How invoices, receipts, and payments relate

This page explains how the three billing documents in MapleGather — invoices, payments, and receipts — relate to each other and when each one is created.

How it works

MapleGather uses three distinct billing documents: invoices, payments, and receipts. Each serves a different purpose and appears at a different stage of the billing process.

The three documents

An invoice is a request for payment. It lists what is owed, by whom, and by when. It has a status: Draft, Sent, Paid, Partially paid, Overdue, Uncollectible, or Voided. (A refund is recorded on the payment — the invoice stays Paid.) The invoice is the billing record that an org sends to a member.

A payment is a record of money changing hands. It has a status: Pending, Succeeded, Failed, Refunded, Partially refunded, or Disputed. A payment is created when a charge attempt is made, whether by the member at checkout, by the admin manually recording offline cash, or by a subscription auto-renewal.

A receipt is a confirmation that a payment succeeded. It is a read-only document sent to the member via email and available for download from their billing portal. Receipts are generated automatically — you don’t create them manually.

How they connect

One invoice can have one or more payments applied to it. For an invoice an admin sends:

The admin creates the invoice and sends it to the member.
The member pays it from their billing portal. MapleGather creates a Pending payment.
The payment processor confirms the charge. The payment becomes Succeeded.
MapleGather marks the invoice as Paid and emails the member a receipt.

Membership dues work the other way round: the member pays first, and the invoice records it. When a membership application is accepted, and each time a membership renews, MapleGather creates the dues invoice already marked Paid and linked to the payment. It lists the level’s fee and, on a level priced per household member, one line for each additional member. A free level gets a $0 invoice. The member is emailed a receipt for the payment.

When an invoice has a balance paid by multiple payments (for example, a partial offline payment followed by a card payment for the remainder), each payment is linked to the same invoice.

What happens on a refund

When a payment is refunded, the payment status changes to Refunded (or Partially refunded for partial refunds). The invoice does not move — it stays exactly as it was, normally Paid, and the refund is recorded against the payment. There is no Refunded invoice status: Refunded is a payment status. A refund receipt fires to the member automatically — unless an admin suppresses it.

Voiding an invoice does not refund any linked payment — and a paid invoice cannot be voided at all. Voiding applies only to an invoice with no money collected on it — a payment recorded manually counts too, because recording it marks the invoice Paid or Partially paid — so there is no “void the paid invoice, then refund it” sequence: MapleGather refuses the first step. Where money was collected, the refund is the reversal — refund the payment from the payment record, then issue a fresh invoice if one is still owed. An invoice that is Partially paid cannot be voided either — part of it has been collected; refund that payment from the payment record.

Receipts vs. invoices: what the member sees

Members can download both their invoices (what was owed) and their receipts (confirmation that payment was received) from their billing portal. The receipt is the document most members want to keep for their own records. The invoice is available for situations where a member or their employer needs the original billing document, for example for reimbursement.

Manually recorded payments

Manual payments (cash, check, bank transfer) follow the same model as card payments:

A payment record is created and linked to the invoice.
When the admin marks the payment as received, the invoice updates to Paid and a receipt fires to the member (unless suppressed).
Manual payments don’t go through Stripe, so there’s no Stripe payment ID — they exist only in MapleGather’s records.