Payments

What it's for

Payments is where you connect the Stripe account your customers pay into, and see whether it's ready to take payments. Once it's connected, customers can pay their invoices by card or bank transfer and Stripe deposits the money in your bank account.

This is money your customers pay you. Thermal's own subscription is on Plan & usage, a separate screen.

Reach it from Settings → This company → Payments in the sidebar, at /settings/payments. The Card payments tile on Integrations links here too.

Tabs

This screen has no tabs. It's one Payments section with a status card, a details card once you've connected, and a link to Invoicing settings.

Panels and controls

Card and bank payments

The status card shows one of four states:

• Not connected — you haven't connected Stripe yet. Connect Stripe creates your Stripe account and opens Stripe's own sign-up form, where Stripe collects your business and bank details. Connect an existing Stripe account authorizes an account you already have and keeps your own Stripe dashboard.
• Setup unfinished — Stripe still needs details before the account can take payments or send payouts. This includes an account Stripe has paused until it gets more information, such as an ID document requested after you've started taking payments. Finish setup on Stripe opens Stripe's form where you left off.
• Not approved — Stripe has not approved the account. Open Stripe opens Stripe's form so you can see what Stripe says and what it needs.
• Taking payments — charges and payouts are on and Stripe needs nothing else. View Stripe dashboard opens your Stripe Express dashboard, where you see payouts and your bank details.

Each of these buttons opens a page on Stripe, outside Settings. The card also shows your Stripe account reference once you've connected. That reference is not a secret.

When you come back from Stripe's form, the page checks with Stripe straight away, so the state you see is current. It doesn't wait for Stripe's notification to arrive. A link to Stripe's form expires after a short time. If you open an old one, Stripe sends you back through Thermal and you get a fresh one.

Details

Once you've connected, a second card shows whether payouts to your bank are on, whether your business details have been submitted, and how many items Stripe is still asking for, if any.

Instant payouts

A connected account also shows an Instant payouts preference. Off is the default: Stripe pays out on its normal schedule. Turning it on sets the connected account's payout schedule to manual so you can send funds on demand when Stripe allows it. Turning it off restores the daily schedule.

This is the company's own choice, stored on the Stripe org_integrations row. Stripe decides eligibility at payout time, so the screen never promises that a given payout will arrive in minutes — only that the setting is on. Stripe is updated first; if Stripe refuses, the saved preference is left unchanged. The toggle is hidden until the account is connected.

Card reader locations

Technicians take card payments on their phone by tap to pay. Stripe needs a reader location for each place a reader is used, so every branch has a row here:

• Register reader location creates the branch's location on your own Stripe account, once. Pressing it again never creates a second one.
• A branch with no street, city, postal code, or (in the US and Canada) state or province says which one is missing, with Edit branch address.
• A registered branch shows Registered and the location's reference.
• If you reconnect a different Stripe account, each branch shows as not registered again, because a location belongs to the account it was made on. Register it once more on the new account.

Until Stripe is connected, the panel says to connect it first. Technicians can start the reader once Stripe has turned on payments for the account.

When Stripe can't be reached

If Stripe doesn't answer, the page falls back to the last state Stripe reported and shows "Stripe could not be reached just now. Try again in a moment." If payments aren't set up on this deployment at all, the card says "Payments are not configured on this deployment yet." and shows no buttons.

What it accepts

Stripe collects your business, identity and bank details on its own pages, and Thermal never stores them. Thermal keeps the account reference, the status Stripe reports (charges on, payouts on, details submitted), and the Instant payouts preference above. The Instant payouts control is the only form on this screen.

How to configure it

• The state on this screen comes from Stripe. Stripe tells Thermal whenever the account changes. If Stripe sends an older update after a newer one, Thermal ignores the older one, so a working account doesn't switch off.
• The old Connect button for card payments on Integrations, which linked an existing Stripe account, has been replaced by this screen: Set up payments / Manage payments on Integrations open here.

Who can see it

This screen sits behind the Integrations area.

Owners can open it. Office managers and dispatchers and technicians cannot. The gate is checked on the server, not just hidden in the sidebar, so a direct link does not get around it.

The full role matrix is on Roles & permissions.