Stripe (card payments)
Connect Stripe to take card, Apple Pay and Google Pay payments, save cards for automatic collection, and handle refunds and disputes.
Stripe takes card payments - including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Where GoCardless is built for the same subscription every month, Stripe is what you want when money needs to move now: a race entry that closes on Friday, a kit order, someone joining mid-season who wants to pay on the spot.
Plenty of clubs run both - Direct Debit for subscriptions, cards for everything else. You decide which methods are offered where in Payment policy.
You need the Admin role to connect a provider. The Stripe account is your club's own - Rowbot never holds your money, and you keep full access to your Stripe dashboard.
Connect your account
Open Financials → Integrations and press Set up on the Stripe card.
Create or link your Stripe account. If your club does not have one yet, Stripe will take you through creating it and bring you back.
Finish Stripe's verification. Stripe has to confirm who it is paying out to before it will switch card payments on. This usually clears within a working day.
Until verification completes, the integration shows as unfinished and members cannot pay by card. Rowbot rechecks in the background, so there is nothing to come back and tell us.
Set your statement descriptor
This is the text members see on their bank statement. Left unset it defaults to something unhelpful, and unrecognised line items are the single most common cause of a member ringing their bank to dispute a payment they actually authorised. Set it to your club's name in Stripe.
How members pay
- Paying an invoice. The member opens their invoice and pays by card. Apple Pay and Google Pay appear automatically on supported devices.
- Saved cards. A member can keep a card on file. Where your payment policy allows it, the club can then collect an invoice against that saved card automatically - useful for members who would rather not set up a Direct Debit.
Whether the club may charge a saved card without the member present is a policy decision, not a technical one. See Payment policy - a club can allow card auto-collection, restrict it to Direct Debit, or require members to pay every one-off themselves.
When a card payment fails
Cards expire, get replaced after fraud, or simply decline. Rowbot records the reason against the invoice, chases the member on your reminder schedule, and surfaces it in Financials → Needs attention.
Some declines ask for the member to authenticate (3-D Secure). Those cannot be completed without them - the member has to open the invoice and approve the payment themselves.
Refunds
You can refund a payment from the invoice it settled. The money goes back to the original card, and Rowbot records the refund against the invoice so your books and Stripe agree.
Disputes and chargebacks
If a member disputes a card payment, their bank pulls the money back immediately and asks for evidence. Rowbot reverses the payment it had recorded, so the invoice goes back to outstanding - the member still owes it - and the dispute appears in Needs attention so a treasurer sees it while there is still time to respond.
Disputes have deadlines set by the card networks, not by us. If you intend to challenge one, do it promptly - an unanswered dispute is decided against you by default.
Fees and payouts
Rowbot does not add a platform fee. You pay Stripe's own processing fees, and Stripe pays out to your club's bank account on the schedule set in your Stripe dashboard.
What's next
- Payment policy - which methods each kind of payment may use.
- GoCardless - Direct Debit for subscriptions.
- Xero - get all of this into your accounts.
GoCardless (Direct Debit)
Connect GoCardless, get members onto Direct Debit mandates, collect subscriptions automatically, and handle failures and chargebacks.
Xero (accounting)
Connect your Xero organisation so invoices, payments and fees post straight into your club accounts, and map payment categories to account codes.