FAQ 375: How can I add a payment link to an Invoice?

Online Payment Links for Invoices

This feature allows you to add dynamic payment links right into an invoice template, so that your clients are able to pay directly from the invoice itself.

To benefit from this feature, you will need to be a Hosted Customer, OR using the Server Edition + a member of our Support Plan. You will also need to have configured a Payment Provider to work with ClinicOffice.

Q. How can I start using this?

Once you have the prerequisites mentioned earlier, you will then need to enable the Online Payments feature in ClinicOffice. To do this go to the View menu -> Program Settings -> Global Settings -> Setup Payment Provider. From here tick the relevant payment provider.

Once this is done future payment links will be enabled.

In the latest 1105 update, we added in a new report called ‘Invoice With Payment Link’. This already has all the code you need & the link embedded, so it could at this point simply be easier to swap over to using this template as your default, and add in your own header/company logo. However, if your default template is already heavily customised, then please follow the steps below to add in your new link to it.

Adding the new link to your own template

1. Firstly, we would highly recommend creating a copy of your current template, you can do this by locating your Invoice template in the Reports & Templates section of ClinicOffice – right-clicking on it – select ‘Copy‘
2. Locate your new copy – right-click on it – select Report Source
3. Find the line in the code that comes before the expression
   from
4. Paste the following code onto the end of that line
   , cast('' as varchar(250)) as _invpaylinkurl
5. Click OK. Hopefully, the report will save without any issues. If not, please check you have entered the code exactly as above.
6. Locate your report once more under Reports & Templates – right-click – and select Design Template
7. Using the left column of the designer, drag and drop a ‘label’ onto the report where you would like your payment link to go (as shown below).

Convert your new label into a live payment link

We now need to tell the Invoice that this is a link, rather than just a label that you have created. To do this, follow the steps below.

1. Click on your label to make sure that it is highlighted.
2. To the bottom right of the designer (Under the ‘Field List’), you will see a ‘Properties‘ window.
3. Click on the icon that says ‘Data‘ when you hover over it. (It looks a little like a yellow burger!)
4. Click on the arrow next to (Data Bindings) to expand this field.
5. Click on the arrow next to Navigation to expand the menu.
6. Click into ‘Binding‘ and select the ‘_invpaylinkurl‘ field.
7. Then, click on the small arrow to collapse the ‘Data Binding’ menu back to how it was before.
8. Now in the same window, locate the ‘Text’ field.
9. Delete the word ‘label’ and type what you would like the link to display as. For example “Click here to pay this invoice”

You have now successfully added in a payment link to your invoice template!

The only thing left to do is to make it look a little bit more like a ‘link’. To do this, follow the steps below.

1. Click into the box where your new link is, and select/highlight the text.
2. Using the controls at the top of the designer, you can apply text controls such as ‘Underline’ and change the colour to a blue that represents a link of some sort. (Or any colour you like for that matter.)
3. At this point, please don’t forget to save the template, otherwise you will loose all of your hard work!

Adding a filter so that the link automatically hides if the invoice has been paid. (Optional)

This step is entirely optional. If a patient clicks on a link for an invoice that has already been paid, they won’t be able to pay again. This just serves to tidy the invoice up a little, as no payment link is actually needed on a paid invoice.

1. To do this, make sure your link is selected on the designer, and click on the small cog icon.
2. In the window that opens, click the 3 dots in the field labelled ‘Formatting Rules‘
3. From this window, select ‘Edit Rule Sheet‘
4. Click the green + icon to the top left of the next window, and give your new rule a name. (Anything will do – Something like, ‘hide link’ etc)
5. In the ‘condition‘ field, copy & paste the following  [outstanding]<=0
6. In the ‘Visible‘ field, click into the drop-down and select ‘NO‘ then close that window.
7. From the ‘Formatting Rules Editor’ window, click on your new rule so that it lights up, and click the single right arrow to move it from the left column over to the right. (This applies the rule) Then click OK.