💳Client Invoicing and Payments

Build invoices from the work you sold, take card payments through Payfactory, and offer your own payment methods alongside.

Every job in ScribeWare carries one invoice. If you've set up your services, most of it fills itself in. Clients pay from their portal — by card if you've enabled card processing, or by whatever other methods you accept.

Settings live under Settings → Client Invoicing, in the SCHEDULING group.

Client Invoice Settings — report access, payment processing, dates, methods and footer

The Invoice on a Job

Open a report, go to Client Info, and scroll to Invoice. You'll find:

• Invoice Items — a description and a price per line. Choosing services adds lines automatically; you can type your own alongside, and those are never overwritten when services change.

• Subtotal, then Tax if you charge it, then Total.

• A Paid with checkbox and method dropdown, for recording a payment you took yourself.

• An optional Invoice #.

There's no separate discount field — enter a discount as a line item with a negative price.

Services picked on the job become invoice lines automatically — here a home inspection plus a radon add-on

Tax is company-wide: set Tax Percent for Invoices in Settings → Company. Leave it at zero and the tax row disappears everywhere.

Whether an invoice appears in the published report is controlled per job in Report Options → Include 'Invoice/Receipt'. The published page is titled Invoice until it's paid and Receipt afterwards.

Your clients don't see your pricing workings. On the invoice a client reads — in their portal and in the published report — an inspection line shows the plain service name, Home Inspection, and not the adjustments that built the price. The figure beside it is still the full computed total. Older jobs that had the breakdown baked into the description are tidied up the same way, so nobody is shown Home Inspection +$500 Square footage.

Taking Card Payments

Card processing runs through Payfactory. Applying is a one-time setup:

1. Go to Settings → Client Invoicing.

2. Tick Enable Payfactory payment processing.

3. Click Enable payment processing.

4. Confirm your first name, last name, email and company name in the dialog, then Continue to Payfactory.

5. Your browser opens Payfactory's application form. Complete it there.

Back in Settings, Payment Processing Status tracks where you are:

Status	What it means
Not Started	You haven't applied yet
Pending Approval	Under review — usually 1–2 business days
Approved	You can accept card payments
Rejected	Not approved; the reason is shown

If you started an application but didn't finish, the button becomes Restart application and your application link is shown so you can pick up where you left off.

Card payments only go live when payment processing is enabled and your application is approved. Payfactory handles cards; ScribeWare never sees or stores card numbers.

The processing fee

Card processing carries a fee, and you decide who absorbs it with Add Payfactory processing fee as a separate card line item:

• On — the fee appears as its own line and is added to what the client pays.

• Off — no fee line, and the client pays your listed price. Use this when processing is already built into your pricing.

The fee only ever applies to card payments. Choose cash or a transfer and the line disappears and the total drops.

The fee percentage itself isn't editable in ScribeWare — it's set on your account. If you need it changed, contact ScribeWare support.

Other Ways to Get Paid

Not everyone wants to pay by card, and card isn't always what you want either. Payment Options lets you list your own methods — cash, cheque, Venmo, e-transfer — each with optional instructions the client sees when they choose it. You can embed a QR code image in the instructions.

Payment Options — your own methods, each with instructions for the client

These methods never carry the card processing fee, and the client's total updates as they switch between them.

Invoice Dates

Client portal invoices use the inspection date as the invoice date. If the client paid before the inspection, the receipt uses the payment date instead.

Due date offset sets the due date as a number of days after the inspection date. Zero means due on the day; seven means a week after.

Invoice Footer

A rich-text footer that appears on every invoice and receipt. It starts as Thank you for your business! — a good spot for payment terms or a licence number.

What Your Client Sees

The client reaches their invoice from their portal link, which your message templates include automatically.

1. The portal hub shows an Invoice card with the amount due and a Pay Invoice button.

2. The invoice page lists your company details, the property address, the line items, and the totals.

The client's invoice — line items come from the services they booked

1. Under How would you like to pay? the client picks a method. Card is first if you've enabled it, badged with the processing fee; your own methods are badged No fee. The total updates with the choice.

2. Choosing Card asks for billing details and card number, then Pay $X Now.

Paying by card — the card fields are hosted by the processor, so card numbers never reach ScribeWare

1. Choosing one of your methods shows your instructions instead — there's no online transaction, it just tells them how to pay you.

Pick one of your own methods and the card fields are replaced by your instructions

1. After a card payment they get a Payment Successful! confirmation and an emailed receipt.

Once paid, the invoice page shows a green Payment Completed panel and the report's invoice becomes a receipt.

Keeping Track

Payment status is visible without opening anything: the home screen and calendar show Paid / Unpaid on each job, and a money icon appears in the report's status strip.

For detail, open the report and check Report Activity under Client Info. It records Invoice Viewed, Invoice Paid with the amount and method, and Payment Refunded, alongside the rest of the job's history.

Report Activity — every client interaction with the portal, timestamped

Refunds are issued from your Payfactory dashboard, not from inside ScribeWare.

Holding Reports Until You're Paid

Report Access, at the top of Client Invoicing, has Require signature and payment before clients can view published reports. With it on, a published report stays locked until the client has signed their agreement and paid.

Individual jobs override it in Client Info → Report Links → Client Access, where you can use the company default, require signature and payment, or drop the requirement — plus a manual Lock / Unlock with a status chip showing Viewable, Awaiting signature & payment, or Locked by you.

To chase an unpaid invoice automatically, pair this with an automation using the the inspection is unpaid condition.

⏰Message Automations