Stripe Setup

Connect your organization's own Stripe account so members can pay dues, store orders and event tickets. You sign in on Stripe's site; there are no keys to copy.

fellos takes payments through Stripe. Membership dues, store orders and paid event tickets all check out on your organization's own Stripe account, so the money goes to that account and pays out to your bank on your Stripe schedule. Card details are entered on Stripe and stay with Stripe; fellos records what was paid for and by whom.

You connect that account through Stripe Connect: you sign in on Stripe's own site and approve the connection, and fellos keeps only the id of the account it connected. The page puts it in its own words: "no API keys or webhook setup required."

Before You Start

• You need to be a Site Admin. Payment Settings is in the admin area, which opens for a Site Admin with admin mode on (see Entering the Admin Panel). Org Admins, Local Admins and Comptrollers can't connect Stripe.
• You need the organization's Stripe sign-in, or a new account. The Stripe sign-in happens in your browser, straight after you click Connect with Stripe, so either have the login to hand or sit down with whoever holds it. If the organization has no Stripe account yet, you can create one on the way: the page says you'll be redirected to Stripe "to sign in (or create an account) and approve the connection."

Connect Your Stripe Account

1. Turn on Admin Mode from the menu under your name in the top bar, then click the red shield that appears there to open the admin area.
2. In the admin sidebar, go to Admin → INTEGRATIONS → Payments. The page is headed Payment Settings: "Connect Stripe to accept payments for membership dues and store purchases."
3. The Stripe Connect card is marked Not connected. Click Connect with Stripe. The button reads Redirecting… while fellos hands you over to Stripe.
4. You are now on Stripe's site. Sign in to your organization's Stripe account, or create one, and approve the connection. Those screens belong to Stripe, and this guide doesn't describe them.
5. Stripe sends you back to Payment Settings, which confirms "Stripe account connected". The card is now marked Connected.

Once You're Connected

The Stripe Connect card now describes the account fellos is connected to. Its text reads: "Payments run through your connected Stripe account. No API keys or webhook configuration needed — manage payouts, refunds, and disputes from your own Stripe dashboard." Under it:

The account id

The id of the connected Stripe account, starting acct_. If your organization has more than one Stripe account, this is how you tell which one fellos is using.

Live

A badge beside the id: your members pay through this connection for real.

Accepting payments

Yes, No or Unknown: whether Stripe lets this account take payments. Members can't pay until it reads Yes.

Payouts enabled

Yes, No or Unknown: whether Stripe is paying the balance out to your bank. On either row, Unknown means fellos couldn't reach Stripe to ask; reload the page, or use Test Connection.

Below those is a Disconnect button, and under the card a second one, Test Connection.

If Stripe Isn't Ready Yet

Being connected and being able to take payments are two different things. Stripe decides whether an account can take payments and pay out, and a new account may have more to fill in on Stripe's side first. Until it does, Payment Settings shows a warning headed "Stripe isn't accepting payments yet" or "Stripe isn't paying out yet", saying which applies:

• "Stripe hasn't enabled charges on this account, so every member checkout will be refused."
• "Payouts aren't enabled, so Stripe is holding the balance instead of paying it out."

It ends "Finish setting up the account in Stripe." and has an Open Stripe dashboard button, which opens Stripe in a new tab. When Stripe has what it needs, reload Payment Settings: the warning is gone and both rows read Yes.

Checking the Connection

The Test Connection card — "Verify the connected Stripe account by making a test API call." — asks Stripe about the account. It doesn't charge anything. Click Test Connection (it reads Testing... while it works), and you'll see one of these:

"Connection successful (live mode, charges enabled)"

fellos can reach the account, and Stripe accepts payments on it.

"Connected (live mode), but Stripe isn't accepting payments yet. Finish setting up the account in Stripe."

fellos can reach the account, but Stripe won't take payments on it yet. See If Stripe Isn't Ready Yet.

"Connection failed", or an error from Stripe

fellos couldn't use the connection. Try again; if it keeps failing, disconnect and connect again, or ask for help.

Your setup is done when the card reads Connected and Live, both rows read Yes, and Test Connection reports "charges enabled".

If you'd like to see a payment go all the way through as well, you can make a small purchase yourself (a low-priced store item or event ticket, for example) and then refund it from your Stripe dashboard. You don't need to: the checks above already confirm the connection. Stripe may keep its processing fee on a refunded payment.

What to Turn On Next

The one connected account takes every kind of payment. Switch on the features that use it from their own pages:

• Dues. Enable member dues stays locked until the account is connected and accepting payments.
• The store. Enable Store stays locked until an account is connected.
• Paid event tickets. A Comptroller sets up ticketing on each event (see Event Tickets), and members pay for tickets through the same account.

After that, the money side lives in Stripe: payouts, refunds and disputes are handled from your own Stripe dashboard. The Comptroller Guide's Payouts & Reporting covers how that fits with the records in fellos.

Disconnecting

To stop taking payments through this account, or to switch to a different Stripe account, click Disconnect. A dialog, Disconnect Stripe account?, tells you what will stop before anything happens. It always opens with "New payments will fail until you connect again." and ends with "Past payments and payouts are unaffected." In between, it names whatever is switched on:

• With dues on: "Dues are on: members won't be able to pay dues online, and overdue members won't be restricted until you reconnect."
• With the store on: "The store is on: members won't be able to check out."

Click Disconnect to go ahead, or Cancel. When it's done, the page says "Stripe account disconnected" and the card goes back to Not connected. Disconnecting removes fellos's access to your Stripe account; the account itself, its balance and its payment history stay in Stripe. To use a different account, click Connect with Stripe again and sign in to that one.

If dues or the store are still switched on after you disconnect, Payment Settings warns you — for example, "Stripe is disconnected, but the store is still on" — with a Dues settings or Store settings button for each one that's on. Connect an account again, or turn them off.

If Connecting Doesn't Work

When Stripe sends you back without a connection, Payment Settings tells you why:

"The Stripe connection was cancelled."

The connection wasn't approved on Stripe's side, for example because you backed out. Nothing was connected. Click Connect with Stripe to start again.

"That Stripe account is already connected to another site."

A Stripe account can be connected to one fellos site only. Connect a different Stripe account, or disconnect this one from the other site first. The same rule can also show up worded "This Stripe account is already connected to another site".

“No pending Stripe connection to complete — please restart from "Connect with Stripe"”, or “Invalid Stripe connection token — please restart from "Connect with Stripe"”

The connection was started but didn't finish in time. Click Connect with Stripe again and go straight through.

"Stripe rejected the connection. Please try again.", "Stripe did not return an authorization code. Please try again." or "Stripe connection failed. Please try again."

Something went wrong between Stripe and fellos. Try again.

If, in place of the Stripe Connect card, the page says "Stripe payments aren't available on this platform yet. Please contact support.", there is nothing to do on this page.

For that, or for any error that keeps coming back, open a ticket from Help & Support, in the same menu under your name (see Your Settings).