Let a customer's card pay their invoicesNew
A regular customer agrees once, and after that their invoices are paid without anybody tapping anything.
Written 11 October 2026
What is said in this recording
For work that repeats — a weekly clean, a monthly contract, a quarterly service — the invoice going out on its own is only half the job. Until the customer agrees to their card being kept, somebody still has to open the email and tap Pay, every single time. This is how that stops.
Step by step
- 1
Ask the customer once, on an invoice they are already paying.
On their own invoice page, above the card boxes, there is “Keep my card for next time”. It is never ticked for them. You cannot set this up on their behalf and there is deliberately no screen for typing somebody's card number in — the only card TaskMyJob ever holds is one its owner put in themselves.
- 2
Or raise it with them, from their customer page.
The Card on file panel has “Ask … to keep their card” whenever they have an unpaid invoice to ask on. It emails them that invoice with the arrangement explained in the same words the tick box uses. Nothing is set up by pressing it — it is a question, and they answer it by ticking the box when they pay.
- 3
They pay as normal, and the agreement is recorded with it.
What they agreed to is stored word for word, with the date, so it can be shown back to them exactly as it read on the day.
- 4
Check it on their customer record.
The card they have left on file shows on their page — the brand, the last four digits, and when invoices will be charged to it.
- 5
Raise invoices exactly as you do now.
Nothing changes about how the work is billed. The invoice goes out, the card is charged, and a receipt follows. There is nothing to press.
Worth knowing
The money is taken as the invoice goes out
There is no waiting period: the invoice is raised, the card is charged, and the customer gets both the invoice and the receipt. That is the fastest this can possibly work, and it is worth knowing the trade — a customer who opens the email and finds the money already gone is more likely to ring the bank than to ring you. Get the invoice right before you raise it, and answer the phone quickly if somebody queries one.
They can stop it without ringing you, and without signing in
Every one of those emails carries a link to their own page, where they can read what they agreed and end it in two clicks. That is the promise in the authority itself. An arrangement somebody has to get past you to cancel is not one they really control, and it is the kind that ends up with the bank rather than with you.
A refused card is tried three times and then left alone
Cards expire and get replaced. After three refusals in a row the agreement stops being used and the invoice goes out with a pay link on it, as it did before — so the customer is never left with a bill nobody is chasing and no way to settle it.
Asking is not setting one up, and there is no way to set one up
The button emails a question. It creates nothing — no agreement, no pending request, nothing to cancel — so if the customer ignores it, that invoice behaves exactly as it would have. It needs an invoice they already owe, because there is deliberately no page anywhere for storing somebody's card on its own: a form whose only purpose is to hold a card number is the one thing this was built not to have. Somebody who already pays this way is not asked again, but a customer whose card expired or who stopped it can be — a replaced card is the commonest reason one of these goes quiet.
You are told the moment a charge is refused
A refusal puts a notification in your bell, naming the customer, the invoice and what the card said — and it says plainly that the invoice still needs paying, because a refused invoice is never tried again automatically. The third refusal gets its own notice, because from then on every future invoice for that customer goes out with a pay link instead. Only the people who run the business get these; nobody on the tools is woken by a card problem they cannot fix.
A gateway having a bad afternoon is not a refused card
If the card provider simply cannot be reached, nothing is taken and nothing is lost — the charge is tried again on the next run. You get one notice about that however many invoices it affected, rather than one for each, and it never reads as though a customer's card was declined.
Only what is actually owed, and only if it is worth taking
The charge is the balance after any deposit, part payment, credit note, CIS deduction and retention still held — never the invoice total. A balance under a pound is left for the next one rather than charged on its own.
Nothing is charged to a cancelled or expired card
An expired card is not guessed at and not tried. An ended agreement is kept, not deleted, so the record of what somebody agreed to — and when they stopped it — survives.
This needs a card gateway connected
The tick box only appears where your business can take card payments on an invoice in the first place. Until a provider is connected there is no card to keep.