Mercato

Invoices and quotes

In Mercato, open Invoices & quotes and choose New invoice or New quote. Or type what you want into Ask to draft an invoice for…, for example "Jordan, house sitting Oct 2–6, 4 nights". Mercato proposes an invoice: items from your catalogue use their own price, and the customer is found in Thrive. Nothing is saved until you open it in the editor and save it.

Writing one

• Bill to: find a Thrive contact, or type a name and email. Someone new is added to Thrive the first time the invoice is sent; Mercato never makes a second contact for an email address Thrive already has.
• What it is for: add your own lines, or Add from services and products.
• Payment: when it is due, a discount, and a deposit to ask for first.
• An invoice that charges tax needs the customer's address.

The amounts on the editor are a preview. Mercato works out the discount, tax and what is due when you save.

Sending it

Save and send asks how: by email, by text, or both. Texting works once your account has texting set up in Tellagent; until then the text option says why it is unavailable. The invoice gets its number (for example INV-1042) the first time you send it, and a pay link. Anyone with the link sees that one invoice and nothing else; voiding the invoice turns the link off.

If you choose Mark as sent instead, nothing is emailed and you can copy the link yourself.

Getting paid

• Online: once Stripe is connected (Payouts & payments), customers pay by card on the invoice's page. Card details go to Stripe, never to you or to VeraGen. Online card payments may not be switched on yet for the platform. Until they are, everything else works: send invoices and quotes, record cash, check and bank transfer payments, and bill subscriptions by invoice.
• Connecting Stripe: an owner or admin opens Payouts & payments and chooses Connect Stripe. Stripe asks for the business details and bank account on its own pages. It is the business's own Stripe account: sign in to Stripe's Dashboard to see payments and payouts, and Stripe's card fees are taken from each payment. The Stripe card then says Connected, or Stripe still needs details with Finish in Stripe.
• Connect again: if the store's payment account can't be reached with the current payment set-up (for example, the platform moved from test payments to live ones, or the Stripe account was closed), the card says Not connected: "This store's payment account can't be reached with the current payment set-up. Connect again." Customers can't pay by card until an owner or admin chooses Connect again, which sets up a new Stripe account for the store. If the card says Stripe could not be reached just now, Stripe didn't answer; nothing has changed, so try again in a few minutes.
• Disconnect: an owner or admin can choose Disconnect under the Stripe card, then confirm. The store stops taking card payments until it is connected again, and connecting again sets up a new Stripe account. The Stripe account itself, and the payments already taken, are not changed or deleted. VeraGen keeps a record of who disconnected it and when.
• Test payments: while online payments are in test mode (a test provider, or Stripe's test mode), every card payment is marked TEST: on the invoice, the order, Payouts & payments and the customer's payment page. No money moves. In Stripe's test mode, pay with one of Stripe's test cards, such as 4242 4242 4242 4242.
• Offline: Record a payment for cash, a check or a bank transfer. Part payments are fine; the invoice shows what is left.
• Reminders are emailed before and after the due date, as set in Settings, once per reminder. A subscription paid by card gets no invoice reminders: its retries and their emails take their place (see Subscriptions).
• A refund is made by an owner or admin, from the invoice.

Quotes

Send a quote the same way. The customer can accept it from its link. Convert to invoice makes an invoice with the same lines.