A step-by-step guide to setting up automated deposit collection, payment schedules, and invoice triggers so nothing falls through the cracks.
Matt Franklin
Getting paid isn't usually the problem. Getting paid on time, in the right amounts, at the right stages of the job - that's where installation businesses lose control as they grow.
When you're doing five installs a month, someone in the office remembers to send the deposit invoice after the proposal is accepted and chases payment before the install date. At 20 or 30 installs, that person is juggling too many jobs to keep track. Deposit invoices go out late. Install dates pass without payment being confirmed. Cash flow suffers because the system depends on someone remembering to do something at the right time.
Payaca's automations and payment schedules fix this by triggering the right action at the right stage, every time.
Before automating payments, your pipeline needs to reflect how your jobs actually move through your business. A typical clean tech installer pipeline looks something like this:
The key stages for payment automation are Accepted and Deposit paid. The transition between these two is where most businesses lose time.
In Payaca, go to Pipeline Settings and set up an automation on the Accepted stage. When a project enters this stage (meaning the customer has signed the proposal), trigger an automatic deposit invoice.
You configure the deposit amount in your proposal template - typically a percentage of the total. When the automation fires, Payaca generates the invoice and sends it to the customer with a payment link. No one in your office needs to do anything.
If you're connected to Stripe, the customer clicks the link, pays by card or direct debit, and the payment is reconciled automatically. The project moves to the next stage.
Here's where it gets powerful. Set a pipeline guard on the stage after "Deposit paid" - in this example, "Scheduled". The guard prevents a project from moving into the scheduling stage until the deposit invoice is marked as paid.
This means your scheduling team physically can't book an install date for a job where the deposit hasn't been collected. No more turning up to a site and discovering the customer hasn't paid. No more awkward conversations on the day of the install.
For larger installations - especially heat pumps and multi-technology projects - you might want to split payments across multiple stages. A common structure:
Payment schedules let you define these splits at the proposal level. Each stage triggers its own invoice at the right time, with its own payment link.
Payment schedules work with change proposals too. If a customer adds optional items after accepting the original proposal, the schedule adjusts to reflect the new total.
Add automation tags at each payment milestone:
These tags give your office team a dashboard-level view of where every project sits financially. No one needs to open individual projects to check payment status - they can filter by tag and see every job that's waiting on a deposit at a glance.
A customer accepts your solar proposal on Monday morning. Within seconds, they receive a deposit invoice with a Stripe payment link. They pay that afternoon. The project automatically moves to the scheduling stage, and your install coordinator books them in for the following week.
On install day, the second payment invoice is sent before the team arrives on site. On completion, the final invoice goes out with the commissioning confirmation.
Your office team didn't send a single manual invoice. They didn't chase a single payment. The cash came in at the right time because the system enforced it.
If you're already using Payaca's pipeline, this is a configuration exercise, not a rebuild. Start with your most common project type, set up the automations on the acceptance stage, add the stage guard, and connect Stripe if you haven't already. Most businesses have this running within an hour.
If you're not sure which stages to use or how to structure your payment splits, ask Dave in the help chat. Dave can walk you through the setup for your specific workflow.
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