Online invoicing: get paid faster without changing your accounting

Between the moment you send an invoice and the moment the money lands, there is rarely a solvency problem. There is a queue: your PDF waits for a human to open it, file it, log into their bank and retype an amount. It's the same plumbing we wire up when we connect payments on a site through our services, except the point of contact here is an invoice rather than a checkout page.

We're writing this from our own books rather than from a software comparison: Peich Technologies bills its subscription clients through Stripe and keeps its accounts in QuickBooks Online. Moving from an invoice-as-document to an invoice that collects requires changing neither your accountant nor your software. It requires putting a means of payment inside the document, and deciding which rail the money travels on.

The short answer, for the busy

Online invoicing means sending an invoice that carries its own payment method: the customer opens a link, clicks and pays, instead of receiving a PDF and going back to their banking app. In Canada, the two common routes cost roughly the same. Stripe charges 0.4% per paid invoice on top of the card's 2.9% + CA$0.30. QuickBooks Payments lists 2.9% and CA$0.25 per transaction, 1% for a bank payment, with no monthly fee. Pre-authorized debit, at 1% + CA$0.40 capped at CA$5 on Stripe, becomes the cheapest channel past a few hundred dollars. Three Quebec obligations apply whatever the tool: the invoice must be drawn up in French (Charter of the French Language, s. 57), the tax must appear clearly on it (Quebec Sales Tax Act, s. 425), and your registration number becomes mandatory from CA$100 up.

What a PDF invoice actually asks of your customer

Count the steps. The customer receives an email with an attachment, opens it, decides it isn't urgent, leaves it in the inbox. Later they forward it to someone or note it in a spreadsheet. On payment day they open their banking app, look for your name in their payees, don't find it, add one, retype your email address and the amount, pick a security question.

Half a dozen steps, none of which earns your customer anything. A payable invoice is a link and a click: the work still exists, it's just done by software rather than by a human's willpower on a Tuesday morning. That's why collection delays don't get fixed with firmer reminders. A reminder attacks motivation, and the problem is friction. The one exception is the large organization that pays in batches: its calendar won't move.

What the "Pay now" button really costs

The fees depend on the rail you pick, not on the software. Take a CA$2,400 invoice.

By card through Stripe Invoicing: 0.4% per paid invoice (CA$9.60) plus 2.9% + CA$0.30 in processing (CA$69.90), so CA$79.50. By card through QuickBooks Payments, whose Canadian schedule lists CA$0 a month, 2.9% and CA$0.25 per transaction: CA$69.85. The difference between the two is noise.

The real gap shows up when you change rails. QuickBooks bank payments are billed at 1%, so CA$24. Stripe's pre-authorized debit, at 1% + CA$0.40 capped at CA$5, costs CA$5. On that invoice, the choice of rail is worth CA$75.

Two caveats before moving everything to the bank. These rails are slower: at QuickBooks, a card is deposited the next business day while a bank payment takes 3 to 5 business days. And failure is expensive: CA$25 for a bank reject, CA$30 for insufficient funds.

Hence the rule: below a few hundred dollars, the card is the right default. Above that, put the bank rail first and keep the card as a fallback. The processing, payout and dispute mechanics are the same as for a store, except that on an invoice you're the one deciding the order of the options.

The lines Quebec law requires on your invoice

Most invoice templates are designed somewhere other than here, and they're always missing two or three things.

French isn't a style preference. Section 57 of the Charter of the French Language, amended in 2022 by Bill 96, is explicit: invoices, receipts, releases and other documents of the same nature are to be drawn up in French. The same section forbids sending one in another language unless the French version is available to the recipient on terms at least as favourable. A bilingual invoice passes; an English-only invoice sent to a Quebec customer doesn't.

The tax has to appear clearly. Section 425 of the Quebec Sales Tax Act requires a registrant to indicate to the recipient, on the invoice or in a written agreement, either the consideration and the tax in a way that makes the tax amount clear, or that the amount paid includes the tax. A combined GST and QST total is allowed, but a displayed rate has to be shown separately from the rate of any other tax.

Your registration number, from CA$100 up. The Regulation respecting the Quebec Sales Tax sets three tiers of information your customer needs in order to claim their input tax refund. Under CA$100: your name, the date, the total, the tax or its rate, a sufficient description. From CA$100 to under CA$500: all of that, plus your registration number. At CA$500 and up: all of that, plus the buyer's name, a description sufficient to identify each supply, and the terms of payment.

That last tier deserves a pause: the line everyone leaves blank ("due on receipt", "net 30", interest on late payment) is already supposed to be there. Write it, and you settle the ambiguity that excuses half of all late payments. The rest of the tax obligations are covered in our piece on GST, QST and what a Quebec online store owes.

Interac, the Quebec reflex, and where it stops

In Quebec the first question is always the same: why not an Interac e-Transfer, which costs me nothing? For small invoices, that's defensible. Past a certain amount it literally blocks. Interac publishes this itself: transaction limits are set by your financial institution, but typically run between CA$2,000 and CA$3,000 per transaction for consumers. A CA$4,000 invoice therefore gets paid in two instalments, or not at all.

Interac does have a business range. Its business request-money service asks for payment from your website, a QR code or directly inside your invoices, with instant deposit. But it's set up through your financial institution, not by signing up online on a Sunday night, and an ordinary e-Transfer arrives with no invoice reference, which moves the work into reconciliation instead of removing it.

Retainers: the invoice nobody has to look at

For a monthly plan, the best invoice is the one that gets paid without anyone acting. That's our case: our clients' subscriptions are charged automatically, and an invoice that settles itself never runs late. On Stripe, recurring billing sits in Billing, priced at 0.7% of billed volume, which excludes one-off invoices. On QuickBooks, you schedule recurring invoices and the customer sets up a pre-authorized payment.

The math changes with the amount. A CA$400 monthly plan on a card costs about twelve dollars in fees and nobody blinks. A CA$3,000 monthly retainer on a card costs more than CA$1,000 a year, against CA$60 on pre-authorized debit capped at CA$5. In exchange, slower settlement and a CA$5 failure fee.

Chasing without thinking about it, and where an agent earns its keep

Before automating anything clever, turn on what's already included. Stripe schedules automatic reminders for unpaid invoices, before, on, or after the due date. Retries follow a configurable policy whose recommended setting is 8 attempts over 2 weeks, and an invoice can be flipped to uncollectible after 30, 60 or 90 days. That handles most of the delays that are simple forgetfulness.

An AI agent has no business in that part: sending an email on day seven is timer work.

It becomes useful one notch further along, when the replies come back. "We're waiting for project completion." "The PO number is missing." "That's already paid, here's the proof." Those emails land in the same inbox as everything else and need to be read, classified and routed, which is exactly what an email triage agent does well. An agent that ties a reply to the right invoice, pulls the "already paid" cases out of the chase cycle and escalates disputes is worth more than one writing polite reminders. Neighbouring use cases are collected in our AI agents hub.

Where to start

Make your invoice payable first: a link, a button, inside the document itself. It's the only change that acts on the delay rather than on your patience. Then fix the template once and for all: French, tax clearly shown, registration number, buyer's name, description of the supplies, terms of payment in writing.

Choose the rail by amount: card for small invoices, bank rail above that, automatic debit for retainers. Then turn on the reminders your tool already includes, and see what's left before automating anything else.

→ Let's talk about your invoicing and collections

The rates and timelines cited here come from the official Canadian pages of Stripe, Intuit and Interac, and the legal provisions from LégisQuébec, all verified on August 17, 2026. This is a general explanation, not tax or legal advice: check how it applies to your situation with your accountant.