Get paid without Stripe

Most agencies bill their clients by bank transfer. Voice AI Portal makes that easy for both sides: your client can pay straight from the email, and you confirm payments in seconds instead of chasing them. Every email, page and document carries your brand.

This guide covers clients on Manual payments. To take card payments or send Stripe invoices as well, see Connect Stripe.

Set it up

Add your payment instructions in Client billing, Settings, so every bill tells the client how to pay. See Payment instructions.
Check your email sender in Client billing, Settings, so billing emails come from your own domain. See Check your email sender.
Choose your reminder schedule. See Reminders and pause warnings.
Turn on portal invoices (optional) in Client billing, Settings, if you want the portal to issue numbered invoices and receipts. See Invoices from the portal.
Add billing email addresses for clients whose accounts team has no portal login, in each client’s Client settings, under Client billing. See Billing email addresses.

Payment instructions

Your payment instructions are your bank details and any other way you want to be paid. The agency owner enters them once, in Client billing, Settings, and every client sees them.

Field	Notes
Account name	The name on your bank account.
Bank name
Sort code	For UK bank accounts.
Account number
IBAN	For international or EU payments.
BIC/SWIFT	For international payments.
Routing number	For US bank accounts.
Other instructions	Anything else, up to 500 characters, such as “We also accept cheques”.

Fill in only the fields that apply to you. Your client sees your instructions:

In their emails. Payment due, overdue and reminder emails show your payment instructions, with “Use reference …” and the payment’s reference, so you can match the money when it arrives.
On their Billing page, under How to pay, with a copy button next to each detail.
On the payment page each email links to (below).

Every payment has a reference: your own invoice number, or a short reference such as PR-7F3A21C9.

The payment page

Every email to your client about a payment links to its own payment page. It opens without logging in, so whoever pays the bills, such as an accounts team, can use it straight from the email. It shows only what the email already contains:

your agency name and logo, and the client’s name;
the amount, due date and reference;
your payment instructions;
the invoice PDF, if you issue invoices from the portal;
an I’ve paid button.

Once the payment is marked paid, the page shows the receipt instead. If you void the payment, the page says it is no longer due. When Stripe is open for your agency, the page also offers Pay by card. Payment pages are not listed by search engines.

“I’ve paid”

When your client has sent the money, they can select I’ve paid on the payment page. This is a report, not a payment:

reminders and any automatic pause for that payment wait for 5 days, so a client who has paid is not chased while the transfer arrives;
your team is emailed, with a link that takes you straight to confirming the payment;
on Payments due, the payment shows a Reported paid badge, and you can filter the list to show only reported payments.

Minutes are added only when you confirm the payment by marking it paid. If the money hasn’t arrived, leave it open: reminders start again after the 5 days.

Billing email addresses

Billing emails go to the client’s billing contacts: the client users with the Billing contact switch on. Many businesses pay bills from a shared accounts inbox that has no portal login. For those, add up to 3 billing email addresses to the client, in its Client settings, under Client billing.

These addresses get every billing email the billing contacts get, including payment page links, statements, invoices and receipts. They cannot sign in. Agency owners and admins manage them. See Bill a client.

Reminders and pause warnings

You choose when payment reminders go out, for your whole agency, as days before and after each due date. The default is:

When	Reminder
3 days before the due date	A friendly reminder that a payment is coming up
On the due date	The payment is due today
3 days after the due date	The payment is overdue
7 days after the due date	The payment is overdue

Each reminder carries your payment instructions, the reference and the payment page link.

If you pause overdue clients automatically (Also pause calls automatically in When a payment is overdue), the client and your team get a pause warning email 2 days before the pause. While a pause is scheduled, the client’s banner shows the date calls pause on, so nobody is surprised.

Payments that are Stripe invoices keep Stripe’s own reminders.

Check your email sender

Billing emails are most likely to reach your client’s inbox, and to look like they come from you, when they are sent from your own domain. Client billing, Settings shows whether your sending domain is set up, with a link to your email settings under Settings. See Configure custom email.

Invoices from the portal

Portal invoices are optional and off by default. With them off, nothing changes: you send your own invoices and record your invoice number on each payment. With them on, the portal issues an invoice for each manual payment, a receipt when it is paid, and a credit note when you void one.

Turn them on

In Client billing, Settings, the agency owner turns on Issue invoices from the portal and enters:

Setting	Notes
Legal name	Your business’s legal name, as it should appear on invoices.
Address	Your business address.
Company number	If you have one.
Tax ID	Your VAT or tax number, if you have one.
Tax label	For example VAT or GST.
Rate	The tax rate the portal applies.
Prices include tax or not	Whether your plan and pack prices already include tax, or tax is added on top.
Invoice prefix and next number	For example INV- and 1001.
Credit note prefix and next number	For example CN- and 101.

For each client, you can also record the invoice details that appear as the buyer: company name, address and tax ID.

What the portal issues

Document	When	Where it goes
Invoice	When a manual payment is created. Payments already open when you turn invoices on can be given one too.	Attached to the payment due email, on the payment page, and under Invoices on the client’s Billing page
Receipt	When the payment is paid	Attached to the payment received email, and on the payment page
Credit note	When you void a payment that already has an invoice	Under Invoices on the client’s Billing page

Invoices are numbered in sequence from your next number, and credit notes in their own sequence. A number is never reused. Each invoice shows a tax line at your rate and comes as a PDF. Portal invoices sit next to any Stripe invoices on the client’s Billing page.

An issued invoice never changes. It keeps your details, the client’s details, its lines, tax and totals as they were when it was issued, so changing your settings later never alters an invoice you have sent.

Monthly statements

At each renewal, your client gets a statement email for the period that just ended, branded as you:

calls and chats handled;
minutes used against the minutes included, and any overflow;
the staff time their agents covered and, where available, its estimated value (once the client has 20 resolved conversations in the period, as on their dashboard);
the payments now due, each with its payment page link.

Statements are on by default once client billing is switched on, and you can switch them off for your agency. Each statement is listed on the client’s Billing page. While statements are on, the payment raised at renewal doesn’t send a separate payment due email, because the statement already carries it.

Record payments faster

Several at once

On Payments due, select several payments and mark them paid together, for example after checking your bank statement.

Part payments

When a client pays part of a bill, record the part payment from that payment’s dialog. A payment counts as paid once the payments recorded against it reach its amount. Its minutes are added once, at that point. Marking a payment paid in full works as before.

Import a bank statement

Upload your bank statement as a CSV file with the date, amount and description of each transaction. The portal matches each transaction to an open payment by its reference (PR-…) or invoice number, and its amount. You tick the matches that are right and confirm, and those payments are marked paid. The file is read to find the matches and is not stored.

Receivables at a glance

The Overview tab under Client billing shows what your clients owe you:

Figure	What it shows
Owed now	Everything due and not yet paid
Overdue	Split into 0 to 30, 31 to 60, and more than 60 days overdue
Collected this month	Payments received this calendar month
Reported paid	Payments clients say they have sent, waiting for you to confirm

You can export payments and the money received against them as a CSV file for your own records.

Daily digest

If you’d rather get one email than many, switch on the daily digest for your agency. Each morning, one email lists payments due today, overdue payments, payments reported paid and clients near their limit. It replaces the separate payment emails to your team: client requests for minutes, overdue payments and reported payments. Calls stopped and card payment emails still arrive straight away.

Upgrades for clients on manual payments

When you upgrade a client on manual payments part-way through a period, the old period’s charge is cut to the share of it that was used:

if the old period’s payment is unpaid and has no invoice yet, it is reduced;
otherwise, the difference goes on the new period’s payment as a credit line, and on its invoice.

Clients paying through Stripe keep Stripe’s behaviour. See Create client plans.

Export to Xero or QuickBooks Online

Export your invoices and payments as CSV files in the import formats of Xero and QuickBooks Online, then import them into your accounting software.

	Xero	QuickBooks Online
What it imports	Invoices, as drafts for you to approve	Invoices
Credit notes and negative lines		Not imported: add them in QuickBooks Online
Limits		Up to 1,000 rows and 100 invoices per import
Payments	Mark them paid in Xero	Mark them paid in QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks Online’s invoice import is not available to US companies that charge sales tax; they enter those invoices in QuickBooks Online directly.