurring invoice is set up with automatic payment authorization and the payment attempt is successful.