#dennis_de
delicate tide
silver canyon
hi! do you mean the reference inside the next_action, which you show to the customer? https://stripe.com/docs/payments/bank-transfers/accept-a-payment?platform=api&invoices=without&country=eu#web-complete-bank-transfer
visual wadi
Yes.
silver canyon
the customer does have to use that reference in their banking when they make the transfer, so that we know where to reconcile the money. Was that your question?
visual wadi
No, the question is whether we can freely define the "reference", since the IBAN is generated per customer anyway, because often, especially in large companies, the customers specify a different purpose (usually the invoice number) and not this cryptic reference.
silver canyon
the docs say that the customer needs to use the reference we return so that's what I would suggest. Maybe it would just work since as you say the VBAN is unique but it's not what we recommend so I'm not going to say otherwise!
https://stripe.com/docs/payments/customer-balance/reconciliation#cash-automatic-reconciliation is what happens if they don't use the reference we provide.
visual wadi
Initially, Stripe attempts to match a bank transfer reference with a single invoice with a matching invoice number.
We don't use Stripe Billing, but we pass our invoice number in the description, which is probably not taken into account?
Otherwise, we would probably have to go via the "Manual cash balance reconciliation" and write our own process, hmm....
silver canyon
I assume not! either the customer uses the reference we return and you show them, or the reconcilation works the way that page describes
visual wadi
Okay, I will contact our Stripe account manager, maybe a solution engineer can answer the question more specifically from experience. Thank you!
silver canyon
as you wish. Note it's mostly all just my team either way!