Invoice Lifecycle
PayPal tracks both the lifecycle status and the payment or refund status of an invoice.
An invoice payment can be either:
-
Connected to an invoice. To make a payment, the customer clicks Pay on the invoice and the payment is automatically recorded.
-
Disconnected from an invoice. The customer pays by check, wire transfer, or another method. The merchant manually records the payment.
Similarly, an invoice refund can be disconnected from an invoice. The merchant refunds a payment by check, wire transfer, or another method and manually records the refund.
This table lists the typical order through which an invoice moves through status values:
Status | Occurs when |
---|---|
DRAFT |
A merchant creates a draft invoice. Note: A customer cannot pay an invoice until it has a status of |
UNPAID |
A merchant sends the invoice and chooses to suppress the PayPal email notification. After the merchant sends the invoice with this option, the invoice has the To send an invoice without email notification, the merchant either:
|
SENT |
A merchant uses the API or the Create Invoice page to send the invoice with the default PayPal email notification.
PayPal automatically emails the invoice to the customer and a Pay button appears on the invoice, which enables the customer to pay the invoice. In a web app, the invoice appears as |
SCHEDULED |
A merchant schedules the invoice to send the invoice on a future date. On that date at 07:00 in the preferred time zone of the merchant's PayPal account profile, PayPal:
|
PARTIALLY_PAID |
A customer makes a partial payment for the invoice. To make a partial payment for the invoice, the customer makes either:
|
PAYMENT_PENDING |
A customer pays an invoice but the payment is pending for one of these reasons:
Note: Most payments never go into a payment-pending state. |
PAID |
A customer fully pays the invoice. To fully pay the invoice, the customer makes either:
|
MARKED_AS_PAID |
A customer makes a disconnected payment for the balance of the invoice. Then, the merchant manually marks the invoice as paid. |
CANCELLED |
A merchant or customer cancels a sent invoice with either |
REFUNDED |
A merchant fully refunds the invoice. To fully refund an invoice, the merchant makes either:
|
PARTIALLY_REFUNDED |
A merchant partially refunds an invoice. To partially refund the invoice, the merchant makes either or both:
|
MARKED_AS_REFUNDED |
A merchant makes a disconnected refund, such as a check payment, for the invoice balance and manually marks the invoice as fully refunded. Note: A merchant can only mark a marked-as-paid invoice as refunded. |