Stripe FAQs

Modified on Mon, 16 Feb at 2:17 PM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

What is Stripe?
Implementation and Technical Questions

What is Stripe?

Stripe Payments is one of the world’s largest online payment processing platforms providing fast, secure and convenient online payments for millions of organisations and customers around the world.

Why should my school choose Stripe?

The Stripe platform makes it easy for parents and contacts to make payments to your school without having to set up an account with Stripe. As one of the leading payment platforms in the world Stripe offers leading edge technology to deliver convenient payments with powerful business analytics and backed by strong fraud protection.

Stripe is available in 47 countries across the world supporting a wide selection of payment methods including:

American Express
Mastercard
Visa
Apple Pay
Google Pay

How secure is Stripe?

Stripe is a certified PCI (Payment Card Industry) Service Provider Level 1. This is the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry. Stripes leading fraud protection model provides additional layers of security protection for Schools.

Why did Engage choose to integrate with Stripe?

Stripe is safe – With Stripe, schools do not need to hold parent payment details. Stripe is a certified PCI (Payment Card Industry) Service Provider Level 1 - the most stringent level of certification available in the payments industry. Stripe also offers leading fraud protection through the Stripe Radar System

Stripe is convenient for parents - Stripe offers a broad range of payment options through a single provider and the modern interface and design provides a better parent experience

Stripe saves schools time – Stripe offers automatic reconciliation, fast instant payments, powerful analytics and smooth onboarding. With Stripe schools will now also be able to offer recurring payment plans in Engage.

Stripe helps schools grow – Stripe instant payments drive faster realisation of revenue and removes a key barrier for parent registrations and enquiries.

What are the benefits of Stripe for our parents?

Its secure and easy to use. Parents don’t need an account with Stripe to make payments. When making a payment, other than card details, the only personal information required is a Post Code and an email address where payment receipts will be sent.

There is more choice through various payment methods including major credit and debit card providers, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

Payments can be taken on an ad hoc basis for things like extras or activities that aren’t part of a standard school billing cycle.

Engage Parents can make payments for any charge assigned to their account including invoices, Activities, Daybook Items and Web Admissions payments.

Parents can go to one place and make immediate payments to the school, including their tuition, voluntary contributions, events and excursions.

Does Stripe offer any guarantees on payments made?

Yes – Stripe provides an option for the school to choose as part of their Stripe Account.

Will Stripe make life better for our Admin/Finance teams?

Yes – Collecting payments via Stripe reduces admin/finance team time spent chasing payments from parents and reduces credit control problems. When a payment is received via Stripe a receipt is immediately created in Fees and matched off against the relevant invoice(s). No manual intervention is required in this process. This gives an accurate, up to date picture of parent debt, and reduces the chance of user error when assigning payments.

Collecting payments via Stripe reduces admin/finance team time spent chasing payments from parents and reduces credit control problems. When a payment is received via Stripe, a receipt is immediately created in the General Ledger and Debtor Account, regardless of payment method

Do I have to change to Stripe?

No – PayPal will continue to be available to use for online payments.

What are Stripe’s fees? How much will this cost our school / our parents?

This is dependent on the country and transaction type and will need to be compared on a like for like basis once bespoke pricing has been presented. However in general Stripe’s processing rates are cheaper than PayPal’s.

Can we add surcharges with Stripe?

Surcharges cannot be added with Stripe directly - however Engage’s surcharge facility can add surcharges before payments get passed to Stripe. This can be a percentage, a fixed charged or a mixture of both. Please check legal requirements in your own country before creating surcharges.

How much does Education Horizons make from every Stripe transaction?

Stripe pricing varies depending on where in the world payments are made and the volume of transactions by user.

Can we only use Stripe for small ad hoc / recurring payments?

Payments of any size can be taken via Stripe. Functionality to schedule regular payments against an invoice will be included and available in 2024.

Why would we use Stripe for Tuition/Boarding payments? How much will that cost me and when will we get our money?

Stripe enables the convenience of online payments including instant payments, reduced staff time chasing payments, automatic reconciliation and recurring payments – protected by industry leading payment security. Payments are available for transfer into your school bank account as soon as they have cleared.

How much will this cost our parents?

Parents will not incur additional costs for using Stripe however schools may wish to pass on the Stripe service fee via a surcharge. Please check legal requirements in your own country before creating surcharges.

Implementation and Technical Questions

How do Schools start onboarding with Stripe?

There are a few steps to onboard with Stripe:

Step 1: In the Staff Portal go to Admin > Payments Setup > Online Payment Provider, choose Stripe as the Online Payment Provider and click Save.

Step 2: Click the Stripe Onboarding button and follow the onscreen instructions on how to contact the Engage support team enabling you to get a service agreement to sign.

Step 3: Once the Engage support team confirm your account is ready return to Admin > Payments Setup > Online Payment Provide and select the preferred currency. Once saved click the Stripe Onboarding button again. You’ll be directed to the Stripe platform to create an account. There are a number of steps involved which will link the Stripe account to Engage.

Step 4: Verify the stripe account once, using Stripe’s MFA method. Once completed, you’ll be ready to start taking payments and view them in your Stripe Dashboard.

Does my school need a Stripe account?

Yes – if you decide to use Stripe, your school will require a new account to be setup directly from Engage ensuring the two systems are integrated. Schools with existing Stripe Accounts would be required to create a new account via Engage. However, if the same email is used to register for both accounts, there is a single login to the Stripe dashboard allowing you to toggle between Stripe accounts.

How does Stripe link to Fees?

Payments received via Stripe automatically create a receipt in the Engage Fees module, which is matched off against the relevant invoice(s). This information is also available to parents in their Portal My Account page.

Is there an option for the customer to withdraw payment once it has been made?

Schools will have the option to refund a transaction – but Parents won’t have the ability to withdraw payment themselves once a payment has been made. Parents will need to contact the school to resolve.

How do Stripe transactions get created in our SMIS / flow through to Sales Ledger (and accounting software)?

Payments received via Stripe automatically create a receipt in the Fees module, which is matched off against the relevant invoice(s). This immediately updates the outstanding balance against that parent in the Fees module.

For customers using Engage Accounts, the nominal information relating to Stripe payments will update immediately, in exactly the same way as posting a receipt directly in the Fees module.

Does it matter if we use a different accounting system and not Engage Accounts?

Payments made using Stripe will update third party accounting software in the same way as transactions entered directly in the Fees module.

What information will I need to be able to activate this integration?

A range of information will be required during setup for the user configuration, including but not limited to Currency, Country, Email Address, Telephone number, Business Address, Bank Account Details, responsible persons, company ownership.

Who should set up our school’s Stripe account? Can this be changed if we have staff turnover?

There is a main email account to manage the Stripe account. Additional users can be added to the Stripe account. There are options to change the main email associated with the account.

Will parents have to go through Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) when using Stripe?

Parents won’t require MFA in Engage but their payment provider may require MFA.

How can we test the payment pathway before we go live? Is there a sandbox feature?

Engage has a test option.

Will Stripe remember card/payment details or will they need to entered each time a payment is made? How secure will this be if details are stored/remembered?

Stripe offers a feature called ‘Link’ that can be used to store payments within Stripe. Stripe manages this through the UI.