Affirm Buy Now, Pay Later Arrives in QuickBooks Online Invoicing

QuickBooks Online is rolling out Affirm as a buy now, pay later payment method on customer invoices, giving small businesses a way to let customers split purchases into installments while still collecting the full invoice amount up front.

How Affirm Works Within QuickBooks Payments

When a customer chooses Affirm at the time of payment, they are entering into a direct repayment arrangement with Affirm. The business itself is not extending credit and is not responsible for collecting installment payments from the customer. Instead, the business receives the full invoice amount directly, and the customer repays Affirm over time according to the terms they selected.

Affirm is integrated into the existing QuickBooks Payments infrastructure. That means once it is enabled, it runs through the same refund, reconciliation, and dispute workflows a business already uses for card and bank transfer payments. There is no separate dashboard to manage and no parallel process for handling disputes or returns.

Transaction Limits and Eligibility

Affirm transactions are supported for invoice amounts between $50 and $30,000. However, the amount a customer is actually approved to finance is determined by Affirm based on that individual customer’s credit profile. A business can offer the option on a qualifying invoice, but approval is never guaranteed on the customer’s end.

The feature is limited to standard invoices. Several document types and payment scenarios are not supported:

Estimates
Recurring invoices
Batch payments
Subscriptions

Businesses that rely heavily on automated billing cycles or recurring payment schedules will not be able to offer Affirm on those transactions.

Fee Structure and Settlement

The business pays a single processing fee for each Affirm transaction. Because the fee structure is bundled into one charge, businesses do not see the separate line-item credit card network fees that typically accompany card-based payments. The processing fee is deducted the same way fees are handled for other payment methods processed through QuickBooks Payments.

Settlement follows the standard QuickBooks Payments timeline. Funds are deposited directly into the business’s linked bank account, typically on the next business day following the transaction. Affirm payments reconcile alongside other payment types, so they appear in the same place a business already reviews when matching deposits to invoices.

Turning the Feature On or Off

Affirm is controlled through the same invoice payment settings that govern other payment methods in QuickBooks Online. The toggle lives under the Sales tab in Account and Settings, where businesses can enable or disable buy now, pay later options at the company level.

The steps are:

Open Settings, then select Account and settings.
Select the Sales tab.
In the Invoice payments section, select Edit.
Toggle the Buy now, Pay later switch on or off.
Select Save.

Once the company-wide setting is enabled, the option becomes available on individual invoices. When creating a new invoice or opening an existing one, a business can select Manage to open the invoice settings panel and review the Payment options section to confirm that buy now, pay later is available to that customer before sending the invoice.

What to Watch For

Because Affirm approval depends on the customer’s credit profile, some customers may apply and not be approved, or may be approved for an amount that does not cover the full invoice. In those cases, the customer would need to use another payment method for the remaining balance.

The feature is still rolling out, so not every QuickBooks Online user will see the toggle immediately. Businesses that want to offer it should check their Sales settings to confirm whether it has been activated for their account. For broader help with QuickBooks Online payment and invoicing settings, the configuration panel under Account and Settings is the central place where all payment methods, including buy now, pay later, are managed.