A payment link lets a family pay a bill you have already entered. You email the invoice, they click the link in it, and a form opens with their name, address, invoice number and the amount due already filled in. They pay by card, and the payment arrives knowing which family and which bill it belongs to.
Send the invoice The letter carries a link to your payment form
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They open it Their details and the amount due are already there
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They pay By card, for the amount due or another amount
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You import it Applied to the bill, with no matching needed
Two pieces are set up once: a payment link form on your website, and the invoice letter that links to it.
1. Create the Payment Link Form
On the Forms list, click New form and choose Payment Link — Collects payment for an existing invoice or pledge. Families reach it from the payment link in their invoice email.
Setup asks for a form name, the department, a payment subcategory and a style. The form then opens complete, in three sections:
| Section | Holds |
|---|
| Contact Information | Name, Address and Invoice No, filled from the bill when the family opens the link |
| Payment Information | The amount, filled with the amount due and editable by the payer |
| Credit Card Information | The card fields, and the Submit button |
Payment subcategory does a different job here. On a payment link it is shown only as the description on the card charge; when the payment is imported it is applied to the bill's own subcategories. Family category is not applied on payment-link forms at all.
What can and cannot be changed
A strip across the top of the editor says it: Payment-link forms have a fixed set of fields so they keep working with invoices. You can change how this form looks, not what it contains.
The fields are fixed because the page fills them from the bill, and the import finds the bill through them. Everything else works as on any other form: the design controls, the assistant, the preview and the Structure view. See The Look of Your Form.
The preview shows a sample bill — Mr. Tester, invoice 1234567890, $123 — because a payment link shows nothing until a real invoice link fills it. Submitting is switched off there, so nothing is charged.
Settings and the receipt
Fill in the Settings tab as on any form: the department and payment subcategory under Where submissions go, the staff addresses under Notification recipients, and the on-screen message under After a submission. The Email Confirmation tab is the payer's own receipt, and arrives with wording already written. See Settings & Putting the Form on Your Website and The Confirmation Email.
Put it on your website
Save the form, then copy the snippet under Settings → Embed on your website and give it to whoever looks after your site. The snippet for a payment link is longer than a regular form's: it carries the invoice reference from the page address into the form.
Note the address of the page it goes on. That exact page is what the letter links to, and it must be the real page address rather than a shortcut or a redirect.
2. Put the Link in the Invoice Letter
Go to Settings → Communications → Letters and set Type to Pledge, the type used for bills. Open an existing invoice letter or create one, and fill in the letter name, sender name and address, and subject.
Don't attach the PDF to the email sends the letter without the formal invoice attached.
Write the message, using merge fields such as Salutation and Amount Due for each family's own details. Then, with the email body open, click Payment link in the toolbar. The Insert payment link dialog asks for two things:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|
| Text to display | The wording the family clicks. It starts as Payment Link; Click here to pay reads well too |
| Payment form page on your site | The page holding the form you embedded, for example https://your-site.org/pay |
The dialog states what happens next: Each recipient's secure invoice reference is added automatically. The page is entered once, and every letter goes out carrying a reference to that family's own invoice. Save the letter.
The Payment link button appears on Pledge letters, on the email body. It is not in the merge field list, because it is a real link rather than a merge field.
Sending an Invoice
On a family's Transactions, enter the bill and use Save & Send. The letter editor opens for the bill just saved, with the letter selected, and the payment link is built for that invoice as it goes out.
What the Family Sees
The link opens your page. The form shows their name, address and invoice number, and the amount due in the amount box. They can pay that amount, more, or less — a partial payment is accepted. They enter their card and submit, and receive the confirmation email from the form.
A bill with a card on file cannot be paid this way. Such a bill is charged automatically, so the form tells the family "Credit card on file exists. No payment is needed at this time." and the amount comes up as zero. It is the same reason a payment cannot be applied by hand to a bill that is scheduled to be charged.
Importing the Payment
A payment that arrives through a payment link needs no matching. The submission carries the bill and the invoice number with it, so the family and the bill are already known. What remains is your approval.
Open the form's Submissions, open the payment and press Import. Before that, the Apply to bill tab shows how the money is being applied:
| Column | Shows |
|---|
| Category | Each line of the bill, with its subcategory |
| Amount and Due | What the line was billed, and what is still owed on it |
| Apply | How much of this payment goes to that line. Editable |
| Applied | Whether the line is being paid |
Beneath the lines, Payment amount, Applied, Unapplied and Still due on bill keep the arithmetic in view. This is what a bill covering several subcategories needs when the family paid part of it: you decide which lines the money settles. See reviewing and importing web form submissions.
Forms Made in the Previous Editor
Payment link forms built before the current editor are marked Payment Link Legacy on the Forms list and open in the previous editor. They keep working. Moving one to the current editor means creating a new Payment Link form, embedding it on the same page, and pointing the letter at that page. See The Forms List & History.