Pistonlog can take payment four ways through Square (card directly, SMS link, email link, Square Terminal) or you can log any non-card payment manually — cash, cheque, bank transfer. Both happen from the same jobcard, but the two systems track their own records and don't merge.
The Square methods
Enter the customer's card
Type the card number directly into Pistonlog. The card is tokenised in the browser via Square's Web Payments SDK and charged in real time. Best for in-person payments without a card machine.
Send a payment link by SMS
Square generates a hosted checkout page, Pistonlog texts the customer the link. Costs 1 SMS credit. The payment starts as PENDING and flips to COMPLETED when Square's webhook tells us they've paid.
Send a payment link by email
Same as SMS but free. Sent from a branded address (payments@mail.pistonlog.com), routes through your domain to avoid spam flags.
Square Terminal (card machine)
Push the checkout to a paired Square card machine — the customer taps the machine, Pistonlog updates when Square confirms. Disabled if you have no Terminal paired.
A 0.5% platform fee (minimum 1p) applies to all Square transactions on top of Square's own card-processing fee.
Recording a manual payment
When the customer pays in cash, by cheque, or by bank transfer:
Open Record payment
On the jobcard, click Record payment.
Enter the amount, method, and reference
Method is just a label — there's no integration with cash drawers or bank feeds. The reference field is for your own records (e.g. "Cheque #1043").
Save
The payment is logged. The jobcard's invoice status recalculates immediately: paid if the total is covered, partial otherwise.
Why the two systems are separate
Square payments and manual payments live in different tables. The jobcard's unpaid / partial / paid status is calculated from manual payments only — Square payments don't automatically update it. That's deliberate: many garages use Square for some customers and bank transfer for others, and folding them into one count would muddle the books.
When a Square payment completes, you can record a matching manual payment to keep the invoice status accurate. (This is a quirk and may improve in future.)