# Getting paid

> The Markdown version of https://www.paylent.com/docs/payments. Every page: [llms.txt](https://www.paylent.com/llms.txt).

Connecting Stripe, what your customer sees, and recording the payments that arrive some other way.

Payment in Paylent is a record of money that arrived. Cards create that record for
you; anything else you record yourself. Either way an invoice is settled when the
payments against it add up to its total.

## Connecting Stripe

Connect Stripe once, from **Settings → Payments**, and card payment turns on for every
invoice you send afterwards. Paylent asks which country your business is in and
onboards you against that — a British business billing in pounds and an Irish one
billing in euros are not the same form.

Card payments are direct charges on your own Stripe account. That has consequences
worth being clear about:

- You are the merchant of record. Your name is what appears on your customer's
  statement.
- The money never passes through Paylent. It lands in your Stripe balance and pays out
  on your own Stripe schedule.
- Stripe's fees are Stripe's, taken before the money reaches you. Paylent adds nothing
  on top of them.
- Refunds, disputes and chargebacks are handled in Stripe, because that is where the
  charge lives.

## What your customer sees

The email you send carries a private link to the invoice. Opening it shows the
invoice — your business, their details, the lines, the tax and the total — and, if
Stripe is connected, a button that pays it.

They do not need an account, a password or anything else. The link is the credential,
which is why it is unguessable and why you can rotate it if it ends up somewhere it
should not be.

## Recording a payment yourself

Bank transfer, cash, cheque, a card machine at your own counter: record it against the
invoice with the amount and the date. Part payments are fine — record each one as it
arrives and the invoice keeps track of what is left.

There is a **paid in full** shortcut for the common case. It reads the amount off the
invoice rather than off the box, so it stays right when a part payment has already
been recorded: it settles what is actually left, not the original total.

An invoice can also be settled without money arriving, by crediting it. See
[Invoices](https://www.paylent.com/docs/invoices.md).

## Payments are only counted once

A card payment can be reported to us more than once: Stripe's webhook and the
customer's browser can both describe the same charge, and a webhook can arrive twice
on its own. Paylent recognises a payment it has already recorded, so the same money is
never counted twice however many times it is described.

The practical version: if a customer pays by card and the invoice does not
immediately show as paid, wait rather than recording it by hand. The webhook will
settle it.

## When it doesn't arrive

Unpaid invoices are followed up on their own, starting before the due date. See
[Chasing payment](https://www.paylent.com/docs/chasing.md).

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