Every invoice in PortaPro has a secure, branded payment page your customer can reach without signing in. They tap a link (or scan a QR), pick Apple Pay, Google Pay, or a card, and pay. The moment the payment clears, the invoice is marked paid automatically.
You can hand that link to a customer four different ways, and every one of them points to the same page, so a customer can start on a QR you held up in the driveway and finish on the button in the email you sent last week. It is all one payment.
Where you'll see it
The payment link lives on every open invoice. Wherever you can act on an invoice today, you now have these choices:
You'll find Copy payment link and Show payment QR in three places:
What the customer sees
Your business name is at the top of the page, not "PortaPro." Below that, the invoice number, the amount due, and their choice of Apple Pay, Google Pay, Link, or entering a card manually. It is a Stripe hosted page, so their card details never touch your servers or ours.
If they have paid you online before and chose "save this card," it appears as a one-tap option. If a payment plan is set up on the invoice, they can pay just the next installment instead of the full balance.
They do not need a PortaPro account. They do not need to remember a password. The link works signed out.
What happens after they pay
The moment Stripe confirms the payment, a webhook to PortaPro records the payment against the invoice, updates the invoice status, and (if you had them enabled) fires your notifications. The next time you look at the invoice, it will show as Paid with the payment in its history, no manual steps.
If the customer pays only part of the balance, the invoice shifts to Partial. You can send them the same link again for the remainder, or a payment plan for the rest.
Turning surfaces on and off
Head to Settings → Financials → Invoices for two org-wide switches:
Both toggles need Stripe Connect to be set up on your account, see Set up payment links, and both automatically hide themselves on invoices that are already paid.
The Copy payment link and Show payment QR buttons are always there; they do not have toggles. If you use them on an account that has not finished Stripe setup, the QR window explains what to do instead of handing over a link that cannot take a payment.
When you can and cannot use it
You can use the payment link on any invoice that still has a balance, drafts, open invoices, partially paid invoices, and overdue invoices all work.
You cannot use it on invoices that are paid, voided, or cancelled. The payment page returns "Payment unavailable" and the QR button explains why, so a customer scanning a QR on an old invoice does not end up somewhere confusing.
What's inside vs. outside your control
The link is unguessable, a UUID, not a sequential number, so a customer with a link can only see their own invoice. You do not need to expire or rotate links; Stripe handles the payment session itself.
Every payment attempt is recorded in your database, whether it completes or not. Only completed payments appear on the customer's invoice as history, a customer who opens the link and thinks about it for a day does not leave a fake "$0 pending" line on their invoice.
Common questions
Do I need Twilio for this to work? Only for the "Text pay link" button. Copy, the QR, the email button, and the PDF QR all work with just Stripe Connect. See Set up payment links for both.
Which contacts show up in the text picker? The customer's main phone number plus every contact on the customer record who has a phone. If two of them share the same number, it is only listed once. The picker mirrors the recipient step in the invoice send wizard, so if you are used to that flow, this one will feel familiar.
What if I text the link and the customer never opens it? Nothing bad happens. The invoice sits as it was. Try again, email the link, show a QR next time you are on site, the URL does not change.
We already print a Zelle QR on our invoices. Do we lose that? No. The uploaded QR you set up under Settings → Financials → Invoices keeps its own slot with its own caption. The new pay-by-card QR is smaller and lives in a different spot, so both can print on the same invoice without stepping on each other.
Can drivers use this from their phones? Yes. The full three-dot action menu on the mobile invoice list matches the desktop set, Collect Payment, Show payment QR, Copy link, and every other action. The QR renders full-size on a phone screen, which is enough for a customer to scan it from their own camera.
Is the customer's tab going to say "PortaPro Software"? No. It reads as your company name, so if a customer keeps the tab open or sends the link to their bookkeeper, it looks like it came from you.
For the portal-based payment flow (customer signs in and pays from their account), see Managing Invoices and Payments. For texting in general, see Two-Way Text Messaging.