Stripe

About Stripe

Stripe is a payment company. Businesses use it to take card payments, bank payments and direct debits online, and Stripe pays the money out to their bank.

How it works with Sonely

• Families pay an invoice online from the family portal, or from the pay link in the invoice email.
• Cards and bank accounts a family saves can pay each new invoice on their own with auto-pay.
• Families can pay by card, ACH bank payment in the US, Bacs (UK), BECS (Australia) or SEPA (EU) direct debit, or Stripe Link. What each family sees depends on your Stripe account and country.
• Each payment lands on the family's account by itself, and Stripe's fee is recorded as an expense in the category you choose.
• Bank debits count as soon as they start. If one fails later, Sonely reverses it, opens the invoice again and emails the family.
• Refunds you make in your Stripe dashboard come back to the family's account on their own.
• Add an optional convenience fee for cards, bank accounts or Stripe Link: a fixed amount or a percentage, with your own wording at checkout.
• Card and bank details are held by Stripe, never by Sonely. Stripe's own fees apply, and Sonely takes no cut.

Set it up

1. As the studio owner, open Business settings, then Online payments.
2. Choose Add payment processor, then Stripe.
3. Enter your currency and the expense category for processor fees, then choose Connect.
4. Sign in to Stripe, or create an account, and finish Stripe's own steps. Stripe sends you back to Sonely at the end.
5. The processor shows Waiting to connect until Stripe confirms your account, then turns active. Set convenience fees on the same page if you want them.

What it doesn't do

• One Stripe account per studio. You can add PayPal beside it and choose which one is the default.
• Refunds start in your Stripe dashboard, not in Sonely.
• Stripe Link payments can't be saved for auto-pay.
• No sync to accounting software. Download reports as PDF or Excel instead.