#rocky_elements-payouts
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abstract galleonBOT
lilac orbit
rocky_elements-payouts
👋 @craggy horizon when you said "receive money paid by us" you mean that you as a business will pay them for their service such as someone delivering food or driving around and such?
craggy horizon
Yes
lilac orbit
Gotcha. So it's none of those really. To "pay out funds" you have to use Stripe Connect where you are a platform, and you have connected accounts (each their own Stripe account) for individuals or companies that you are paying out to.
In that world the best option is to let us (Stripe) collect the bank account details for you as part of Hosted Onboarding: https://docs.stripe.com/connect/custom/hosted-onboarding
craggy horizon
Sorry, we don't want to use Stripe Connect as we do not need users to register their own Stripe account. When they sign up on our platform, we'll create a customerID attached to our Stripe account, and it seems like they do not recognise Stripe under the hood.
lilac orbit
I get that you don't want to, but you have no choice really. This is the only way. It's impossible for you to get a Customer and just send them money. There is no such support in our API, and it'd break a lot of laws/complianc rules around KYC and such. So really no other way than use Stripe Connect even if you don't want to
craggy horizon
Our case is that our platform may onboard some users who can sell their goods on it to other users. So when the consumer pay for the item, can we hold the money in our Stripe account and pay for the seller later when they want to withdraw their money
lilac orbit
I understand, and the "seller" has to have a Stripe account, go through identity vrification, etc. You might not want too, but you have no choice. Or you can't use Stripe.
craggy horizon
how onlyfans they do? onlyfans's creator know nothing about stripe , onlyfans creator just add their bank info on onlyfans website only and can withdraw their earning to their bank account
lilac orbit
You can use Stripe Connect and still hide Stripe if you want to. Custom accounts let you collect all the information yourself including bank account details (but in that case you will build your own form, we don't have one if you don't want to use the one I explained)
Really my advice is to take a step back, realize Stripe does this extremely well (obviously I'm biased) and have sellers create their own Stripe account which is extremely simple
craggy horizon
Is this what you said about 'Custom accounts'?
lilac orbit
yes
craggy horizon
What if we use Standard Accounts?
lilac orbit
You can't, Standard accounts aren't a fit for your flow of funds
craggy horizon
In which part it doesn't fit
So you mean standard account doesn't allow us to hold the creator's earning and pay them later?
lilac orbit
correct. You want Express or Custom accounts for that flow of funds
If I were you I would use Express accounts with our onboarding flow. Extremely simple to use, low friction for your sellers. I have sold concert tickets in the US on things like TicketMaster and they use similar flow where you have to basically enter your personal information and such to sell a ticket and be paid
craggy horizon
So what would be the differences between Express and Custom
lilac orbit
abstract galleonBOT
craggy horizon
I just read the doc https://docs.stripe.com/connect/platform-controls-for-standard-accounts#control-payout-timing, and it says Standard account can also manage payout timing, so could you explain me why it doesn't fit our flow of funds
devout solar
👋 here to continue. Standard Accounts has many more differences and in general, it's for people who has a separated business and somehow want to connect to you. Here you have sellers on your own platform, and for that Express and Custom suits better
craggy horizon
No, we don't want to pay for the $2 monthly account fee for the connected accounts. And the previous man told me that Standard doesn't fit our flow of funds as it doesn't allow us to hold the creators' earning and pay them later when they withdraw
Our scenario is that the media creators can add their bank details and after earning money on our platform they can apply for payouts to their accounts.
devout solar
Yes I know you want to save the Connect fee and that's a similar questions from other Platform as well, but Standard do have other downfalls and not likely to bring you the longterm success with Stripe, with your business model. There are considerations about Pricing discounts, liability to cover Connected Account negative balance, can't limit the Connected Accounts to modify their Payout timing, Tax complications and so on
And a lot higher friction. You can think Express and Custom is a prebuilt, well managed and lightweight setup for alike business. Yes you can build it yourself and don't pay the connect fee, but there will be manegement and maintenance and developerment cost in the long run
craggy horizon
What we want now is that the media creators can add their bank account on the platform and when they earn enough money on our platform they can withdraw the money to their accounts. And what I want to know is if Standard account can meet this requirement. If it cannot, please tell me why?
devout solar
With Standard the creators can't add their bank on your platform, no. They will need to add their bank account to their own account, then get payout
craggy horizon
Yes I understand, I won't have their bank account. What I need is holding the consumers' payments in our Stripe account and payout the money later when the creators ask us to
devout solar
Like the whole amount?
devout solar
But there will still be the other portion going to their Stripe account, correct? Let's say there is $100 sale, you hold $20 and they get $80 immediately
They can still payout that $80 to their pocket then
craggy horizon
They'll get $80 credits on our platform immediately but they can withdraw it later to their bank accounts when they want, otherwise the money will be hold in our account until they withdraw
devout solar
No you only hold $20, don't you? They have $80 on their Stripe Account balance, and can payout (withdraw) that anytime they want
That's what happens with Standard
They are basically another different business entity, has the control over their Stripe Dashboard and API Key
You can control they payout schedule, but they still be able to call Payout API to generate a manual Payout for example
Connected accounts can still make manual payouts after you, as the platform, choose to restrict connected accounts from updating their own payout schedule.
from the Doc
That's why my college suggest Custom. Custom means the sellers see nothing, and you control all
no Dashboard, no keys
craggy horizon
Can we divide the process into two, like when a consumer pays for a media on our platform, the money will just go to our stripe account only. And when the creator asks, we pay him/her the amount they should get?
devout solar
Well that doesn't work because Standard comes with Direct Charge and you wouldn't be able to make the amount = 0
craggy horizon
But what if we will make a baseline for payout, for example, the creators can only apply for payout when their earnings get over the baseline
devout solar
Like we mentioned, you can't restrict a Standard Connected Account like that. They will have their own Dashboard and can fulfill requirement and generate Payout
There is Test mode, you can try both scenarios without fee, and get a clear picture on how fund flow works (check the balances!) and payout. But from our perspective that really doesn't fit your model
craggy horizon
So if I need to hold the creators or other users money in our stripe account, is there any solution for that? or can we make it with Standard account?
devout solar
Not with Standard Account. You should go with Custom or Express
craggy horizon
So what you mean is that with Express or Custom, if a consumer buy a product on the platform, the money can go to our Stripe account first and pay to the creator's account later when they ask, right?
And this will work even the creator hasn't have a Stripe account, right?
devout solar
Not exactly. Express or Custom still be a Stripe Connected Account for each creator, but you can control the Payout timing. You can also hold all the amount on your Platform balance before transfer to them (even before any Payout happens)
craggy horizon
As the case will be when a user on the platform receive some money, he/she may not yet onboard Stripe and input their bank account, so where will the money go?
We need a middle place to hold the money for those users who haven't got a stripe or bank account
devout solar
No that's a different issue and no you can't do that without them having an account. That's why my colleague mention you need Stripe Connect
craggy horizon
But that's one of our features, so is there any solution for that?
As we don't want to restrict users receive earnings before they have their own bank accounts or stripe accounts
devout solar
It's going back to the starting of this conversation 🙂 No you can't do that. The only way is to use Connect
craggy horizon
Thanks, just hold on for a sec, we are discussing it 😆
Is that possible that if the user hasn't got a stripe account, we just transfer the money he/she earn on our platform to our accounts, and when they onboard stripe with their own account, we then transfer those money to their accounts
devout solar
we just transfer the money he/she earn on our platform to our accounts
How would you do this? Like simply charge the customer (the payer) pretending the seller never existed, but record somewhere on your system?
craggy horizon
For example, when a user send some tips to a creator, but the creator hasn't onboard Stripe. Can we programmatically check if the creator has had a Stripe account, and if he has, we pay him through Stripe Connect directly, but if he doesn't, we transfer the money to our stripe account, and when the creator onboard Stripe with his own info, we then transfer money to his account.
devout solar
Yeah sound possible (you can test out in Test mode)
But that would requires those logic on every payment transaction, and could be a problem on scaling
abstract galleonBOT
pure hawk
Hi @craggy horizon I'm taking over this thread. Sure you can invite your peer to join this thread.
craggy horizon
How can I do that
pure hawk
https://discord.com/channels/841573134531821608/1212542956083617792 send this link to them
craggy horizon
He opened the link, but it just shows a skeleton
Cannot get into the thread
If we do not use Connect, we can only do immediate money transfer, right?
pure hawk
You mean payouts to external bank accounts? No I don't think you can achieve it without using Connect.
craggy horizon
Then what can stripe do without Connect
As what I found in the doc, I can create payment intent to pay someone's bank account, right?
Or think about a case, we have a 'wallet' feature, in which users can top up money, when they top up money, can we charge them immediately through stripe
without Connect
pure hawk
"create payment intent to pay someone's bank account" -> No I don't think so.
I'm afraid there's no other way without using Connect.
craggy horizon
Ignoring the cases of our platform, without using Connect, what stripe SDKs and APIs can do?
Does this use case require Connect?
pure hawk
The doc that you send is about accepting a payment from customer, is this what you want to do?
craggy horizon
Ok, now I come to understand, so without Connect, we can only charge payment from our users but cannot payout to other users, right?
pure hawk
Yes you are right.
craggy horizon
So it means that if we want to payout the money to someone else through stripe, that person must have a stripe account as well no matter he/she is aware of the account, right?
abstract galleonBOT
pure hawk
Yes
craggy horizon
And thus we must use Connect to do this, is that right?
pure hawk
Yes
craggy horizon
And if we don't want the users aware and control their Stripe account, we need to choose Custom Account, right?