Record a cash or bank-transfer payment

Plenty of deposits are paid in cash at the kitchen table, and plenty of final balances are handed over on pick-up day. Record a payment puts that money on the same ledger as a card payment, so your sale, your buyer's puppy page and your paperwork all tell the truth.

You do not need Stripe for this. It works on any account, including one that has never connected Stripe.

The two kinds of payment

Whelpkeep keeps both on one ledger, and always says which is which.

	Stripe deposit	A payment you record
How the buyer pays	Card, through a link you send	Cash, bank transfer, or anything else
Who confirms it	Stripe	You
Needs Stripe connected	Yes	No
Can you edit it afterwards	No — it's a verified payment	Yes — it's your own record
Counts toward the balance	Yes	Yes
Unlocks the buyer's puppy page	Yes	Yes
Appears in the evidence pack	Yes	Yes, marked "recorded by the breeder"

Neither is better. A Stripe payment carries independent proof; a recorded payment is your own word, which is exactly what a paper receipt book has always been.

Record a payment

1. Open Waitlist & Buyers and click the buyer.
2. In Deposits & payments, click Record a payment.
3. Fill in:
   • Amount — what you actually received.
   • How it was paid — cash, bank transfer, or other.
   • Date received — the day the money changed hands, not the day you're typing it in. It can't be in the future.
   • Reference (optional) — a receipt number or the bank transfer reference, so the line matches your own paperwork.
   • For a specific pup (optional) — leave blank if they haven't picked one yet.
4. Click Record payment.

Note — The buyer needs an email address on their record first. That address is how they sign in to their puppy page, so Whelpkeep won't record a payment without it. Add it with Edit on the buyer.

What happens next

The moment you save, all of this follows on its own:

• The balance on the sale drops by that amount (purchase price minus everything received).
• The Financial track moves — Deposit paid, or Paid in full once the payments reach the price.
• The buyer's stage moves to Deposit paid.
• The buyer's puppy page unlocks, exactly as a card deposit would unlock it.
• A receipt appears on their puppy page.
• The payment joins the evidence pack for that sale.

What the buyer sees

Their receipt names the source honestly:

Payment of A$500.00 received on 27 July 2026 — recorded by your breeder (cash).

Your breeder entered this payment themselves, so it isn't a Stripe receipt. If anything looks wrong, contact your breeder.

A card payment says confirmed by Stripe instead. We never tell a buyer a card cleared when it didn't — that honesty is what makes the record worth something if the sale is ever disputed.

Fixing, refunding and removing

Because a recorded payment is your own record, you can correct it. Each line in Deposits & payments offers:

• Edit — change the amount, method, date or reference (typed A$500 instead of A$50).
• Refunded — mark it refunded when you've handed the money back. The sale's Financial track shows Refunded.
• Remove — delete the line entirely. Only use this when it was entered by mistake; if the money genuinely came and went, mark it Refunded so the history survives.

Stripe deposits show none of these. They are confirmed by Stripe, so they can't be edited, marked paid, or removed by hand — and refunds for them happen in Stripe, which reports back here on its own.

Recording the final balance too

The same button handles the rest of the money, not just the deposit. When a buyer hands over the balance on pick-up day, record it the same way. Once the recorded payments reach the purchase price, the sale reads Paid in full.

Does this use up my free deposit?

Yes — a recorded payment counts exactly like a Stripe one. A free account includes one payment (of either kind); after that, taking or recording more needs an annual plan or an activated litter. It unlocks the same paid feature — the buyer's puppy page — so it sits behind the same gate. See How pricing & the trial work.

Why it's marked "recorded by you"

It would be easy to let a cash payment look identical to a card payment. We don't, for two reasons:

1. Your buyers deserve the truth. A receipt that says "confirmed by Stripe" when nothing was confirmed is worthless — worse, it's misleading.
2. It makes your records stronger, not weaker. In a dispute, an evidence pack that distinguishes third-party-verified payments from your own records is far more credible than one that blurs them. Being specific is the point.

Next

Once the money's in, move on to the contract and handover, or read what each field on a sale means in the Sales & contracts reference.