Invoicing and getting paid
Journey bills your clients and takes card payments, so the work and the invoice for it live in the same place. This page covers the path from finished work to money in, which is the one thing a new firm most often cannot find.
Supervisors and above can create and manage invoices.
Three ways to raise an invoice
There is no single "new invoice" screen, deliberately. You raise an invoice from whatever the invoice is for, so it arrives already attached to the right client and the right work.
From a client. Open the client, go to their Billing tab, and choose New invoice. This is the general-purpose route and the one to use when the invoice is not tied to a particular return.
From a return. Open the return and choose Create invoice for this return. The invoice is linked to that return, so the work and the bill stay connected.
From unbilled time. If your firm tracks time, choose New invoice from unbilled time to turn logged hours into line items rather than retyping them. See Time tracking.
Sending it and getting paid
An invoice goes to the client by email. The email carries a link to a payment page that opens without a login, which matters for the client who will never sign into a portal but will pay from an email.
Clients who do use the portal see their invoices there as well, and can pay from either place.
Card payments run through Stripe, connected per firm. Until your firm has connected Stripe, you can still create and send invoices; clients just cannot pay by card through Journey.
Card fees and chargebacks
When a client pays by card, your firm is the seller. The payment is made to your firm's own Stripe account, not to Journey, so the costs that come with card payments are your firm's:
- Card processing fees. Stripe takes its fee out of each payment before the money reaches your bank. What your firm receives is the invoice amount less that fee.
- Chargebacks. If a client disputes a card payment with their bank (a chargeback), Stripe takes the disputed amount, and its dispute fee, from your firm's Stripe balance, or from its bank account if the balance is short. Your firm answers the dispute in its own Stripe Dashboard.
- Refunds. A refund you give in Stripe is also paid from your firm's Stripe balance.
Journey does not yet hear about refunds or dispute outcomes from Stripe, so an invoice paid by card still shows as paid in Journey after a refund or a lost dispute. Your Stripe Dashboard is the record of those until Journey can show them.
The reverse can happen too. If a client pays while your Stripe account is being disconnected, or while your firm's Stripe mode is being switched between test and live, the money reaches your firm's Stripe account but Journey does not mark the invoice paid. Record that payment on the invoice by hand.
Journey adds no fee of its own on top of Stripe's and takes no share of the payment. The client pays the invoice amount; Journey does not add a surcharge to cover the card fee. Stripe's current fees are on Stripe's pricing page.
Watching what is owed
Billing, in the Admin section of the sidebar, is your accounts-receivable view: what is outstanding, what is overdue, and who to chase. Owners and general managers can reach it.
Journey chases overdue invoices for you on a schedule: an invoice is marked overdue, then reminded on up to three occasions, then escalated, so a late invoice does not depend on anyone remembering to follow up.
Opening a single invoice shows its full history: what was billed, what has been paid, and what has been sent to the client.
Holding a return until the invoice is paid
There is a firm setting that blocks a client from downloading their completed return until the linked invoice is paid.
It is off by default and it is worth thinking about before turning it on. Rules of professional conduct in some jurisdictions limit what you may withhold from a client, and a completed return is not always yours to hold. Journey does not decide that for you; check your own obligations first.
Good to know
An invoice that has already been paid cannot be paid a second time. If a client follows an old payment link after settling up, they are told it is already paid rather than being charged again.
Cancelled and voided invoices stop being payable, so an invoice you withdraw cannot be paid by a client who kept the email.