Get paid before the truck leaves, or from a text tonight.

The cheapest invoice to collect is the one paid before the truck pulls away. The second cheapest is the one paid from a text that evening. TradesWork is built for both: a tech can take a tap on a supported phone or open a checkout on the spot, and the customer can pay from the same link that showed their arrival time and options. Everything runs through Stripe, in a Stripe account your company owns.

Whose account is it?

Some field service platforms run payments through a processing relationship they arrange, at a rate you negotiate with them. TradesWork uses Stripe Connect with direct charges on your company's own Stripe account. In practice that means:

• You own it. The account is in your company's name, with the full Stripe dashboard.
• You carry your own disputes and answer chargebacks in Stripe.
• Stripe bills its fees to you at its published pricing, or whatever pricing Stripe has agreed with your account.
• It's portable. If you leave TradesWork, your Stripe account, its history and its saved cards stay with you.

Here is Stripe's published standard US pricing for the methods TradesWork uses, as of October 2026:¹

The bank debit cap matters on big tickets. A $12,000 replacement paid by card online costs about $348.30 at the published card rate; paid by bank debit, the fee tops out at $5. That's a worked example from Stripe's published rates, not a quote.

ServiceTitan's Payments FAQ describes its processing price as custom per merchant,² and its help center describes onboarding ServiceTitan Payments merchants onto Adyen.³ Neither model is wrong. The question to ask any vendor is who owns the merchant account and the saved cards when you leave. ServiceTitan's own help article says it stores only a token and the last four digits, with card data held by the processor.⁴

Taking payment in the field

The invoice screen in the technician app offers every way to collect:

Tap to Pay, step by step

1. 1

   Getting this phone ready

   The app checks the phone supports Tap to Pay and prepares it. On unsupported phones and on the web, the button doesn't appear.

2. 2

   Tip, if you've turned tips on

   The phone turns to the customer with your tip presets, a custom amount or no tip.

3. 3

   Hold the card near the top of the phone

   The customer taps a contactless card or phone wallet.

4. 4

   Confirmed with Stripe

   The server confirms the payment with Stripe before anything shows as paid.

5. 5

   Paid

   The phone shows the amount paid with a Share receipt button; the receipt is the job's One Link, and a receipt text goes out too.

A few details that matter at the kitchen table. Each tap is tied to one attempt, so a shaky connection can't double-charge. After a decline, the same payment stays open and the customer can tap another card. Technicians can only take a tap on jobs assigned to them.

Stripe sets the hardware rules: an iPhone XS or later on a current iOS,⁵ or an NFC-equipped Android phone running Android 13 or later with a recent security update, Google Play services and a stable internet connection.⁶ If a tech's phone doesn't qualify, the button simply doesn't show, and Card or Send link does the job.

Text-to-pay

Every sent invoice has a pay page, reached from the invoice text and from the job's One Link. No login. It shows the line items, member discount lines, subtotal, tax, total, anything already paid, any bank payment still processing, the balance due and a due date.

Paying opens Stripe's hosted checkout, by card or by bank account if you leave bank payments on. Payments are recorded only from Stripe's confirmation, never from the customer's browser saying "done". The receipt section lists one line per payment, including tips and any pending or failed ones.

The customer can tick Save card for future service at checkout, with consent text. If you just need a card on file before a big job or a membership, send a card request link and the customer saves it on Stripe's hosted page. No one in the office ever types card numbers.

If you haven't connected Stripe, the pay page doesn't pretend: it shows "Call to pay" with your number.

Bank payments: pending means pending

ACH is cheap but slow. Stripe's documentation says ACH Direct Debit can take up to 4 business days to confirm success or failure.⁷ TradesWork shows that honestly:

• While it clears, the invoice and the customer's page say the bank payment is processing and usually clears in about 4 business days.
• Pending money never counts as paid, and the pay page doesn't ask for that amount again.
• If it bounces, the payment is marked failed, the invoice reopens and the office gets a notice.

Stripe's ACH docs list full refunds for bank debits, taking up to 3 business days, and give consumers up to 60 calendar days to dispute a debit with their bank.⁷ On a large job where you need certainty before ordering equipment, ask for a card or wait for the payment to clear.

Tips

Tips are off until you turn them on. Then the pay page and Tap to Pay offer three presets (15, 18 and 20% by default, each adjustable from 1 to 50%), a custom amount or no tip. A tip can't exceed the amount being paid, and the ceiling is $5,000.

Tips are kept as their own line. They aren't counted as revenue, aren't taxed with the job, and are split evenly between the job's technicians in payroll. Office card-on-file charges don't ask for a tip, which avoids awkward "did they agree to that?" calls.

Refunds, payouts and memberships

Refunds can be full or partial, need a reason, and can never exceed what's left of the payment. Card and bank refunds go through Stripe; cash and check refunds are recorded by hand. A refunded invoice reopens. Refunds made directly in the Stripe dashboard sync back. Only owners, admins and accounting can refund.

Payouts follow your Stripe schedule, usually about 2 business days after a card payment; change the schedule in Stripe. Accounting shows payout paid and payout failed notices so a bounced payout doesn't go unnoticed.

app.tradeswork.app · Accounting overview with accounts receivable and invoices

Membership autopay charges the saved card or bank account when a membership bills. A failed charge retries on days 1, 3, 7 and 14, and the customer gets a text with an update-your-card link. After that the period goes past due and the office takes over. More on that in memberships and collections.

What we deliberately don't do

• No surcharges or convenience fees. Rules differ by state and card network, some states ban them, and debit cards can't be surcharged. Price processing into your work instead.
• No deposits on proposals or invoices today.
• No keyed card entry in the office.
• No partial amounts on Tap to Pay or the pay page; they charge the remaining balance. Use cash, check or card on file for partials.
• US only.

Switching from another processor

Connect Stripe first and run the $1 test. Then decide what to do about saved cards. Getting stored cards out of another processor depends on that processor agreeing to export them, and linking imported cards to TradesWork customers isn't built yet. The reliable path today is an update-your-card campaign: send customers a card request link and let them save a card on Stripe's page. Start with members on autopay, because a missing card there turns into a failed charge.