Payments
How to get Payments ready to use, how to connect Stripe to charge online, and how reminders for unpaid charges work.
Alchely does not issue invoices
Read this first, because it changes how you use the tool.
Payments keeps track of who owes you what: it records the amount, tells you what is still unpaid, reminds the patient for you and — if you connect Stripe — offers them a link to pay. None of that is an invoice.
A payment record carries no number, no tax ID, no VAT breakdown and no PDF. That is not an oversight: under Spain's Ley 11/2021 and RD 1007/2023 (Verifactu), a system that issues numbered documents is a billing system, with everything that entails — an unalterable hash-chained record, a QR code, corrective invoices. Alchely stays out of that, deliberately.
You keep issuing your invoices in your usual billing software. When you do, note the number in the payment's "Your invoice no." field. It exists only to tie the two together: Alchely does not generate it, does not validate it and does not use it for anything else.
Before you start
Payments is a marketplace tool. You need a Plus subscription and to adopt it from Marketplace → Payments → Adopt.
Once adopted, Payments appears in the sidebar. Until you adopt it, your patients do not see the payments section in their portal either: managing charges here is your decision, and the portal reflects it. There are no tax details to fill in first.
Connecting Stripe (online payment)
Payments → ⚙ Settings → Online payments with Stripe
Optional. Without Stripe, Payments works in full: you record the charge, send it, the reminders go out, and you mark it paid by hand when the transfer or the cash arrives.
- Connect with Stripe takes you to Stripe.
- Sign in with your account or create one. It is your account, not one of Alchely's.
- When you return you see your account name and a button to disconnect.
Whose money it is
The payment link is created on your Stripe account. The money goes from your patient to you, directly.
- Alchely takes no commission for this.
- Alchely never touches the money, and cannot move it.
- Alchely never sees the card number. That happens between your patient and Stripe.
- Stripe will charge you its usual fee. That relationship is yours with Stripe.
If you disconnect from the Stripe dashboard instead of from Alchely, Alchely finds out anyway and drops the link. Only your account identifier (acct_…) is stored, and it is shown on no screen and cannot be edited by hand.
Recording a charge
Two routes: Payments → New payment, choosing a patient; or from a session, Record payment, which arrives with the patient already filled in.
You fill in the line items (description, quantity, price) and save. It stays a draft: only you see it. When it is ready, Send to patient, choosing the send date and whether to include a Stripe payment link.
On sending, the patient receives an email with the amount and a link to their portal. No document is attached, because there is none to attach.
Default line item
If you almost always charge the same — "Therapy session", €50 — there is no need to type it every time. In Payments → Settings → Default line you save the concept, the amount, or just one of the two: they are independent. To clear it, leave the fields empty and save.
The states of a charge
| State | What it means | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| Draft | Yours only, nobody has seen it | Edit, send, cancel |
| Pending | Sent to the patient, unpaid | Mark paid, remind, cancel |
| Paid | The money arrived | Nothing. It cannot be cancelled: the money already moved |
| Cancelled | Discarded | Nothing |
Line items can only be edited in draft. Once sent, changing the amount without warning is not a correction: it is a different request. If you got it wrong, cancel it and create another.
The "Your invoice no." field is the exception: it can be filled in at any state, even after payment. That is normal — often you issue the invoice afterwards.
Bank transfer, Bizum, cash, card terminal: when the money arrives, Mark as paid. It is the same thing Stripe's webhook does, only by hand.
Payment reminders
If a payment is still pending past its due date, Alchely chases it for you.
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| 3 days after the due date | First reminder |
| 7 days after | Second |
| 14 days after | Third and last |
Three limits, always
- Three at most per payment. After that the follow-up is yours.
- One a day at most, even if sending is retried.
- None at all if the payment is paid or cancelled. Chasing money that already arrived is the worst thing this feature could do, so it is blocked in several places at once.
If a payment has no due date, the count starts the day you sent it. On the payment detail, Send reminder sends one now — it counts within the same three. To turn them off: Payments → ⚙ Settings → Reminders; the manual button keeps working.
WhatsApp reminders
If the deployment has WhatsApp configured and the patient has turned it on, reminders reach them there instead of by email. One or the other, never both: a reminder is one notice, not two.
The patient turns it on, not you
In their portal → Payments → WhatsApp reminders. There they enter their number with the international prefix (+34…) and switch it on. You cannot switch it on for them, for two reasons: consent is given by the person, not by a third party on their behalf; and Meta requires explicit consent before any business message.
The WhatsApp number is stored separately from the contact phone on the file. That one is free text and usually in national format; guessing the prefix would mean guessing who receives a message about someone else's money.
The message comes from Alchely's number, not yours, and your name appears in the body so the patient knows who it is from. It carries the patient's name, your name, the concept and the amount. The button always goes to their portal: the Meta-approved template has a fixed destination.
What the patient sees
Their portal → Payments, visible only if you have adopted the tool.
- Their pending, paid and cancelled payments. Not the drafts: those are yours until you send them.
- The pay button, only while the payment is pending. On one already paid it would be an invitation to pay twice.
- No downloadable document. If your patient needs an invoice for their tax return or their insurer, you give it to them from your billing software.
What is sent, and to whom
| Destination | When | What |
|---|---|---|
| Patient (email) | On sending | Amount, concept and a link to their portal. No attachments |
| Patient (email or WhatsApp) | Reminders | Your name, the concept and the amount |
| Stripe | When minting a payment link | Amount, currency, a description and an internal identifier. No patient data |
No notes, no analysis and no clinical content leaves Alchely in any of the three cases.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Payments is not in the menu | The tool is not adopted | Marketplace → Payments → Adopt (needs Plus) |
| I look for the settings in Profile and they are not there | They live in the tool, as with Scheduler | Payments → ⚙ Settings |
| "Stripe is not connected" on sending | You asked for a payment link with no connected account | Connect Stripe, or send without a link |
| The patient gets no notice | Their file has no contact email | Add one on the patient's file |
| The patient cannot see their payments | The tool is not adopted | Adopt it: the portal only shows the section if you manage charges here |
| The reminder went by email and I expected WhatsApp | The patient has not turned it on, or the number is invalid | They turn it on in their portal, with an international prefix |
| I cannot send more reminders | The maximum of three was reached | From there, the follow-up is yours |
| A sent payment has a mistake | It cannot be edited | Cancel it and create another |
| My patient asks for an invoice | Alchely does not issue them | Issue it in your software and note the number here |