Payments troubleshooting

Patients are booking without paying the booking fee

Why it happens: Your Stripe setup isn’t finished, so card payments aren’t enabled yet. Clinicify doesn’t block patients from booking in the meantime, so they’re booked in without the fee. It also happens if the appointment was booked by your team rather than online, or if the appointment type’s Booking fee (£) is 0.

What to do: Go to Clinic settings > Integrations > Stripe and check that Card payments enabled is ticked. If it isn’t, select Finish setup and complete Stripe’s steps. Then check the booking fee on the appointment type.

An appointment is stuck on Pending

Why it happens: The patient started paying their booking fee but didn’t finish. Their slot is held for 15 minutes while they pay.

What to do: Wait. The patient can finish paying from their portal using Pay booking fee. If they don’t pay within 15 minutes, the booking is removed and the slot is released. If you select Confirm appointment yourself, the booking is confirmed without the fee.

A patient says their hold expired

Why it happens: They didn’t pay within 15 minutes, so the slot was released. They’ll see “This hold has expired and the slot has been released.”

What to do: Ask them to select Book again and choose a time. No payment was taken for the expired booking.

”Connect Stripe (and finish onboarding) to take payments.”

Why it happens: You selected Send payment link, but card payments aren’t enabled on your Stripe account yet.

What to do: Ask the clinic owner to finish the Stripe setup. See Connect Stripe to take payments.

I can’t see Take payment on an appointment

Why it happens: Take payment only appears when Stripe is connected and the appointment is confirmed or completed.

What to do: Check the appointment’s status. For a pending, cancelled or no-show appointment, there’s no Take payment button.

A patient isn’t sure their payment went through

Why it happens: After paying from a payment link, or paying a booking fee somewhere they aren’t signed in to your portal, the patient is taken to a page in your patient portal. It doesn’t need them to sign in, so it shows nothing about them or the appointment. It says Thank you, your payment has been received, or Payment cancelled if they left the Stripe page without paying.

What to do: Open the appointment and check the Payments section. If a payment still says Awaiting payment, reload the page after a moment. If the patient cancelled, they can use the same link to try again.

The payment link won’t send by text

Why it happens: Text messages go to UK mobile numbers only. You’ll see “This patient’s phone number isn’t a valid UK mobile. Update it on their profile before sending.” If the patient has no email address or phone number, that option can’t be selected.

What to do: Update the patient’s details, or send the link by email.

The no-show fee wasn’t charged

Why it happens: One of these:

• There’s no card on file, because the booking didn’t take a booking fee.
• No No-show fee (£) is set in Booking policy.
• The card was declined, or the bank needed the patient to approve the payment. You’ll see “the card on file couldn’t be charged”.

What to do: Check your booking policy. For a declined card, send the patient a payment link with Take payment.

There’s no refund button

Why it happens: Only the clinic owner sees Danger zone, and only when there’s something to refund. Booking fees kept after a late cancellation aren’t refunded from the appointment page.

What to do: Ask the owner. To refund a kept booking fee or part of a payment, use your Stripe dashboard. Clinicify updates the appointment when the refund goes through.

Still stuck?

Contact support and tell us which appointment it is and what you see.