I need to collect payments only

[kenitsu]

I send invoices through a personalized software system, but every one in a while, clients want to pay online. That's all I need. How do I set up the square site so I can just collect payments with invoices that are generated elsewhere?

[TheRealChipA]

Hi @kenitsu.  Interesting questions.  Unfortunately I have to ask a few questions to guide you to a few good options, I hope.

1. Do you know if your “personalized software system” allows you to plug in third-party payment processors?  If so, Square has a full line of APIs that third parties/software developers can use to allow you to connect to them for payment.
2. Would “paying online” for your customers include you sending them a payment request through Square’s Cash App, which they could then pay using whatever method they desired?

If neither of these is an option, let me know the specifics.  I don’t Square Online will do what you want, however.

[kenitsu]

Thank you for your help. The invoices I would provide would just have a link for them to pay. I wouldn't use the API because they already have the ability to process cards on the software. This is only for those clients who absolutely instist to pay online outside of my software. Most of the clients just give me their information and I run it automatically. It's an odd client here and there that just instists on having an online link to pay. Thanks in advance!

[TheRealChipA]

Interesting.  The only option I can think of is sending a payment link via Virtual Terminal.  I think this will do what you want, and satisfy those occasional odd clients.  Read the article and see if that would work for you.

[wtd-Lani]

Hi Kenitsu

Square invoices lets you send your clients a payment link to pay the invoice directly online.  You can even text them the link so they can pay from their phone.

If you use a different invoicing system than SQUARE for preparation of the invoice, you can always just use SQ invoice to be the payment function and include your actual invoice as an attachment.  

Cost of SQ invoice basic is free. 

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/7650-compare-invoices-free-and-invoices-plus

We use the paid version for some additional functionality.  It's pretty decent. Of course, there are still things we wish it would do (like accepting HOUSE ACCOUNT payments) -- but SQ invoices definitely does what you are wanting.  Did you try this and have it fail?  If so, how did it fail?

Here is a link to a fake invoice that I created to show you...

https://squareup.com/pay-invoice/inv:0-ChBuRfEhIscQUbpbWGUEc3TuEIEO

I did not attach anything to this particular sample, but SQ invoices allow you to attach PDFs that the client can download with the details of what they are paying for.  (That would be your third party invoice.)   Of course, you can also just create the invoice in SQ if all your items are already in SQ.   

We do a combination.  For some clients, we use SQ for the invoice and for some larger accounts, we generate the invoice or statement from a different program and just upload the attachment here for record keeping and client review purposes.

Hope this helps.