Payments & Documents
Every order has a money side: the sales documents you send a customer (Quote, Acknowledgement, Invoice), the payments you collect against them, and the fees and adjustments involved. All of it lives on one place — the order's Payments & Documents tab (your customers see it as Payments & Invoice in their portal).
Availability: Commerce and up (paid plans). The Free plan is inquiry/quote-only — it has no pricing or payments. See Subscriptions & Plans and The Free Plan.
First, the one thing that trips everyone up
There are two completely different kinds of money in TimberCloud, and keeping them straight makes everything else clear:
| Customer payments | Your TimberCloud bill | |
|---|---|---|
| Who pays whom | Your customer pays your shop | Your shop pays TimberCloud |
| Where the money goes | Straight into your own Stripe account (via Stripe Connect) | Charged to your subscription card on file |
| What it covers | The goods on an order | Platform services you use (mostly shipping labels) — see Platform Charges |
TimberCloud never holds your customers' money. When a customer pays a card through TimberCloud, the funds land directly in the Stripe account you connected. The only things TimberCloud bills you for are platform charges (mainly shipping labels) and a small percentage platform fee skimmed from each card payment. This whole page is about the first column: collecting money from your customers.
Note: A shop can take real, live customer payments even during its 14-day trial. Being in a trial does not block real charges — the only requirements are that your Stripe account is connected and activated and that test mode is off. See Going live.
The Payments & Documents tab
Open any order and click the Payments & Documents tab. From here you can:
- See the order total, payment terms, and running balance.
- Generate and send sales documents (Quote / Acknowledgement / Invoice).
- Take a card or bank payment, or record an offline cash/check/manual payment.
- Email the customer a secure pay-online link.
- Issue a goodwill credit, refund a payment, or void tax/shipping on the order.
- Read the full payment history and print receipts.
Note: The document and payment sections appear once the order exists as a real order (a quote has been created or accepted). A brand-new draft won't show them until it's saved. On the Free plan this tab doesn't appear at all.
Documents: quotes, acknowledgements & invoices
The Documents section lists your sales paperwork, grouped by type. TimberCloud generates these automatically as an order moves through its lifecycle, and you can also make one on demand.
| Document | Generated when | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Quote | A quote is created or its pricing changes | The pricing document a customer reviews before ordering |
| Acknowledgement | A quote is accepted / promoted to Ordered | Confirms the order and its locked-in pricing |
| Invoice | On demand, or as the order is billed | The final billing document |
| Design Quote | For 3D Designer kitchen jobs | A room-by-room quote for a designer job |
Making a document on demand
Click the Generate Document menu and choose New Quote, New Acknowledgement, or New Invoice. TimberCloud builds a fresh PDF from the order's current pricing.
Past versions
When pricing changes, TimberCloud marks the older document void and generates a new current version, so you always have a clean audit trail. Only the current documents show by default; voided or superseded ones are tucked behind a Past versions toggle so the section stays uncluttered. Nothing is deleted — every version is kept.
Note: The entire Documents section is hidden from staff whose role can't view prices. If a team member doesn't see it, check their role's View Prices permission under Users & Permissions.
Sending a document
Each document has a Send Email button that emails the customer the document with its PDF attached. This button always sends — it works even when your shop's automated emails are turned off. Day to day, this is how you get a quote or invoice in front of a customer. For the full picture of automatic vs. manual sending, see Order Notifications.
Taking a payment (Post a Payment)
The Post a Payment form is where you collect money. Pick a method, enter an amount (or click Auto-fill to drop in the exact remaining balance), and process it.
Payment methods
| Method | How it works | Fee to the customer |
|---|---|---|
| Saved card | Charge a card already on the customer's profile | Standard card processing |
| New card | Enter a new card to charge (and optionally save it) | Standard card processing |
| Bank transfer (ACH) | Charge a US bank account on file | 0.8%, capped at $5.00 — no TimberCloud fee |
| Cash | Record cash taken in person | None |
| Check | Record a check (payer name, check number, bank name) | None |
| Manual Payment | Record a payment taken outside the system | You can enter a processing fee |
| Issue Credit | Apply a goodwill credit or adjustment (not a real payment) | None — see Issue Credit |
The form shows the processing-fee breakdown and the net amount before you confirm, so there are no surprises.
Tip: Cash, Check, Manual Payment, and Issue Credit are staff-only — customers never see them. Card and bank options require your Stripe account to be connected and activated (see Going live).
Recording offline payments (cash, check, manual)
For money you took in person or through your own bank, use the offline methods:
- Cash — records the amount, a payment date, and notes.
- Check — adds the payer name, check number, and bank name.
- Manual Payment — adds a payment type (card / bank / other), a transaction ID, a source, notes, and an optional processing fee. Use this to log a payment you ran through some other terminal.
All three let you back-date the payment date so the payment lands in the right accounting period — handy when you're entering a check that arrived last week.
Deposits & partial payments
Whether a customer can pay less than the full balance is controlled by a shop setting, with a per-customer override. Staff can always enter any amount, and the Auto-fill button fills in the exact remaining balance in one click.
If a customer's payment terms require a deposit percentage, something important happens automatically: once a payment (or the combined cash payments) reaches that percentage, a Quote is auto-promoted to an Ordered order — locking in prices, deducting inventory, generating an Acknowledgement, and sending the relevant notifications. In other words, collecting the deposit is placing the order.
Tip: You configure deposit requirements and due dates through payment terms in Order Settings. Assign a term to a customer and it flows onto their orders automatically.
Send a payment link
Instead of taking a card over the phone, you can email the customer a secure Stripe checkout link so they pay themselves online.
- In Post a Payment, click Send Payment Link (below Process Payment).
- It defaults to the full outstanding balance, or type a partial amount.
- TimberCloud emails the customer a checkout link and records an Awaiting Customer Payment entry in the payment history.
- When the customer pays, the payment clears and the balance updates automatically.
You can re-send the link from that entry's details if the customer misplaces it.
Note: Sending a payment link requires your Stripe account to be connected and activated and the customer to have an email address on file.
Refunds
To refund a card payment, open the transaction in the payment history and click Refund. The in-app Refund button issues a full refund of that transaction back to the original card through Stripe. A two-step confirmation guards the action so it can't happen by accident.
- Refunds require the Refund Payments permission.
- Partial refunds: the in-app button always refunds the whole transaction. To return only part of a payment, issue the partial refund from your Stripe dashboard — TimberCloud then displays and tracks the partial amount against the balance.
- Bank (ACH) payments: clicking Refund records the reversal and updates the balance in TimberCloud, but it does not push funds back through Stripe — handle the bank return separately.
- Offline entries (cash, check, manual) can be refunded too: a succeeded cash/check/manual payment shows a Refund button that marks it refunded and recalculates the balance (editing or deleting it is an alternative). Handle the physical cash/check return separately.
- Refunds can take 5–10 business days to appear on the customer's statement (that's the card network, not TimberCloud).
- Credits are never refunded — they're edited or deleted instead.
Fixing recorded payments (edit & delete)
Entered an offline payment wrong? Because cash, check, and manual entries live in TimberCloud (not in Stripe), you can correct them after the fact:
| Action | What you can change | Permission | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Edit | Amount, fee, date, payer name, check number, notes | Authorize Payments | Succeeded cash / check / manual / credit entries |
| Delete | Removes the entry entirely (two-step confirmation) | Refund Payments | Succeeded cash / check / manual / credit entries |
When you edit or delete an offline entry, the order's amount paid and balance recalculate automatically.
Important: Card and bank (ACH) payments are read-only — Stripe is the source of truth for them, so they can't be edited or deleted. To reverse one, use a refund instead.
Issue Credit (goodwill & adjustments)
Issue Credit lowers (or raises) a balance without touching the order total or its tax — perfect for a goodwill discount, a service-recovery gesture, or reconciling an overpayment.
- Enter a positive amount to credit the customer (like a discount that reduces what they owe).
- Enter a negative amount to reverse an overpayment and bring an over-paid balance back toward zero.
- You record a reason and who authorized it for your records.
Credits are deliberately kept separate from real payments in the financial summary (shown as Credits Applied / Credits Issued). They never count as revenue, never trigger a surcharge, are never refunded, and never trigger the deposit-to-Ordered promotion — they're purely a balance adjustment.
Availability: Issuing a credit requires the Issue Credits permission.
Approving an employee-initiated payment
When a staff member charges a customer's card on the customer's behalf, the payment can land in a Waiting state that must be approved (with a terms agreement) before it clears. Open the waiting transaction and click Approve Payment.
- Approving requires the Authorize Payments permission.
Important: Only charge a customer's saved card with their explicit consent. This approval step exists to keep that consent on record.
Tax, exemptions & voiding charges
Several controls let you change exactly what a customer is billed on a given order. They live in the Financial Summary (in edit mode) and in your customer records.
Void tax on one order
In the Financial Summary, click Void next to Tax to zero the tax on that single order; the line shows a Voided badge and strikethrough. Click Restore to bring it back. This is an admin-trusted override — the public checkout path can't be tricked into it.
Void shipping on one order
The same Void / Restore toggle sits next to the Shipping charge, zeroing shipping on that one order.
Tip: Voids apply only to the order you're editing. To stop charging a particular customer tax on all their orders, use customer tax exemption instead.
Customer tax exemption
Flag a customer as tax-exempt (for example, a reseller or a non-profit) on their customer record, and every order for that customer is automatically charged $0 tax — no need to void tax order by order. The exemption is read only from the trusted customer record, so it can't be spoofed from the storefront. See Managing Customers.
Additional fee / customer surcharge
Your shop can configure a percentage surcharge with a custom label — a common use is passing along card-processing costs. When it's enabled in company settings, you can:
- Apply it to an individual order with a toggle on the Payments & Documents tab, or
- Have it auto-apply by payment type (for example, only when a customer pays by card).
The fee is added to the taxable amount and shows on the invoice and financial summary. It never applies to credits. You turn the feature on and set its label and percentage in company settings.
Note: Surcharge rules and local card-network rules vary by state. Make sure a card surcharge is allowed where you operate before enabling it.
Mark as Invoiced
Once an order is past Quote status, a Mark as Invoiced button records that you've invoiced it and stamps the invoiced date (shown in a status banner). It's a bookkeeping marker — it doesn't collect money on its own.
Reading the balance
The Financial Summary at the bottom of the tab shows where the order stands:
| Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Order Total | Full amount, including tax, shipping, add-ons, and any surcharge |
| Amount Paid | Sum of all successful payments |
| Credits Applied / Issued | Goodwill credits, tracked separately from payments |
| Balance Due | What's still owed |
Every successful payment can produce a printable receipt — open the transaction and click View Receipt to download or print it.
Going live: Stripe, test mode, and offline-only shops
Card and bank payments run through Stripe Connect, so funds land directly in your own Stripe account and you keep full access to your Stripe dashboard for payouts, disputes, and statements.
Connecting Stripe
- Open Settings → Payments.
- Click Connect with Stripe and complete Stripe's onboarding (business details, bank account).
- Once Stripe marks the account active, card and bank options appear on the payment form.
Important: Being on a paid plan alone is not enough to charge a card. The real runtime requirement is that Stripe is connected and activated (onboarding finished) and test mode is off. Until then, card and payment-link options are hidden and you'll see a note explaining that card payments need Stripe. This is the single most common "why can't I take a card yet?" answer.
Test mode
Flip on test mode (in Settings → Payments, also surfaced in Settings → Company) to connect a throwaway Stripe test account and run checkout end to end without moving real money. Turn it off to go live. Leaving test mode on is a common reason live charges don't go through.
Trials can take live payments
A shop still inside its 14-day trial can accept real, live customer payments. The trial doesn't gate charges — connect and activate Stripe, turn off test mode, and you're live.
Offline / credit-only shops
You don't have to use Stripe at all. A shop with no Stripe account can still run entirely on cash, check, manual, and credit entries — the card and payment-link options simply don't appear, and a non-blocking banner reminds you that card payments need Stripe. This is a perfectly valid way to operate if you invoice and collect offline.
The platform fee on card payments
When a customer pays by card through TimberCloud, TimberCloud takes a small percentage of the successful charge, deducted automatically as the Stripe Connect application fee before funds settle. It scales with your plan:
| Plan | Platform fee on card payments |
|---|---|
| Free | No payments (inquiry/quote-only) |
| Commerce | 1% |
| Build | 0.5% |
| Production | 0% |
| Enterprise | 0% |
A few things to know:
- It's separate from, and on top of, Stripe's own processing fee of 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Stripe bills its fee; the platform fee is TimberCloud's.
- It applies only to card charges collected through TimberCloud — not to quotes, offline cash/check payments, or credits. (Bank/ACH payments carry the 0.8%/$5-cap fee shown above, with no TimberCloud application fee.)
- Upgrading lowers or removes it — on Production and Enterprise there's no platform fee at all.
Tip: This per-payment fee is different from platform charges — the separate bill your shop owes TimberCloud for things like shipping labels. See Platform Charges.
Troubleshooting
I can't see card options on the payment form. Stripe isn't connected/activated yet, or test mode is on. Go to Settings → Payments, finish onboarding, and turn test mode off. You can still record cash/check/manual/credit in the meantime.
A card payment was declined. Usually insufficient funds, a wrong number, an expired card, or a fraud block. Ask the customer to check the details or try another card.
A refund hasn't shown up. Card refunds take 5–10 business days on the customer's statement — check the Stripe dashboard for status and send the customer a confirmation.
A team member can't see the Documents section or refund a payment. Those are permission-gated (View Prices for documents; Refund Payments for refunds; Issue Credits for credits; Authorize Payments to edit/approve). Adjust their role under Users & Permissions.
Next Steps
- Platform Charges — the separate bill your shop owes TimberCloud
- Order Notifications — automatic vs. manual sending, and the Send Email button
- Order Add-ons — flat per-order fees that roll into the total
- Subscriptions & Plans — plan-by-plan fees and what each tier unlocks
- Billing & Free Trial — your own subscription card and the Stripe Customer Portal
- Order Settings — payment terms and deposits