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knotty galleon
Hi, you can pass in source_transaction https://stripe.com/docs/connect/separate-charges-and-transfers#transfer-availability:
With a source_transaction, the transfer request returns success regardless of your available balance. However, the funds don’t become available in the destination account until the funds from the associated charge are available to transfer from the platform account.
In this case, you don't need to wait for the balance to be available.
zenith zodiacBOT
fallow mulch
Thanks, so quick. I love your videos, docs and now Discord! Thanks again for help
knotty galleon
Sure!
fallow mulch
I have a follow up question. Let's say the customer deposited 2 times per $1000. Now, he wants to pay a freelancer $1500. Ho to handle such case with source_transaction?
knotty galleon
You can just specify the amount, I'm unsure if I understand the question fully thought. However, I recommend that you test these 'what ifs' using your test API key.
fallow mulch
Sure, I can test with postman. Although, the question is what if two charges per $1000 are pending from the same customer and he wants to pay $1500 to freelancer. If I put a single source_transaction into the transfer request then there will be not enough money in the source transaction.
knotty galleon
I do not think that will work. You can create multiple transfers with the same source_transaction, as long as the sum of the transfers doesn’t exceed the source charge
fallow mulch
Then I would need to go through all the customer charges and perform transfer to freelancer in chunks
is that the way of handling such case?
fallow mulch
sure, hi
fallow mulch
Then I'd need to keep track of all the funds available in this or that charge in my database.
Let's say after this example provided by me above I'd mark first charge as used and second charge as partially used and put $500 left in it. Or maybe it's possible to somehow retrieve such info from stripe?
clear hare
No you'd need to keep track of this
fallow mulch
One more thing/feedback. It sounds to me quite inconvenient to mix platform fee funds and funds for future transfers to stripe connect accounts. Have you though about creating a separate account for platform fee's, so, we can collect patform earnings there and separate account for future payouts?
clear hare
Not sure I understand
I think you may be using the wrong terms because above doesn't make sense to me
fallow mulch
ok, maybe my understanding is incorrect. I'll explain you in more details.
We have a marketplace where we want to simulate escrow flow where customers first deposit funds and then after they find freelancer they pay to him.
What is happening under the hood in our marketplace with stripe integration. Customers deposits go to stripe platform account balance. Marketplace's fee is kept in the same stripe platform account balance. So, there is a mix of funds in this account.
Better would be to have a separate stripe platform account just for marketplace earnings. Even if marketplace would perform these transfers to that marketplace fee account via api.
So, it'd be clear for marketplace how much money it generates. Of course marketplace can implement a custom logic for tracking how much money of this mixed amount is marketplace's earnings and how much is for future payouts to freelancers. Although, it'd be nicer to have a separate account for marketplace's earnings even from payouts perspective. In case of a single account you have to view the amount in marketplace's database how much money we earned, so, this amount we can payout to bank account and leave the rest for freelancers payouts. In case of split accounts you simply payout everything what is on the account because this is your pure earnings.
Does the separate stripe account for marketplaces fees make sense to you?
clear hare
What does "Marketplace's fee" refer to in the above scenario?
Trying to wrap my head around everything
clear hare
Ah so your platform is taking a fee out of the amount the customer sends in escrow?
fallow mulch
so, marketplace's fee is the fee we take
well, from the amount the customer transfers to freelancer
customer may theoretically get the rest back
fallow mulch
yep, that's the only place I can think of
are there any other places?
I'd love to have such)
at least one for all customers other than stripe platform account
because otherwise there will be a mix of funds as I described
clear hare
No I think what you're doing makes the most sense
But if you really wanted to separate things, you could create a connect account off of your platform just for earnings
fallow mulch
oh, that's a great idea
clear hare
Your platform would still be escrow, but that connect account would only receive earnings
fallow mulch
I don't know why I didn't think about before
clear hare
No problem
fallow mulch
the last question) is there any period for which charges are stored on stripe side? Let's say some customer deposited $1000 five years ago. We as a marketplace put it's charge id in our database. Now the customer hires a developer and pays to him. We as a marketplace will create a transfer with source_transaction pointed to that 5-years old chargeback object id. Will it work?
clear hare
I don't think that will work since those funds likely would have been paid out
Let me ask a colleague. I'm not sure what the behavior will be
fallow mulch
Let me ask a colleague. I'm not sure what the behavior will be
sure
fallow mulch
I don't think that will work since those funds likely would have been paid out
indeed in our marketplace's stripe account the funds will be mixed from different customers, although, we will keep track in our database that given customer created a charge 5 years ago for $1000, so, we will use his transaction as a source_transaction. Or you are saying that we may skip setting source_transaction in the transfer if some amount of days(90 maybe) passed since the charge date?
most likely after some time(90days may be too much, maybe 2 weeks is better) the funds will be available so, there will be no need of specifying source_transaction
clear hare
source_transaction is specifically for charges that haven't hit your available balance that's the whole point: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/separate-charges-and-transfers#transfer-availability
But my colleague wasn't sure about the object retention policy
Recommend you ask our support team if there will be an issue doing this for really old 5+ year charges