Taking a Payment
How the Pay and Pay / Charge paths work from the Debts screen, including manual payments, invoice allocation, tips, and payment fees.
From Accounts > Debts, click Pay or Pay / Charge on the row you want to clear. Work Planner either opens the manual payment form straight away or, when more than one payment route is available, opens a payment-choice popup first.
The First Choice Screen
- Manual Payment: Use this when money has already been received outside Work Planner and you now need to record it properly.
- GoCardless Payment: Appears when the customer already has an active Direct Debit mandate. This starts a collection rather than logging a payment you already received, and the wider setup is covered in GoCardless Billing Request Flow.
- Set up Direct Debit or DD Pending: Use this when the customer needs a mandate setup link instead of an immediate collection. The customer-side version is covered in Billing Request and Direct Debit Setup Flow.
- Instant Bank Pay: Sends a one-off Open Banking payment link without setting up an ongoing mandate. The full path is covered in Instant Bank Pay Flow.
- Manual-only shortcut: If the job does not have those extra GoCardless routes available, Work Planner skips the choice screen and opens the manual payment form immediately.
Manual Payment Fields
- Date: The date the money was actually received. It defaults to today, but you should change it if the payment came in earlier.
- Amount: Starts with the remaining balance still left to collect on that job. Pending provider collections are taken into account, so you do not accidentally double-charge the same amount.
- Payment Method: Required. This defaults to the job's saved payment method when one exists. After you save, Work Planner writes the chosen method back onto the job so the same method is ready next time. When there is a separate chooser first, that step is covered in Payment Method Selector Popup.
- Allocate to Invoice (optional): Lets you attach the payment to an open or sent invoice for the same customer. If the invoice is fully covered, Work Planner moves it on to paid status. The invoice choice step is covered in Invoice Selector Popup.
- Description: Defaults to Payment. Change it when the entry needs a clearer audit trail, such as card terminal, bank transfer, or part payment wording.
- Payment Reference: Use this for the bank reference, cheque number, gateway reference, or any other identifier you may need when matching the payment later.
- Tip (optional): Records gratuity separately from the main payment. Work Planner creates a separate tip entry tied back to the payment.
- Payment Fee: Read-only. This appears when the selected payment method carries fees, so you can see the charge Work Planner is about to calculate in the background.
What Happens When You Record It
- Payment ledger entry: Work Planner creates the payment entry against the job and, if selected, against the invoice as well.
- Invoice sync: Linked invoices are recalculated immediately so their outstanding balance stays accurate in Invoice Detail View and the wider invoices area.
- Fee expense: If the payment method has fixed or percentage fees, Work Planner creates the matching fee expense automatically.
- Tip entry: Any tip is saved as its own ledger item instead of being merged into the payment amount.
When the Save Is Blocked
Manual payment will not save without a payment method or with an amount below 0.01. If you allocate to an invoice, Work Planner also checks that the invoice belongs to the same customer, is still open or sent, and is not being overpaid.
Use a Different Route Instead
Choose GoCardless Payment when you want Work Planner to collect by Direct Debit from an active mandate. Choose Set up Direct Debit when the customer still needs to authorise that mandate. Choose Instant Bank Pay when you want a single bank-payment link without setting up ongoing collections.
Related articles
- Invoice Selector Popup: Shows how invoice choice works when more than one invoice could receive the payment.
- Payment Method Selector Popup: Covers the payment method chooser and how it links back into the form.
- Instant Bank Pay Flow: Useful when the customer needs a one-off payment link instead of a recorded payment.
- Payment Reference and Status Handling: Helpful if you need to understand how the saved payment appears later in transactions.