Setting up and taking payment via stripe

[jorabin]

Hi

I linked Stripe to my Quickfile account yesterday. The set up of the integration went smoothly.

My customer agreed to cover the transaction fee so I added what I thought would be the amount to the invoice.

My customer paid and Stripe has registered the payment.

There are a couple of howevers, here:

1. It turns out that Stripe hangs on to your payment for 7 days in the case of the first payment. It’s not clear how long you have to wait for subsequent payments. I think the QuickFile link to set up an account should make this clear.
2. It turns out that the account you create is linked to QuickFile and can’t be used in another way. This should also be made clear by QuickFile.
3. The fees on the transaction turn out to be approx 3.25%. This is a lot more than I was expecting. There does not appear to be any way of getting a break down of the fees. There is no ability on the Stripe side to raise a support query. It looks like this is because it’s an account linked to QuickFile and they expect QuickFile to deal with queries.
4. When signing up via QuickFile there should be a information about what the transaction fees are going to be.
5. How can I find out what the break down of the fees is, so that I can make a correct calculation in future?

Please comment on the above, it feels like there is a lack of transparency and that more should be done to disclose how this all works. In particular, precise provide details of how I can find out how the transaction fee was calculated.

Many thanks

[ian_roberts]

Stripe’s standard fees are 1.5% for UK cards, plus a flat 20p per transaction. What exactly that equates to in percentage terms depends on your average transaction value - many low value payments will be more expensive than a few large ones.

Overseas cards are more expensive, and even more so if currency conversion is involved.

@jorabin

It turns out that Stripe hangs on to your payment for 7 days in the case of the first payment. It’s not clear how long you have to wait for subsequent payments.

3 business days for UK accounts by default.

[jorabin]

Thanks for your reply.

The fee is 20p + 2.5% for European cards and 3.25% for elsewhere. You may not know in advance how your customer will pay so it’s difficult to build in a charge in advance.

For reference the price list is here: https://stripe.com/gb/pricing#global-payments

Noting my points 1 and 2 above, will QuickFile make any kind of clarification?

And ref my point 3 worth noting that they think QuickFile is responsible for support.

Thanks again

[QFMathew]

Hi @jorabin

Thank you for your post. I’ll try my best to assist you by going through your points -

@jorabin

• It turns out that Stripe hangs on to your payment for 7 days in the case of the first payment. It’s not clear how long you have to wait for subsequent payments. I think the QuickFile link to set up an account should make this clear.

While I do no work for Stripe, I have known them (and other payment providers) to take a little longer for the first payment just while they do additional checks. This isn’t controlled by QuickFile, nor do we have any visibility over this.

This guide may help: Waiting on your first Stripe payout? What you need to know : Stripe: Help & Support

@jorabin

• It turns out that the account you create is linked to QuickFile and can’t be used in another way. This should also be made clear by QuickFile.

While it does appear that Stripe now links new accounts to QuickFile, I don’t believe this restricts the account in anyway. We can certainly disconnect it, that’s not a problem - please feel free to send an authorisation email to support@quickfile.co.uk, along with your QuickFile account number and the email address used for Stripe, and we’ll get that done for you.

@jorabin

• The fees on the transaction turn out to be approx 3.25%. This is a lot more than I was expecting. There does not appear to be any way of getting a break down of the fees. There is no ability on the Stripe side to raise a support query. It looks like this is because it’s an account linked to QuickFile and they expect QuickFile to deal with queries.
• When signing up via QuickFile there should be a information about what the transaction fees are going to be.

As @ian_roberts mentions, the fees are typically 1.5% + 20p for UK cards, and 2.5% + 20p for EU cards. These rates are set by Stripe and we have no control over these.

You can view these rates on the Stripe website here: Pricing & Fees

We also have a link to this on the Payment Method Management page in your account before you link your Stripe account -

@jorabin

• How can I find out what the break down of the fees is, so that I can make a correct calculation in future?

Because it’s both a percentage and a fixed rate, there is a bit of maths involved, but this is taken from an old Stripe article:

P.charge is how much you will have to charge in total, P.goal is how much you want to have transferred into your bank account after Stripe’s fees are applied.

In the US (assuming standard US pricing of 2.9% + 30¢ per successful charge):
F.fixed = 30c = 0.30
F.percent = 2.9% = 0.029

This applies for any country that has only a fixed and percentage cost as part of Stripe’s pricing. So for example, in the UK, where Stripe’s pricing is 1.4% + 20p per successful charge, F.fixed would be 20p = 0.20, and F.percent would be 1.4% = 0.014.