Charging Clients & Payments
Day-to-day money work — charging a visit, saving a card, keeping a running tab, issuing a refund — all happens in one place: the client's Billing tab. Open any client record and choose Billing to see their saved cards, their open balance, and every payment and claim in one timeline. This page walks through each of those actions the way your front desk will actually use them.
Everything here charges your clients through your connected Stripe account — the money flows to your clinic, and the client sees your clinic's name on their statement.
The Billing tab is permission-gated. Staff need the billing permission on their role to open it — without it the tab shows as "No access". Refunds are gated separately (see Refunds below), so you can let the front desk charge without letting them refund.
Charge a client
Use Charge Client when a client owes you for something right now — a visit, a product, a membership — and you want to collect on their saved card immediately. It works like a small point-of-sale: you build a cart from your catalog, the platform figures out tax, and the card on file is charged in one click.
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Open the client's record, go to the Billing tab, and click Charge Client. A checkout window opens with your catalog on the left, a cart in the middle, and the payment summary on the right. The three-pane checkout: pick items on the left, review the cart, and confirm the charge on the right.
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Pick what you're charging for. The left pane has three tabs — Products, Services, and Memberships — with a search box in each. Click an item to add it to the Cart; use the + and − controls to adjust quantities. Only items that have a price configured appear here, so if something's missing, set its price in your catalog first.
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Optionally apply a Discount. The dropdown lists your Stripe Coupons and Promotion Codes, and the discounted total updates in the summary — Subtotal, Discount, Tax, and Total — before anything is charged.
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Choose the Payment Method. The client's saved cards are listed with their brand and last four digits (for example VISA •••• 4242). If there's no card yet, click Add payment method to enter one on the spot — see Saved cards below.
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Click Charge $X (the button always shows the exact amount, tax included). On success you'll see Checkout successful!, and the payment appears in the transaction list immediately. If the client pays by bank transfer (ACH), the toast reminds you it takes 3–5 business days to complete.
If the cart holds one-time items and you don't want to charge a card right now, click Bill to account instead of Charge. The amount is added to the client's open Balance as an unpaid charge — nothing hits their card until you settle it later. This is how you run a "pay at the end of the month" tab.
Charging a Membership from this modal starts a recurring subscription on the selected card — it isn't a one-off payment. The client is then billed automatically each cycle until the membership is canceled.
Save a card on the client's behalf
A saved card (a card kept on file with your payment processor) is what makes one-click charging possible. Staff can add a card for a client over the phone or at the front desk — the client doesn't need to do anything, and nothing is sent to them during entry.
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In the Billing tab, click Payment methods. A panel opens listing every card and bank account on file, each showing the brand, last four digits, and expiry. Each saved card shows which location's payment account it belongs to.
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Click Add new. If your organization runs multiple locations with separate payment accounts, a Select Stripe account step appears first — pick the location this card should belong to. A card is saved to exactly one location's account and can only be charged by that location, so choose the one the client actually visits.
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Enter the card in the Add a card window and click Save card. The window notes that the card is entered here on the client's behalf — nothing is sent to the client. On success you'll see Card saved to the client, and the card is ready to charge immediately.
When a clinic has more than one payment account, every card in the list carries a small label naming its location, and the charge window disables cards that belong to a different location than the one you're charging from — with a tooltip explaining which location the card is on. That's your cue to either switch the Location at the top of the charge window or add a card for the current one (Add card for {location}).
Each saved card has two default toggles — Membership and Purchases. Mark the card the client wants used for recurring membership billing, and (optionally) a different one for one-off purchases. Defaults just pre-select the card; staff can still pick another at charge time.
The client's tab — Balance, Add charge, Settle
The Balance card on the Billing tab is the client's A/R ledger (accounts receivable — a running list of what they owe you). Use it when you don't want to charge a card at the moment of service: post charges to the balance as they happen, then collect them all at once.
The Balance card totals every unpaid item; tick charges and settle them together.
To post a charge, click Add charge. You can pull the line from your catalog — the search covers Products, Services, and CPT codes (billing codes with your configured rates) — or just type a free-text Description (like "Personal training session") and an Amount. Click Add charge and it lands on the balance as an unpaid item. No card is touched.
To collect, tick the charges you want to clear (or Select all) and click Settle. The Settle balance window gives you three ways to get paid:
- Card on file — charge the selected total to one of the client's saved cards right now. The button shows the exact amount, e.g. Charge $123.45.
- Invoice — email the client a hosted invoice they can pay online. Set the Send to address, an optional Due date and Memo, and click Send invoice. The charges flip to Invoiced · awaiting payment until the client pays.
- Mark paid — record a payment you took outside the platform: Cash, Venmo, Check, Zelle, or Other (external), with an optional note. Nothing is charged; the ledger just closes out.
To discount, click + Add discount inside the Settle window before you collect. You can apply one of your existing Stripe coupons, or a manual $ off / % off — to the whole selection or to one specific line — and manual discounts ask for a short reason that stays on the record. The discount shows as its own negative line everywhere the client looks (the emailed invoice, the card charge) and in your ledger history, so the math is always visible: full price, minus the discount, equals what was collected.
Posted a charge by mistake? The trash icon on any open charge voids it. Everything that's been settled or voided stays visible under Ledger history, so the tab is always auditable.
If the client has credit on their account (from an overpayment or an insurance adjustment), the Balance card shows it and applies it when you settle. You can also push credit to Stripe with Apply to Stripe, where it reduces the client's next invoice automatically.
Issue a refund
Refunds go back to the card that paid, through the same payment account the charge came from. There are two ways to issue one, depending on how precise you need to be.
For one payment (full or partial): click the payment in the Transaction activity list to open its Transaction Details, then click Issue Refund (up to $X). The refund amount is pre-filled to the full refundable amount — lower it for a partial refund — and Confirm Refund sends it. You'll see Refunded $X, and the row's status updates to Refunded or Partial Refund.
For several payments at once: use the Refund button in the tab's toolbar. Tick the payments to refund, write the required Reason for refund, and click Issue Refund. This path refunds each selected payment in full and records who issued it and why — the reason and staff name show on the transaction afterward.
The toolbar Refund button only appears for admins and staff who've been granted the refund permission — having billing access alone isn't enough. If someone who should be refunding can't see the button, an admin needs to add the refund permission to their role under Settings.
Transaction activity and Sync
The Transaction activity panel is the client's full money timeline: card payments, insurance claims and superbills, and insurance remittances, newest first. Each row shows what was bought, its status (Paid, Processing, Refunded, Failed, and so on), and which staff member charged it. Use the search box and the category and status filters to find anything fast — for example every refunded service this quarter.
Payments made outside the platform's own flows — say a charge issued directly from your Stripe dashboard — don't appear until they're pulled in. Click Sync in the toolbar to re-read the client's record from Stripe; you'll see Synced transactions from Stripe when it finishes, and the list updates in place.
What the client receives
Clients aren't left guessing when you charge them. What lands in their inbox depends on how the money was collected:
- A staff charge to a card on file produces a standard Stripe payment receipt, sent to the client's email address — provided receipt emails are turned on in your connected Stripe account's settings. Nothing else is emailed, so a phone-order charge stays low-noise.
- An invoice (from Settle → Invoice or the toolbar's Send Invoice) is emailed to the client with a secure link to pay online — this is the one flow that always emails them.
- A purchase the client makes themselves in their app or portal gets a branded order confirmation from your clinic automatically.
Atlas can pull payment answers without you digging through the list. Try:
- "What's this client's open balance and what's on it?"
- "Show me this client's payments from the last 90 days."
- "Which clients have an unpaid invoice right now?"
Next steps
- Put prices on your catalog → the Charge window only shows items with a configured price. Set them up in Services & Memberships.
- Connect or check your payment account → card charging runs through your Stripe connection; see Stripe Integration.
- Bill insurance instead of the client → for covered visits, claims and superbills live in Insurance & Billing.