Recording payments and taking card payments

Sending the invoice is half the job; getting paid is the other half. 1pm tracks what's been paid against every invoice and keeps the balance owing current, so you know at a glance who still owes you.

This article covers recording payments you receive outside 1pm (manually), taking card payments online with Stripe from within 1pm, and what your client sees on a shared invoice.

Two ways a payment reaches an invoice

How a payment gets onto an invoice depends on how the client paid:

Paid online through 1pm with Stripe: the payment is recorded for you. You don't need to enter anything. The invoice shows the payment and updates its balance on its own.
Paid any other way (bank transfer, cash, cheque, or a card you took on your own terminal): 1pm can't see that money arrive, so you record it on the invoice yourself.

If you record a Stripe payment by hand as well, the invoice counts it twice. Only record the payments that didn't go through 1pm.

Recording a payment outside 1pm (bank transfer, cash, card, cheque)

Use this for any money that reached you without going through 1pm's Pay button.

Open an issued invoice (one you've marked Sent or Paid) and you'll find a Payments section showing how much has been paid of the total and how much is still outstanding. Click Record payment and fill in:

Amount (it defaults to the balance owing, so a payment in full is one click).
Date received.
Method: Bank transfer, Card, Cash, Cheque, or Other. Choose Card for a card you charged outside 1pm, such as on your own card terminal.
An optional reference (a transaction id or cheque number) and a note.
Email the client about this payment, unticked by default, because a payment you record is often one that arrived a while ago, such as a bank transfer you are only now matching up, or one that landed after the event. Left unticked, the payment is recorded and the booking still counts as confirmed, but no automation emails the client about it. Tick it and your automations email the client as usual: the Booking confirmed email if this is the booking's first payment, the Paid invoice receipt, and any Payment received or Paid in full automations you have built. Notifications to you and task actions run either way.

The same Record payment form, with the same checkbox, is on a confirmation for a deposit or balance paid outside 1pm.

Each payment is listed with its date, method, and amount, and you can remove one if you logged it by mistake. A payment taken on the booking's confirmation is listed on its invoice too, marked Paid on the confirmation. Remove that one on the confirmation and the invoice updates to match. Removing a card payment doesn't refund it (do that in Stripe), and 1pm won't record that same card payment again. When the recorded payments clear the balance, the invoice marks itself Paid. That is the only way an invoice becomes paid, so there is no button to mark it paid by hand. You can record part-payments too: a deposit now, the balance later, with the outstanding figure going down as each one lands.

To make bank transfers easier for your clients, add your bank details so they appear on the documents you share. See Paying by bank transfer.

Taking card payments online with Stripe

If you'd rather clients pay by card without you chasing a bank transfer, connect Stripe. Go to Online payments in your account and click Connect with Stripe. You're taken to Stripe to authorise (you can link an existing Stripe account in a few clicks, or make one), then brought back. Once connected, a Pay button appears on every invoice you share. You can connect Stripe once your paid plan has started.

Payments made this way are recorded automatically. When a client pays online, 1pm adds the payment to the invoice with the method Card, reduces the balance owing, and marks the invoice Paid once the balance is cleared. There is nothing to record or apply in 1pm. The same goes for a card on file you charge from the invoice (see Saving a card on file).

You are told about each payment a client makes online. 1pm emails you and adds a bell notification, naming who paid, how much, the invoice or confirmation number and what is still owing. You hear about it even if Stripe's own receipts go to another address.

The money goes straight to your own Stripe balance, with your own dashboard, fees, and payouts. 1pm takes no cut.

Each payment in Stripe says what it was for. The description shows the document number, the client's name and company, and the booking with its date and times, for example "Invoice INV-0042 · Sarah Chen, Acme Events · Gala dinner, 14 Nov 2026, 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM". The same details are saved on the payment as extra fields (Document, Client name, Company, Client email, Booking, Event type, Booking date, Start time and Finish time), so they also appear in Stripe's "payment received" emails and on the payment's page in your Stripe dashboard. Event type comes from the lead the booking started as, and any field with nothing in it is left off.

If you have switched on a bank debit method in your Stripe dashboard (such as BECS Direct Debit or ACH), clients can pay that way too. A bank debit takes a few business days to clear, so the invoice stays owing until Stripe confirms the money has arrived. 1pm then records the payment automatically with the method Bank debit. If the debit fails, nothing is recorded and the invoice stays owing.

A few practical notes:

If your Stripe account is linked but shows Setup incomplete, Stripe still needs some details from you. Finish those in your Stripe dashboard. The page updates once Stripe turns on payments. If it still says Setup incomplete after you finish, reconnect to check again.
Disconnect at any time. The Pay button disappears from your shared invoices, but your Stripe account and its history are untouched.
If you don't see the online payments option at all, it isn't switched on for your account yet.

What your client sees

The share link on an invoice opens a clean, read-only copy in the browser, no login required. If you've connected Stripe, there's a Pay button showing the balance due; otherwise there's just Print / Save PDF. After a successful card payment the page shows a "Payment received, thank you" note, so your client has their confirmation and the payment is already on your invoice.

Once a payment is recorded, the invoice's totals list it: one row per payment with the date it was received, how it was paid and the amount (for example "Paid 12 Sep 2026 (Bank transfer)"), then the Balance due. The same rows are on the printed copy and the PDF, so a client paying in instalments can see each one. The reference and note you type when recording a payment are for you and are never shown to the client. An invoice you marked Paid without recording a payment shows a single "Paid" row for the full amount, with no date.

Keeping on top of what's owed

For the bigger picture across all your invoices rather than one at a time, the Reports section has a Revenue report (invoiced, paid, and outstanding over a period) and an Invoices report that lists every invoice over a date range, or just what's still owed, grouped by how overdue it is so it works as a chase list. See Chasing overdue invoices.

Quotes and invoices covers raising and sending the invoice you collect against.
Deposits and payment schedules covers asking for a deposit on a confirmation.
Paying by bank transfer covers showing your bank details to clients.
Saving a card on file covers charging a stored card.
Pricing an event covers the charges an invoice is built from.