Invoice and/or "request money"

[MultiCulti]

I haven't used PayPal for a long time,  and am trying out the invoicing feature for my little side business.  So, I just sent an invoice; was I supposed to do a request money as well (attaching the invoice), or will there be a pay link on the invoice?

In other words, what is my customer's experience when she receives the invoice? Can she pay easily, or do I need to complete an additional step?

Thanks for your help!

[PayPal_Andy · Accepted solution]

MultiCulti- That's a good question, I'm glad you came to the forums to ask.  The invoice would provide everything the buyer needs to pay for the item. Potentially they don't even need a PayPal account to do so.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

Andy

[MultiCulti]

thanks so much Andy.  Glad it is so easy (for me AND my customer), and so professional looking!  Now, I just need to incorporate the invoicing into my quickbooks, and automate the shipping and then I'll be really organized!

[JMM1]

My customer paid an invoice, and when I look at the invoice it shows the payment as "sent." However, the money does not show up in my paypal balance and I haven't received an email saying that the payment was received. Why?

[PayPal_Andy]

JMM1- When you're looking at the invoice and it says 'sent', that's not the buyer sending a payment.  That's a status that you 'sent' the invoice.  If the buyer had paid, it would change to 'paid' or 'pending' depending on how the buyer makes the payment.  So the reason that you haven't received notification is because the payment hasn't been made.

Andy

[kaylabeavers518]

What is the difference between 'request money' and just making an invoice?

[PayPal_Andy]

kaylabeavers518-  Since they both accomplish the same thing, that is a good question.  Really the biggest difference is the fact that our invoicing system is quite modifiable, so if you want to personalize your invoices with your business information you can do that far more than the request money option. Plus invoice templates can be saved for future use if you need to send out invoices again later.

So really, if you're just asking someone for money as a one-off situation, the request money would probably work best.  If you're getting pretty in depth into the business side of things and need to get in touch with multiple people to pay you, invoices would probably be a better choice.

Hope that answers your questions.

Andy

[jstreetm]

When you send an invoice, and they pay does the moeny goes into your paypal account or can they only send checks to the billing address?