#cruchot_best-practices
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north steeple
How are you tracking a user's 'available balance' within Stripe?
fleet relic
Hi
A "user's balance" is its connected account available balance
In my db, each user has a "stripe_account_id" and "stripe_customer_id", which references a connected account and a customer
north steeple
A "user's balance" is its connected account available balance
You can't debit that for payments
fleet relic
Why ? Is there another way ?
north steeple
Hmm, customer's can accumulate a 'credit balance': https://docs.stripe.com/invoicing/customer/balance
fleet relic
Yes but it is stated somewhere in the docs that this feature is not dedicated to be used as a "wallet"
I think its there only to receive refunds
north steeple
Yeah there's no real native wallet functionality at all
north steeple
I think its there only to receive refunds
No, that's the customer cash balance
fleet relic
I'm also using Stripe Connect because standard users can become dealers (sellers) on the marketplace. This means they receive payments from users who buy their products (not directly, since the platform account holds the funds until the customer confirms he received his order).
This is why each user has connected account created as soon as he signs up, and this is why I want to use its balance as a "wallet"
north steeple
Yep, I understand all that. But you just can't use the account balance as a wallet. They're paid out automatically in most scenarios, pretty frequently
fleet relic
No I disabled this, payouts are manual on every connected accounts I create
north steeple
Yeah but you still can't use accounts to accumulate balances. We note this here
90 days max for most countries, before the payout the funds automatically
fleet relic
Ok so if I summarize :
- I should not use connected accounts to hold users' balance (wallet)
- I should use connected accounts to transfer sellers' payments, but these funds won't stay more then 90 days on their balance
- I should use customer credit balance to handle the users' balance (wallet)
Is that correct?
north steeple
Seems fair yes
fleet relic
Customer credit balance can't get payout right? I can't handle every situation with that?
north steeple
No, it's a 'digital' balance that doesn't actually map directly to any funds
fleet relic
Can a user (customer) top-up his credit balance?
I used to enable this by making a payment to the platform account, then immediately transfer the funds to the users connected account
north steeple
You can accept an ad-hoc payment and then increment their balace to reflect that payment yes
fleet relic
If I implement this, it means that when a user top-up his wallet's balance (from his perspective, on my app), he is actually adding a negative amount (a credit) on his customer credit balance, correct?
And when he wants to use this balance to make a purchase, I will only have to debit this balance of the corresponding amount. Can you confirm?
Can you also confirm that this is the customer credit balance, and that retrieving the customer and checking this param is the correct way to get his balance?
north steeple
Correct, yes
north steeple
Can you also confirm that this is the customer credit balance, and that retrievi...
Yes
fleet relic
Asking this because it seems that there is no direct Retrieve a customer credit balance method in the API
north steeple
You're right, there is not. Those are for cash balances which relates to bank transfer payments
fleet relic
I'm sorry but, is "Customer invoice balance" (https://docs.stripe.com/billing/customer/balance) a whole different thing or is it the same as the credit balance?
north steeple
That's the same thing. Credit/invoice balance
fleet relic
I'm a bit lost, because I don't really understand the cash balance I think
north steeple
Cash balance is the different concept
north steeple
I'm a bit lost, because I don't really understand the cash balance I think
It's for bank transfer payments. This page explains the differences: https://docs.stripe.com/payments/customer-balance
fleet relic
Ok I understand now, thank you very much for your time