#alex_ Connect
cold cedar
Hi 👋
That's a lot of text. Give me a minute to digest
Okay
- Standard Account - All prices, products, customer, payment methods must exist on the Connect Account. Also you should only use Direct Charges
- Customer Account - All records exist on the Platform account. They have no access to a Stripe Dashboard and any/all Stripe features need to be provided through your integration
hard zephyr
I can explain my situation differently: Here is what I imagine an ideal situation would be for me:
- My company (GDevelop) will have a platform account on Stripe
- Each seller will have a Standard account
- Each product a seller wants to sell on my platform is represented by a Stripe Product on their dashboard
- They can say "I want to sell my product X on GDevelop" so there is a way to share their Stripe Product data with us so that we can display them on our marketplace with the prices they configured on the Stripe Dashboard.
Is it something doable with Standard accounts?
hard zephyr
2. Customer Account - All records exist on the Platform account. They have no a...
Ok I see
cold cedar
In that case your integration sounds a lot like a Standard Account situation.
A standard account has full access to their own Stripe Dashboard
The customer interacts directly with the Standard Account and the Platform provides a service of directing traffic to them
hard zephyr
I couldn't find anything in the documentation about sharing products data from a Standard account with a Platform account in order to sell those products
cold cedar
you don't "share" data in either situation. Either the Platform owns the Price/Product data and makes copies on the Connect Account, or the Connect Account owns the Price/Product data and the Platform copies those records.
hard zephyr
Which endpoint should I use to query the connected account products?
cold cedar
You would use the Product API and pass the Standard Account's ID in the Account header.
hard zephyr
Oh ok I see
Isn't there a privacy issue if anyone can query the products of any connected account?
cold cedar
Not anyone, only authorized accounts that have the account ID and a Connect relationship
Internally our system knows which Platforms are related to which Connect Accounts
hard zephyr
Oh right
Just a last thing (thank you for your help!): I don't see where I can specify the product id in a payment intent: https://stripe.com/docs/api/payment_intents/create
So that sellers can see in their dashboard a charge of 20$ corresponding to their product X
cold cedar
Payment Intents are one of the more simple building blocks and just represent and intent to collect funds. They are not product aware.
You could add product ID or description to the metadata to help keep track. Or you could use our Checkout session which includes line_items that are aware of prices and products
hard zephyr
Oh right!
cold cedar
Also Checkout includes a nifty Stripe hosted UI.
hard zephyr
Since I will create a direct charge for a connected account, does it have to be the connected account's payment page that is displayed to the customer? I would like to simplify things for connected account holders so that they don't have to create a payment page
cold cedar
The Payment page presented from Stripe Checkout will be configured to match the Standard Account's brand settings in that case. You would make the API request to create the Checkout Session using the Connect Account header (like with the Product request)
Even if you have already reviewed them, I recommend spending a little more time reviewing the following docs about
- Different accounts: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/accounts
- Charge types: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/charges
Connect is a powerful system but also complex so it's important to have a good understanding of how different choices impact your integration.
hard zephyr
Reading a bit more the charge types page, I feel like I should create destination charges for my connected accounts, collecting fees with transfer_data[amount]
From what I understand, it is my platform payment page that would be displayed to the customer with destination charges
timid isle
👋 snufkin had to head out so I'm hopping in - give me a few minutes to catch up
hard zephyr
From what I understand, it is my platform payment page that would be displayed t...
This way, my connected accounts won't have to configure a payment page of their own
timid isle
Yes, with destination charges the Platform's information would be the one displayed
hard zephyr
Once the payment is done, how does the invoicing is handled? The customer receives an invoice on behalf of the connected account of 20$ and my platform sends an invoice to the connected account for the amount of my fees?
timid isle
No, there's no need for you to sent an additional invoice to your connected account - are you working with Invoices, Checkout, or plain old Payment Intents (just want to know so I can link you to the right things)
hard zephyr
I have nothing set up at the moment but I felt like I would use the checkout sessions
timid isle
Gotcha - so just to clarify, Checkout doesn't use Invoices (just want to make that clear since Invoices is a separate thing and you mentioned it in your last message). If you read through https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges, we talk about there being two different ways to collect fees with destination charges (either application_fee_amount or transfer_data.amount). When you create your checkout session you'd specify the one you want (either payment_intent_data.application_fee_amount https://stripe.com/docs/api/checkout/sessions/create#create_checkout_session-payment_intent_data-application_fee_amount or payment_intent_data.transfer_data.amount https://stripe.com/docs/api/checkout/sessions/create#create_checkout_session-payment_intent_data-transfer_data-amount) and we'll automatically send the funds to the correct place
hard zephyr
(And I forgot to ask: With destination charges, can customers use coupons generated by connected accounts on our platform payment page?)
hard zephyr
Gotcha - so just to clarify, Checkout doesn't use Invoices (just want to make th...
Whatever the method used, does Stripe automatically generate invoices for the concerned amounts? I'm not sure what the product "Invoices" include or not
timid isle
Is there a specific reason you keep mentioning Invoices? Are Invoices something you need for your integration?
hard zephyr
Well, from my previous experiences, I know that money going into our account should have an invoice for the same amount so that the accounting department is happy
timid isle
We don't have Invoices that just so money moving from one account balance to another - we only have Invoices for each outward facing customer payment. So if you did want Invoices for destination charges there'd be a single Invoice (sent to the customer) and the transfer between the connected account and platform would just be represented by a Transfer or an Application Fee object
hard zephyr
Alright, thank you, I think I have to see the generated invoice to fully understand it 😅
hard zephyr
(And I forgot to ask: With destination charges, can customers use coupons genera...
Would you have an answer to this question? That's the last question I'll ask today
Thank you very much for your help anyway
timid isle
No, with destination charges customers can only use coupons that belong to the platform
timid isle
👍
hard zephyr
Thank you and have a nice day!