Cliniko and PayNow: what works today, and the one catch.

Cliniko's online payments run on Stripe. Its own pages say patients can pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. PayNow is not mentioned.

If your patients ask to pay by PayNow, here is what you can do, and the one thing Cliniko's API does not allow.

What Cliniko does on its own.

• Online payments. Patients pay an invoice by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay through Stripe, and the money goes to your bank account.
• Deposits at online booking. Each appointment type can allow payment, require a deposit, or require full payment during booking. We tested it on a Singapore account with a S$1.00 deposit and it worked. In the same test, a S$0.50 deposit skipped the payment step, so use S$1 or more.
• Xero. Cliniko sends invoices to Xero as soon as they are created, and payments once they are allocated to an invoice. It only goes one way.

Adding PayNow.

Since Cliniko's checkout does not list PayNow, PayNow comes from outside Cliniko: a payment link from a provider that takes PayNow, sent to the patient by WhatsApp, email or SMS.

The catch: Cliniko's API cannot record the payment.

Cliniko's API can read appointments, patients and invoices. It cannot create an invoice, record a payment or mark an invoice paid.

So a PayNow payment taken outside Cliniko cannot be written into Cliniko on its own. Someone at the clinic still records it in Cliniko. A connection can make that a quick step instead of a search through the bank statement.

Could Cliniko's own checkout show PayNow?

Stripe supports PayNow for Singapore accounts. Cliniko's pages do not say whether its checkout shows it, and we have not tested it. If it ever does, that would be the simplest route, because the payment would land in Cliniko by itself.

For what else can be connected to Cliniko, see Cliniko WhatsApp integration.