Lesson 18

Payments, pricing and profit

Getting paid: Stripe, the card reader and your payouts

Stripe is not optional on a paid plan, and the payments page does nothing until it is connected. The reader, the payout report and the two fee lines all hang off it.

3 min read · Owner · Getting set up

A new account on a paid plan meets a dialog it cannot close until Stripe is connected, which is why people say they are stuck before they have built a single service. It takes a few minutes, and nothing else on the payments page works until it is done.

Connect Stripe first

  1. In Activate Stripe, gather the three things under Have these ready.
  2. Tick I have my photo ID, ABN, and bank details ready.
  3. Select Finish Account Setup with Stripe and complete Stripe's form, or sign in to the Stripe account you already have.
  4. When Stripe sends you back, select Use this account.

The dialog opens over whatever you were doing and has no close button, so Activate Stripe is the first thing a new Business Pro, Business Flex, Business Max or Enterprise account does. Have the three things on its list to hand: a photo ID, your ABN and business details, and the BSB and account number you want to be paid into. If you already have a Stripe account, connecting it is the whole job.

Tip

Keeping a Square, Zeller or bank terminal is fine and it does not remove this step. Stripe is the account Petboost charges through, so a card on file, a no-show charge and a payout all need it.

Register the reader, then get it connected

  1. Open Settings, then Pricing & Payments.
  2. Switch on Advanced options and find In-Person Payments.
  3. Select Activate In-person Payments to order a reader from Stripe's hardware shop.

In-Person Payments is not on the main part of the page. Switch on Advanced options on Settings > Pricing & Payments and the card is under there, beside the accounting links. Activate In-person Payments opens Stripe's hardware shop, and although the card still names the WisePOS E Terminal, Stripe has stopped selling that model: a new order is a Stripe Reader S700, and a WisePOS E you already own keeps working.

Ordering is half of it. You register the reader against your own Stripe account with a pairing code, then ask the team to connect that registered reader to Petboost. A terminal that arrives and reads as not connected is almost always sitting between those two steps.

Trap

The Online and Offline badge follows whether in-person payments are switched on for your account, not whether the reader is on your Wi-Fi. A reader that has dropped off the network still reads Online here.

Petboost sends every in-person charge to the one reader connected to your account, and it has to be a Stripe reader. A Square, Zeller or bank machine keeps working the way it always did, and you record what you take on it against the booking as Other EFTPOS.

Read a payout before you ring anyone

  1. Open Settings, then Stripe Payouts.
  2. Under Payout History, select the payout to open it.
  3. Read Card sales, Refunds, Stripe processing fees and Petboost booking fees against the amount the bank received.

Settings > Stripe Payouts lists every payout. Open a row in Payout History and it reconciles itself against the transactions inside it.

LineWhat it is
Card salesThe card payments that went into this payout
RefundsWhat you sent back, taken off the same payout
Stripe processing feesStripe's charge for processing the card
Petboost booking feesPetboost's fee on card payments taken through Petboost

The two fee lines are separate because two companies charge them. Your own rates sit on each transaction's Show breakdown, which is the only place they are right for your plan.

Tip

Where Stripe pays you shows the bank, the BSB and the last four digits, and the button under it is Change in Stripe. Petboost does not hold your bank account, so changing it, and changing how often you are paid, both happen in Stripe.