Table of Contents
2. Connect your account with Stripe
2.1 How the imported statements appear in your account
3. How to collect a payment via Stripe
3.2 How your customer makes payment
3.3 How the invoice is updated in Clear Books
1. Introduction
With Stripe, your customers can pay for invoices you send them, and you can import all your Stripe transactions directly into Clear Books. You must have a Stripe account to use this feature.
Click here to register for a Stripe account 2. Connect your account with Stripe
Stripe is represented as a bank account in Clear Books. Follow the steps in this guide to set up Stripe as a bank account and connect your Stripe account to it. From the point of set up, your Stripe transactions will be imported on an ongoing basis.
Step 1.
Navigate to Money > Bank accounts. Click on the Add Account button.
Step 2.
Click on the Add link beside the Online payments account type to create a Stripe bank account in Clear Books.
Step 3.
Select the Payment provider as Stripe and click on the Connect with Stripe button.
3.1 You will now be asked to log in to your Stripe account.
3.2 Once you are logged in, you will then need to authorise access for Clear Books.
If you intend to take Stripe payments via Clear Books’ invoicing feature, you must have set an account name in your Stripe account as this is required to enable the Stripe checkout function and the customer statement payment button.
Step 4.
The stripe account is now connected, however, you will need to finish creating the bank account in Clear Books. Select New Bank in the Bank Contact drop-down (this will create a new contact called 'Stripe' for you automatically).
Lastly, you can choose whether to Show payment button on your customer statements by selecting Yes in the drop-down provided. Make sure to have set up an account name or business name within your Stripe settings, otherwise the Payment Button setting for customer statements will default to No and the Stripe checkout will not work.
Click on the Save button to complete.
4.1 If you see a Next button instead of Save, it means you have multicurrency enabled. Skip to step 5 if you don’t use multicurrency.
How to set up and enable multicurrency
Click on the Next button to proceed.
4.2 You will then be able to set up the currency of your main Stripe account and add/remove any additional currencies as appropriate.
It is advised to set the primary currency of your Stripe account as the base currency of your Clear Books account. You can then tick the Enable ‘Convert foreign’ checkbox in order to accept payment in different currencies if you do not have the specific currency account with Stripe, which will be converted to your primary currency based on the rates of xe.comClick on the Finish button to complete.
Step 5.
Your Stripe account is now created. You can edit the details of the account at any time using the Edit link.
5.1 If you have multicurrency enabled and added some additional currencies, these balances will be listed under your main Stripe account as shown below:
2.1 How the imported statements appear in your account
Now that you have completed this process, going forward from this date, your Stripe transactions will import automatically into Clear Books as they are made.
The transactions will appear on statements that generate in real time on the Money > Bank accounts menu under the Imported statements that need explaining table.
Payments collected from your invoices via Stripe will not be shown on the imported statement as these will have updated your Stripe bank account balance automatically.
You can now begin explaining your transactions.
Any Stripe transaction fees linked to the relevant transaction will be automatically explained with the account code bank charges. You therefore only need to explain the gross transaction amount.
3. How to collect a payment via Stripe
The Stripe integration allows your customers to pay you directly from the Clear Books invoices you issue them. Successful payments automatically mark these invoices as paid and generate a Stripe transaction fee. This sections helps explain this process.
Before you can begin you need to set up the Stripe integration.
Step 1.
To begin, navigate to Sales > Invoices and create a new invoice.
Step 2.
Fill in the details of the invoice as appropriate. Most importantly, select your Stripe account in the Bank details to display field at the bottom.
Save the invoice.
Step 3.
Next, click on the Email button to email the invoice to your customer.
In the email message, a link to an HTML version of the invoice is included. The invoice will show a Stripe payment button as described in the ‘How your customer makes payment’ section of this guide.
You can also choose to attach a PDF version of the invoice by navigating to Settings > Configure system > Toggle features > Invoicing & expenses and toggling on Email with attached PDF.
The email message will also have a link to the customer statement which will include an option to pay outstanding invoices via Stripe. You can disable this option by editing the Stripe bank account on the Money > Bank accounts menu.
3.2 How your customer makes payment
Once your customer clicks on the invoice link from within this email, they are taken to an HTML copy of the invoice showing a Pay by card button.
If your customer opens the PDF it will show a Review and pay by card button. Clicking on this button will redirect them to the HTML version of the invoice.
When the client clicks on the Pay by card button they are redirected to a stripe payment page and are asked to fill out the payment form as shown below:
3.3 How the invoice is updated in Clear Books
Clear Books is instantly updated upon successful payments and automatically creates a payment which is allocated to the invoice. The Stripe fee is created as a bill within the system which is marked as paid.
If you head to the Money > Bank accounts menu and click on your Stripe bank account you should be able to view a deposit for the invoice payment and a withdrawal for the Stripe fee. You can click on the amounts to view the details.
Any payments (and the associated Stripe fee) that you collect from invoices will not appear on the Stripe statements that import automatically.
4. Disable Stripe integration
To disconnect Stripe at any time, head to Tools > Integrations > Other integrations and click on the Disconnect button under the Stripe heading.
