☝️Note: Online payments currently only work with online bookings. You won't be able to process a payment 'in' Cliniko just yet. If your patients are not booking online, you'll enter payments as you've normally been doing (manually entering the payment details, but processing the actual payment itself outside of Cliniko.) 

Also, if the patient has paid for their online booking in advance, they cannot cancel their own appointment using the cancellation link.

If you offer online bookings, you can give your patients the opportunity to pay in advance at the same time they make the booking. This guide will walk you through how to set it up!

There are five parts to this guide:

☝️Note: You will need to have an account with Stripe in order for this to work. If you have one already, great! If not, don’t worry—read on, and we’ll get you set up with one in no time!

Head to Settings, and then Integrations:

Scroll down to Stripe Payments and press the Connect with Stripe button:

If you already have a Stripe account, you can sign in (there will be a spot for you to do so on the next page). If you don't, you'll need to create one. Just fill out all the details on the Stripe page, which will look something like this:

Before finishing, you'll need to be sure that you authorise access to the account:

☝️Note: Linking your Stripe account with your Cliniko account will not automatically enable online payments. You'll need to configure some additional settings!

Once you've authorised Stripe access, you'll be brought back to your integration settings, and it'll look something like this:

You'll notice a number of options you can customise on that page: automatically email receipt, payment type, default deposit amount, and show "Powered by Stripe" bade. Below, we'll walk you through what those mean!

Now that you've connected your Cliniko account with Stripe, the next step will be to decide which appointment types will accept online payment. This is going to be customised per appointment type, and we'll walk you through the steps below!

☝️Note: In order for this to work properly, your appointment types will need to have related billable items set up. Learn how to do this here!

Connecting to Stripe won't automatically mean that your patients can pay online—you'll need to configure a few more settings. These settings will all be managed within individual appointment types.

To get started, head into Settings, and then Appointment types. You'll see your main list of all appointment types, as in the example below:

Select one that you know you want to offer online payments for. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, and make sure that the box under Show in online bookings is checked. Assuming it is, you'll see another field called Online payments:

☝️Note: If this is your first time integrating Stripe with Cliniko, each appointment type will be defaulted to "Disabled".

If you select the menu under Online payments, you'll see four options:

The definitions of those options are as follows:

If you require that the full payment is made before the patient completes the booking, be sure to select "Require payment during booking"! If that option is not selected, a patient would be able to get through the entire booking process without paying.

After you select whether payment type will be allowed or required, make sure to hit Update appointment type. You'll then see a flag that indicates online payments are enabled next to the relevant appointment types:

And that's it! Now you've enabled online payments. Let's take a look at what your patients will see!

When it comes time to book and pay, the patient is going to go through the same regular online booking process as always. They won’t see anything different until the final step—the payment!

Once the patient selects their appointment and fills out their personal details, they'll have to input their payment details (they will see either the total amount, or the required deposit, depending on what you've set up):

Once all is said and done, they'll see the following (assuming their booking is successful):

Great question! So, an online payment is going to look pretty similar to a "regular" payment. There are a few key differences, though.

Firstly, an invoice will automatically be created—and paid (in part, or in full). The little "money" symbol on the appointment will let you know:

If it's a black symbol, it means the invoice has been paid in full. If it's red, it means a deposit has been taken, but the full amount is still owing.

If you open the appointment, you'll see this, as well (this is an example of an invoice paid in full):

If you take a look at the invoice, you'll see how and when it was paid. For online bookings, this typically will be before the appointment date:

If you view the payment, you'll note a new field at the bottom: 'Online payments'. This indicates the patient's payment, as well as the Stripe fee, the net payment amount, and the date it was paid.

If you’re using online payments, Stripe will charge a fee for each transaction. The total amount will differ based on a couple of things: where in the world you're located and what type of card the patient pays with (domestic or international). 

Stripe is an incredibly powerful payment processor, and they're one of the best around. In fact, we use them to process your Cliniko subscription payments, and we're charged fees, too! Stripe has amazing support, they're used world-wide, and they're also just super easy to use.

Like any company, they need to make money—and transaction fees are their way of doing it. It's a small price to pay for safe, secure transactions that are processed in real time!

Please note that we do not make any money from Stripe, nor are we affiliated with them. We simply think that they are the best for the job, and that's why we have chosen to use them as the secure payment processor for online payments.

You can view more details about Stripe's fees here. 

Right now, all refunds need to be processed through Stripe—they can't be processed through Cliniko yet.

If you need to refund a payment, you'll be able to open it up in Stripe via the 'View in Stripe' link:

That will open the payment in Stripe for you:

Click anywhere on that payment—or click the three dots (...) to the right, and it will open up another new page, and you'll see the option to refund in the corner:

Press that, and you'll be prompted to select the amount and reason:

Press the Refund button, and you'll see that the payment now has a 'Refunded' note next to it in Stripe:

Stripe also has resources for issuing refunds on their support site.

☝️Note: Because this refund won't be reflected in Cliniko just yet, you'll need to manually edit the payment within your Cliniko account.

As always, if you have any questions about online payments, our support team is here to help. Happy booking! 🤗