LakeOps Payments: letting customers pay online
LakeOps Payments is the optional mode where your customers pay online from their completion email and the money settles to your own bank account, with a small percentage service fee per payment; the alternative is to bill customers yourself and pay nothing.
There are exactly two payment modes, and picking one is the only money decision you have to make in setup.
The two modes
| Mode | What it means |
|---|---|
| Bill customers yourself | Jobs still complete and still price themselves. You collect however you already do, and record what comes in. No fee, ever. |
| LakeOps Payments | Customers get a pay button on their completion page. Money settles to your bank account. A small percentage service fee per payment. |
Both are legitimate and plenty of shops stay on the first one forever. You can switch later either way.
What switching it on gets you
- Customers pay on a page branded as your business — not as ours.
- The money goes to your bank account, usually within a couple of business days.
- Bank transfer is offered first. On a $2,000 dock bill an ACH transfer costs a few dollars where a card costs tens of dollars, and most customers do not mind at all when it is the default.
- Card is there for the people who want it.
- Chargebacks are between you and your customer, not routed through us.
Setting it up
About ten minutes of plain questions — business name, tax ID, bank account. No API keys, nothing technical, and no separate merchant application to fill in elsewhere. Identity checks and payment compliance are handled for you from then on.
Choosing the mode is not the same as finishing setup. The pay button only appears once the account is actually cleared to take money. Until then the settings page tells you exactly what is still outstanding, and payments switch themselves on when it clears.
If your account does not offer LakeOps Payments yet, it has not been enabled for you — get in touch and we will sort it out. Nothing else about your account changes in the meantime.
The fee
A percentage of each payment, shown as its own line on every payout so it is never a mystery. The current figure for your account is on the payments settings page. There is no monthly fee, no minimum, and nothing at all if you bill your customers yourself.
Turning it off
One button. Your merchant account and its history remain yours, and existing payment records in LakeOps are untouched. You simply go back to billing customers yourself.
What it does not change
Everything else about money works identically in both modes. Jobs price the same way, the completed-work report reads the same, refunds work the same, and a cheque handed over at the dock is recorded by hand whichever mode you are in. The mode only decides whether a pay button exists — see getting paid.
Still stuck? Ask us — or go back to the help center.