Getting paid

Online payment on a DeskOps invoice runs through Stripe. The customer opens the Pay link from the email — no account, no app, no sign-in — and pays by card; when your Stripe account is set up for it, the page also offers bank transfer (ACH), which takes 3–5 business days to clear. The invoice flips to paid on its own when the money confirms, and the customer gets a receipt. Without a payment processor connected, the same page shows your pay-by-check instructions instead of a card button, so an invoice is never a dead end. Square and PayPal payments can be imported into DeskOps, but DeskOps invoices are not paid through them.

Two fees, both taken out of the payout rather than added to the customer's bill. Stripe charges its own processing fee under your agreement with Stripe. DeskOps charges a platform fee of 0.4% of each successful Stripe payment on invoices, quotes and recurring bills sent through DeskOps — so the all-in cost of a card payment is Stripe's rate plus 0.4%. Your customer is charged exactly the total on the invoice, never more, and never sees a second line. There is no DeskOps fee on cash, check, or payments imported from Square or PayPal. If you refund a payment through DeskOps, the platform fee is refunded in proportion. The rate can only change with thirty days' written notice; the current rate for your account is on the Terms page and on the invoice detail.

The panel leads with the next deposit — the amount, the day it arrives, and the bank account it lands in — because that is the question people are actually asking. Under it is the ledger of past payouts, each with the to-the-cent story of which payments it contains and what came off in fees. If Stripe has taken money back — a chargeback and its fee, or a refund larger than what was settling — the panel says how much is held back and what your next deposit will be net of it, rather than quoting a figure you will not receive. Manage payouts opens Stripe's own payout controls inside DeskOps, so you can change the schedule or the account without leaving. Owner-only. An amount DeskOps cannot read shows as a dash, never as $0.00.

Mark paid is the close-out for money that arrived outside DeskOps — a check in the mail, cash on the job, a bank transfer you took directly. It records the payment against the invoice so the balance, the Money page and your tax position all move together. A partial amount leaves the invoice part-paid with the remainder still owed. If Mark paid was a mistake, the invoice detail has an undo for it; if the customer really paid you, leave it alone.

DeskOps chases automatically on a fixed ladder: a note three days before the due date, one on the due date, then reminders at three, seven and fourteen days overdue. Five in total, then it stops. Each email carries the Pay link. An invoice that is paid, voided or marked paid drops off the ladder at once. Reminders are about a bill, not marketing, so a customer who unsubscribed from your campaigns still receives them. If the invoice email bounced, the invoice says so — Email bounced — which is your cue to fix the address or call. The Communications screen lists this ladder alongside everything else DeskOps sends for you.

The Settings tab on Get Paid holds the defaults every new document starts from, in three sub-tabs. Invoices: payment terms (net 30 and the rest), a late-fee rate, a default tax rate, the level of pricing detail shown, and the tip setting for the pay page. Quotes: how many days a quote stays open, the deposit asked on acceptance, the note and the terms printed on every quote, and whether follow-ups go out on day 3 and day 7. Contracts bill through the invoice defaults, and the Contracts sub-tab says so. Each invoice or quote can override its own terms when you write it. The late fee is stated on the invoice and on the pay page so the customer sees it before it applies. These live here rather than in Settings on purpose — they are about the documents you send, not the business.

On the pay page a customer can add a tip when you allow it. A tip is never pre-selected and "No tip" is always one tap; the suggestions are flat dollar amounts scaled to the size of the bill, not percentages, because nobody tips 20% on a furnace install. You set the largest invoice a tip may be offered on, or turn tips off. Until you set it, the prompt follows your trade: on where tipping is customary (cleaning, moving, hauling, grooming, salons and the like) and off where it is not (roofing, fencing, concrete, HVAC and plumbing installs). The tip arrives with the payment and shows on the invoice.

A refund issued from DeskOps goes back to the card or bank the customer paid with, through Stripe, the customer gets a short refund notice by email, and the platform fee on that portion is refunded to you in proportion. A partial refund leaves the invoice showing what was kept and what went back; a second partial refund is allowed. The Money page and your tax position pick the refund up as a negative, so revenue is never overstated. A refund you issue inside your Stripe dashboard instead of DeskOps still reaches DeskOps, but the platform fee may not come back on its own — tell support and it is put right.

When a customer tries to pay online and the card is declined, the invoice stays unpaid and the record says so in words — when they tried, the card, and that nothing was charged. Their pay link keeps working, so a different card goes through, or you record a payment if they pay another way. A chargeback is different: the customer's bank has already pulled the payment back, plus a dispute fee, while it decides. The invoice reads Disputed, the note says how much was taken, why the bank says it was raised, and the date you must answer by; you reply with your evidence on Stripe — a signed acceptance, photos of the finished work and the invoice's own history all count. If the bank sides with you the money returns; if not, it stays with the customer and the fee is not returned. Either way the money panel shows the amount held back until it is decided.

Voiding keeps the invoice in your records with its number, marked void, so numbering stays continuous and nothing disappears from history. If the invoice had been sent, the customer gets an Invoice cancelled email so they do not pay it. A paid invoice cannot be voided — refund it instead. A draft that was never sent is simply discarded.

Some trades have numbers that belong on the customer's copy — a plumbing or electrical license, an EPA 608 certificate, the permit pulled for a water heater, a repipe or a panel change. DeskOps asks for them only when your trade and the work on the document call for them, and it prints them on the invoice and the customer's pay page. Your business credentials are asked for once: type a number on any document and it is saved and filled in from then on, or set it in Settings under Trade credentials. A permit number is asked for on the invoice, never on a quote, because it does not exist until the customer has approved the work — and it is asked for on each job, because a permit belongs to one job: the last one you typed is offered beside the field ("Last used … use it only if this job is on the same permit") so a follow-up visit is one tap, and a new job never goes out under an old permit. A quote for a plumbing job asks only for the license.

Batch invoicing sends the same invoice — same lines, same terms — to a list of customers in one go, each getting their own numbered invoice and their own Pay link. Owner-only. It is built for route work and contract customers billed the same amount on the same day; anything that differs per customer is a normal invoice.

The customer opens the quote from their email, reads it, and accepts by typing their name — an electronic signature under the ESIGN Act, stored with the quote. What happens next is your choice on the quote, under "When they accept". The default books the job: it lands on your Schedule and under Home's "Bill accepted work", the customer is told they are booked and that the invoice comes when the work is done, and you invoice it from the job, from the quote, or from Home — the invoice is built from the quote, nothing retyped. If the quote carries a deposit, the deposit invoice is issued at acceptance and the balance follows when you mark the job done (or as soon as the deposit is paid, if you chose that). "Create and email the invoice right away" does exactly that, and the customer lands on the Pay link the moment they accept. They can also decline, with a reason, so a quiet quote becomes a real "no" you can see instead of a guess. Opening the quote marks it viewed, so you know it was read.

A quote can carry a deposit as a percentage of the total. When the customer accepts, the deposit invoice is issued and paid first. The balance invoice is issued either automatically when the deposit is paid, or when you mark the job complete — your choice per quote. The quote list shows a small chip for each deposit quote: the percentage, and whether the deposit is paid or still awaited. A balance can never be issued twice.

Yes, twice: a follow-up three days after the quote went out, and another at seven days, each with the link to accept. They stop the moment the quote is accepted, declined or expired. Quotes carry an expiry date so an old price does not stay open forever; the default expiry is set in the quote template and can be changed on each quote. Sending the same quote again does not change its price, its expiry or its number.