Collect Payment by Bank Transfer or Purchase Order
Bank transfer collects money without a card processor. You add the Bank Transfer / Purchase Order option to your form, HelloForms records the amount owed on the entry, and the person paying receives your account details and a reference number on the thank-you screen and in their confirmation email. You reconcile the transfer yourself when it lands.
That is the right choice in three situations: business customers who pay on invoice against a purchase order, amounts large enough that card fees matter, and countries where transfer is simply the normal way to pay. It is the wrong choice when you need the money before you deliver, because nothing stops a person submitting the form and never paying.
When bank transfer beats a card processor
| Bank transfer / PO | Card processor | |
|---|---|---|
| Fees | Bank charges only | Percentage per transaction |
| Payment timing | Days, manual | Instant, automatic |
| Confirmation | You mark the entry paid | Marked paid automatically |
| Best for | Invoices, purchase orders, large amounts | Small, instant, self-serve sales |
Because confirmation is manual, treat every bank-transfer entry as pending until you have seen the money. Nothing in the form can verify a transfer for you.
Add the option to your form
- Open your form and go to the Payments tab in the element panel.
- Choose Bank Transfer / Purchase Order as the gateway. It needs no connection step and no keys — there is no processor to authorise.
- Set the amount: a fixed price, a product list, or a total driven by a calculated field. See conditional logic if the amount depends on earlier answers.
- Enter the account details you want shown: account name, account number and sort code, or IBAN and BIC, plus the payment reference format.
- Add a Purchase order number field if your customers need one, and use a rule to require it only when the payer picks "Pay on invoice".
A form can hold one payment element. If you swap Bank Transfer for Stripe later, the builder asks you to confirm the replacement, and past entries keep the gateway they were submitted with.
Show details after submission, not before
Put your account details on the thank-you screen and in the confirmation email, never in the form body. Two reasons: the reference number only exists once the entry does, and account details in a public form body get scraped.
Use the entry's reference token in both places so the transfer can be matched to the entry when it arrives. Set the confirmation email up under notifications, and keep the reference visible in your inbox column list so reconciliation is a two-column comparison rather than a search.
Reconcile transfers against entries
Each entry carries a payment status. When a transfer lands in your bank, open the entry and mark it paid; the status is stored with a timestamp and the person who set it, so a shared workspace has an audit trail. Unpaid entries stay flagged, and you can filter the inbox down to pending payments and chase them from there.
For purchase orders, store the PO number as its own field rather than in a free-text note. That makes it filterable and exportable, which is what your finance team will ask for the first time an invoice is queried. Compare approaches on the pricing page if you need submission volume beyond your current plan, and browse payment templates for a starting layout.
FAQ
Does HelloForms verify that the transfer arrived?
No. There is no connection to your bank, so nothing can be confirmed automatically. HelloForms records the amount, the reference and the payment status you set by hand. Treat entries as unpaid until you have checked your own account.
Can I combine bank transfer with card payment on one form?
Not on the same element — a form holds one payment element. The usual pattern is one form per payment route, or a card form plus a "Pay on invoice" form linked from the same page.
Where should the account number live?
In the payment element's account details, which render on the thank-you screen and in the confirmation email. Do not paste account details into a form description; anything in the form body is public to anyone who opens the link.
What reference should the payer use?
The entry reference HelloForms generates. It is unique per submission, so it matches a transfer to an entry without relying on names, which arrive inconsistently from banks.
Is a purchase order number required?
Only if you require it. Add the field and use a rule to make it mandatory when the payer chooses to pay on invoice, so private customers are not blocked by a field that does not apply to them.
Try it on a real form
These templates already ship with the logic described above. Open one, fill it in, and watch the rules fire — no account needed.