A Direct Invoice is what you use to charge for your own work — planning fees, consultation, change fees. The client pays on a card inside your branded portal and the funds settle into your connected Stripe account. The other kind — Supplier Invoice — is for what the client owes a tour operator, cruise line, or hotel; Trips just tracks the schedule there.
What a Direct Invoice is for
Use one when you want to collect money on a card for your own work — planning, consultation, change fees. What it is not for: the price of the cruise, hotel, or tour. Those are Supplier Invoices. About 95% of your invoices will be Supplier.
Direct Invoice
For your own fees
Client pays online with a card
Funds settle to your Stripe account
No commission tracking
Requires Stripe Connect setup
Supplier Invoice
For what the client owes a supplier
Payment happens outside Trips
Tracks deposit + final schedule
Records commission per line
No Stripe setup required
Creating a Direct Invoice
From any trip detail page, click + Create → Invoice. A modal opens with two tiles — Supplier and Direct. Pick Direct Invoice and you land on the invoice builder.
The builder looks almost identical to a Supplier Invoice, with two differences: no commission section on line items (no supplier in between), and a Pay button on the published client view. Everything else — line items, payment terms, the bill-to snapshot, the share link — works the same.
How the client pays
When you click Share, Trips mints a link on your branded portal (your custom domain if you have one, otherwise your-agency.urtravelpro.com). Copy and text it, or use the Send button to email it from your connected Gmail.
The client clicks the link and sees the invoice — your logo, your colors, the total, and a Pay button. They tap Pay, the pay form expands inline, they enter card details (or use Apple Pay / Google Pay), and confirm. The whole thing happens on your portal page; they never get bounced to stripe.com or asked to make an account.
When the payment succeeds, the funds land in your Stripe account on Stripe's standard payout schedule, Trips records the payment automatically (amount, card brand, last 4, cardholder name), the invoice flips to Paid (or Partially paid on a deposit milestone), the client gets a receipt, and you get a bell notification.
The fee math
Two fees come off every Direct Invoice payment: Stripe's processing fee (for US cards, 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge), and a small UrTravelPro platform fee on top. The client is charged the full invoice amount; Stripe deducts both fees and the rest settles to your Stripe balance. The exact split shows on the payment row inside Trips and on your Stripe dashboard under Payments.
Refunds
Refunds go through Stripe — the money was on a real card, so it has to be refunded to that card. Open the invoice, find the payment in the Payments section, click the menu on the payment row, and pick Refund via Stripe. Enter the amount (defaults to the full remaining refundable balance) and confirm. Trips calls Stripe, Stripe refunds the card, and the refund records on the invoice as a negative payment row.
Full or partial refunds both work, and you can issue multiple partials against the same payment until the full amount is returned.
Troubleshooting
The Direct tile is greyed out — why?
Your Stripe account isn't ready to charge yet. Click Set up direct payments on the greyed-out tile to finish setup, or see the Stripe Connect troubleshooting article.
The client paid but the invoice still says Unpaid.
Refresh the invoice. Trips records the payment immediately when the client's browser confirms, or a moment later when Stripe notifies Trips. If it's still Unpaid after a minute, see the Stripe Connect troubleshooting article.
The client got "Your card was declined" on the pay form.
That message comes from the client's bank, not Trips. Ask them to call the number on the back of the card to authorize the charge, then try again.
Can I refund a Direct Invoice without going through Stripe?
No. The money was charged on a real card, so it has to be refunded to that card. Refund via Stripe on the payment row is the only path.