This article covers the Collect Payment window, the one place office staff take money against an invoice. It explains the three separate ways to collect, how a customer's card gets "on file," and the single most common point of confusion: Stripe Link is not a card on file.
Read the Link section even if nothing else. It is the source of most support questions on this screen.
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CP-1: Opening Collect Payment
Collect Payment opens from either place an invoice appears:
The window shows the invoice number and the remaining balance (not the original total, a partially paid invoice shows what is still owed).
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CP-2: The three ways to collect, they are separate
The window stacks three independent paths. They are alternatives, not steps. You use one of them and the window closes.
1. Charge a saved card (green panel, top)
Appears only when that customer already has a card saved to your organization. Shows the brand, last four digits, and expiry, with a Charge $X button.
One click charges the card immediately. The customer does nothing, receives no code, and does not need to be present. This is the fastest path and the one to use for a repeat customer who has authorized you to keep their card.
2. Send pay link to customer (blue panel, middle)
Always visible, whether or not a card is on file. This does not take money, it hands the customer a link so they can pay themselves on their own phone or computer, with a card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or Link.
Three buttons:
3. Record or collect manually (bottom section)
Everything below the "Record or collect manually" heading is the third path. What it does depends on the Payment Method dropdown:
Reference Number and Payment Date apply to this section only.
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CP-3: Which paths use the Payment Amount field
The Payment Amount box sits above all three paths because two of them read it and one does not:
| Path | Amount collected |
|---|---|
| Charge a saved card | Exactly what is in the Payment Amount box |
| Record or collect manually (all methods) | Exactly what is in the Payment Amount box |
| Send pay link | The invoice's remaining balance, regardless of the box |
The saved-card Charge button also ignores the Payment Method dropdown, the Reference Number, and the Payment Date, those belong to the manual section. If you have "Cash" selected and click Charge $50, it still charges the card and records a card payment. It does not record a cash payment.
Paying more than the balance is allowed on purpose (prepay by check is a real workflow). What happens to the extra depends on how much it is:
A card charge never asks: anything over the balance becomes credit.
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CP-4: How a card gets "on file"
Two ways, and only these two:
Once saved either way, the card appears in the green Charge a saved card panel the next time you open Collect Payment on any invoice for that customer.
If a customer has never paid you online and you have never entered their card, they have no card on file, the green panel will not appear.
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CP-5: Stripe Link is NOT a card on file
This is the most common misunderstanding on payment screens, and it has caused real incidents.
What Link actually is: Link is Stripe's own saved-checkout service, owned by the *customer*, not by you. If a customer has ever saved a card with Link at any business anywhere on the internet, Stripe recognizes their email address and offers up their personal wallet. It is protected by a one-time code sent to the customer's phone.
Why it looks like a card on file: Link renders a panel that reads almost exactly like PortaPro's own saved-card panel, "Mastercard •••• 1358, pay with this?" The visual similarity is the whole problem. It looks like the customer's card is saved with you when it is not.
The rule: Never ask a customer to read you a verification code. Not from Link, not from anywhere. A code sent to a customer's phone is meant for the customer only. Entering it yourself means authenticating as them, which breaks Stripe's terms, destroys your evidence if the charge is ever disputed, and teaches your customers that reading codes to callers is normal, the most common setup for card fraud.
What PortaPro does about it: Link no longer appears on any screen office staff use. Both places you can enter a card, the in-app card form (CP-2, path 3) and Add card on file, accept cards only, so no wallet, no Link, and no verification code is possible on them. Link is still offered on customer-facing payment pages, where it genuinely helps customers check out faster, because there the wallet belongs to the person using it.
If you used the old Manage payment methods button before August 2026 and a customer told you they got a code they never asked for, this is what happened. That button opened a page hosted by Stripe, built for customers managing their own wallet. It looked the customer up in Link using the email address on their record and texted them a six-digit code as the page loaded, no click, no warning. Stripe confirmed the page has no setting to turn that off, so PortaPro removed it. Card entry now happens inside PortaPro, on Add card on file.
Nothing was compromised by this, and you do not need to contact those customers unless you want to explain the code they received. Any Link wallet attached during that period still shows on Stripe's own pages, but it was never a card on file with you and cannot be charged from an invoice. Removing it there is safe.
If you open the customer's pay link yourself (the View button, or by pasting the copied link into your own browser), you are on the customer-facing page and Link exists there. It starts blank, you would have to deliberately type the customer's email address to summon their wallet. Do not do that. If a customer wants to use their own saved details, send them the link and let them open it.
A note on why the customer stays logged in: Link remembers a browser with a cookie, the same way staying signed into a shopping site works. A customer who verified once on their own phone will not be asked again on that phone. That is Stripe's cookie in their browser and is normal. The same is true in reverse: if a code was ever completed in *your* browser, that browser stays remembered until you sign out of Link there.
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CP-6: After the payment
However you collected it:
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CP-7: Who can do what
Collecting card payments, the green saved-card panel and the in-app card form, requires Stripe Connect to be connected for your organization (Settings → Payments) and an admin account. Dispatchers do not see the saved-card panel and cannot run a card; they can still record cash, check, bank transfer, and other manual payments, and can always copy or text a pay link.
If Stripe is not connected, the window tells you so and links you to finish setup.
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CP-8: Troubleshooting
The green "Charge a saved card" panel is not showing.
That customer has no card saved to your organization. Confirm on the customer's Financial → Payments card list. A customer who has never paid online and never gave you a card to store will not have one. (Link details on a Stripe page are not a card on file, see CP-5.)
A payment page asked my customer for a verification code.
You are on a customer-facing payment page and Link recognized the customer's email. Close it. Use the green saved-card panel if a card is on file, choose Credit Card → Enter Card Details to type a card in, or send the customer the pay link so they can complete it themselves. Never accept the code.
"Pending" payments on an invoice the customer never paid.
A pending Stripe row means a payment page was opened, not that money moved. Abandoned attempts show as Incomplete and are cleaned up automatically. Only Succeeded (and Processing, for bank transfers still clearing) represent real money.
A bank transfer is already processing.
The window warns you when an ACH payment is mid-clearing on the invoice. The customer already paid; the bank takes 1–5 business days. Collecting again will usually double-charge them.