Help Center › Set up your site

Connect Stripe

For owners and admins

Guests pay through your own Stripe account and the money goes to your bank. RESRA never holds it. You open the Stripe account, we wire it to your site during setup, and from then on you take payment by sending a link from the calendar.

What you do, and what we do

You	RESRA setup
Open a Stripe account in your business's name at stripe.com. Complete Stripe's identity and bank verification so the account can accept live payments.	Connect your Stripe account to your site. Set up the notification that tells your site when a guest has paid. Run a test booking from request to confirmation before you go live.

There are no Stripe key fields in your admin. Keys are stored on the server, outside the admin panel, where no admin user can read them. Never send a Stripe secret key by email or chat. We will show you how to give us access safely during setup.

Stripe charges its own processing fee on each payment (2.9% + 30¢ per card transaction in the US at the time of writing). RESRA adds no commission.

The payments switch

Under Admin › Accounting there is a card titled Payments with an on/off toggle. It must be on for the payment link section to appear on bookings.

Take a payment

On the Calendar, create the booking. Fill in the guest's email and Accommodation ($), then click Create Event. If the booking came from a request, all of this is filled in for you. See Handle a booking request.
The saved booking reopens. Under Generate Payment Link, leave Email payment link to guest ticked and click Generate Payment Link.
You will see the link with Copy, Open and New buttons, a line confirming it was emailed, and the time it expires.

The guest has 24 hours to pay. If the link expires, open the booking and click New to hold the dates for another 24 hours.

What happens when the guest pays

All of this is automatic:

The booking's Payment Status changes to Paid, and the Stripe payment reference and receipt are stored on it.
The guest gets a confirmation email. You get a copy.
If it is the guest's first booking, RESRA creates their guest account and includes a temporary password in the confirmation.
If the booking has a security deposit, the guest's card is saved so the hold can be placed before check-in. See Deposits and tax.

If a booking still says Pending after the guest paid

Open the booking and click Verify Payment & Send Confirmation, then Confirm & Send Email. RESRA asks Stripe directly, and marks the booking paid only if Stripe says the money arrived. You will see "Payment confirmed with Stripe".

Setting the status to Paid by hand charges nothing. Choosing Paid in the Payment Status dropdown only changes what the booking says. No card is charged, no guest account is created and no deposit hold can be placed. Use it only for money you really received another way, such as cash or a bank transfer. If a guest says they paid by card, use Verify Payment & Send Confirmation instead.

Messages you may see

"Save the booking first." Create the booking, then generate the link. A link made before saving cannot be matched back to the booking.
"Payment amount does not match this booking's total." Total to Charge has to equal accommodation plus tax. The message tells you the amount to enter.
"Primary guest email is required to generate a link." Add the guest's email to the booking.
"Insufficient permissions." Only admins and owners can create payment links. Accountants cannot.

Refunds

Refunds are your decision. Cancel from the booking's Cancellation section and RESRA issues the refund through Stripe for you. Stripe keeps its processing fee on refunded payments.

Still stuck? Email us.