#StefanJimmy-balance
1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)
it depends how you 'reset the balance'
if you just call customer.update(balance:0), nothing happens, there's no real money involved, you're just changing their balance on paper
I am using the createBalanceTransaction with the currency and the balance amount positive value
as far as I know that's all the same, it's just on paper!
otherwise you'd want to use credit notes to actually send money back if that's your goal https://stripe.com/docs/invoicing/dashboard/credit-notes
Okay so, if I want to actually refund those 250 EUR I will have to issue a credit note. Got it..
But then how should I understand the credit balance. Is it making any actual money transfers on our account? Also, does it mean that if the second invoice is 2750 EUR and I set the credit balance again to 3000 EUR no one loses money, right? I don't need to refund.
Does it makes sense?
not really, I'm having a hard time understanding your use case, I need to read it some more
you seem to be using the product in a slightly hacky way but let me try to understand
The whole implementation was to reduce payments directly from CC/SEPA, due to we can charge our customers pretty often, and their banks are blocking the cards for 24 hours.
So what we come up with, was charge them once, set credit balance, and once they reach certain threshold (in this case 250 EUR) just refill.
When the invoice is paid from the credit balance, there are no banks involved, so it's all good, we solved the errors with too many charging attempts
We make an invoice when their credit balance is 0. For example the invoice is 3000 EUR, once paid, we apply credit balance of 3000 EUR on the customer object. So now each invoice is charged using the balance.
ok so you create an invoice and charge the customer $3000. Then you manually give the customer a balance of $3000.
- They spend the balance
what does that mean?
like they buy something on your system that costs $500, so you reduce their balance by $500?
- means basically we generate invoices, they use our products, and we charge them, and the invoices are deducting the balance automatically
Yes!
When I say we generate invoices is using Stripe, we charge them on Stripe, and that is reducing the balance
so you mean you create an invoice for $500 and you rely on it getting an applied balance so the amount to pay is $0?
Yes
ok. so if you have to charge them again when their balance is low like $250 as you mentioned, then what you probalby want to do is :
we are resetting the balance to 0 EUR and saving in my database that the customer already had $250, then issue an invoice for another 3000 EUR and once paid, apply that 3000 EUR as credit balance* and also apply $250 as well from our saved database*
otherwise you're just throwing away the customer's purchasing power of that $250 component of the first $3000 they paid at the start
Also, does it mean that if the second invoice is 2750 EUR and I set the credit balance again to 3000 EUR no one loses money, right? I don't need to refund.
or yeah, that works too
overall this is a confusing set up and I'm not sure we even intend for the product to be used this way, but I suppose it can work! (but likely asking https://support.stripe.com/email in case there are risk/escrow/supportability concerns)