rayray - Separate Charges and Transfers with Subscriptions | Stripe Developers | Page 1

verbal shore Jan 28, 2022, 7:36 PM

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Hello! Let me have a look around and see if this is something we support...

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 7:36 PM

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Thanks @verbal shore I've asked a few times over the last 8 years but haven't figured it out just yet 🙂

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just checking in for some fancy newfangled secret mission stuff. Or more likely something I've plainly missed

verbal shore Jan 28, 2022, 7:38 PM

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Looks like it's something we're considering internally, but we don't currently support transfer groups or anything like that on Subscriptions.

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 7:38 PM

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Thank you! will check back sometime later - let me know if you think its a next month, next quarter, or next year type of thing?

verbal shore Jan 28, 2022, 7:39 PM

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Hang on, looking at something else...

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 7:39 PM

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k

verbal shore Jan 28, 2022, 7:41 PM

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So it's not ideal, but it looks like this is technically possible today. You can update the Payment Intents associated with Subscription Invoices to add a transfer_group to them: https://stripe.com/docs/api/payment_intents/update#update_payment_intent-transfer_group

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Would that work for your use case?

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 7:43 PM

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oh my

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hold on let me read through

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ok so can we listen for payments on a subscription invoice and update it right away or does it have to happen before that?

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if the invoice is set to charge automatically, trying to figure where we insert ourselves into the process

sterile yew Jan 28, 2022, 7:55 PM

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I think you would want to try on the invoice.created event so it happens while the invoice is still in draft form

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 7:57 PM

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forgive me - how long do they usually stay in draft?

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oddly it looks like from examples in my app that the invoice was somehow created after the payment succeeded

sterile yew Jan 28, 2022, 8:01 PM

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I thought it was an hour. Do you have the ID?

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I feel like this may be behavior with the first invoice that I forgot about

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 8:02 PM

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pi_3KN04D2pZ9LNiazX147BnTKA

sterile yew Jan 28, 2022, 8:02 PM

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Ah, yes it is. One moment as I remember the workaround

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 8:03 PM

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i'll look for a subscription a couple years old

sterile yew Jan 28, 2022, 8:03 PM

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No need I think

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I see where my advice was a bit off

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To have the first invoice go in to draft for an hour, we recommend either starting the subscription with a couple second trial or creating a schedule that with a start that is a couple seconds in to the future

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 8:09 PM

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makes sense - though that would be the first one. on the next go around how to we catch it before it gets paid automatically you know?

sterile yew Jan 28, 2022, 8:13 PM

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Checking now. I think it should be able to be invoice.created.

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Also I may have been wrong about the invoice needing to be a draft. I will get all of this straight and get back to you.

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 8:15 PM

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awesome!

sterile yew Jan 28, 2022, 9:00 PM

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Sorry for the silence here, we need to look at this more in depth than I initially thought. I've reached out to some colleagues and will get back to you with what we can find.

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 9:05 PM

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would be very helpful, thank you!

sterile yew Jan 28, 2022, 9:34 PM

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Sorry, I have an answer soon but there was a last little bit of miscommunication on this.

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 9:35 PM

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sweet thanks

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 9:52 PM

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👋 I'm taking over! Taking a step back: are you trying to have the funds associated with the Transfer land immediately or do you want those to be transferred when the funds for the charge land in your account?

For example card payments take 2 days. If you charge $100 on Monday, you get the funds on Wednesday. When you create the transfer for $50 to a connected account, do you want them to get $50 immediately (you as the platform float the money) or on Wednesday like you, just you want the Transfer created upfront?

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 9:55 PM

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immediately

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right now we manage it with two separate transactions and listen for a webhook each renewal for the main subscription to charge the customers account an additional amount and transfer the funds to the third party connected account via transfergroup

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 9:57 PM

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so you are floating the funds completely?

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 9:59 PM

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suppose so yea

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 9:59 PM

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just to be clear: you're 100% sure that's what you want for your business model? (often it's a misunderstanding)

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:00 PM

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i'll explain in more detail

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We're a non-profit, we've got a deal with our partners to split a yearly membership with them

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:02 PM

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I can't imagine a non profit being allowed to float money

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:02 PM

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because we aren't able to split the subscription each year we say the price is "100" and then create 2 charges to get there. one for us and one for the connected account (think we use the destination flag)

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each subsequent year we watch for the subscription to renew and then key off another charge to the card and send it to our partners

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we actually get a lot of disputes because people don't recognize or see how the connected account charge is correlated

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not sure I'm answering your question/concern

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am I being clear?

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:05 PM

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not really :p

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if you are doing a separate charge then this is moot

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Are you really charging the card 2 separate times each time? 😅

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:06 PM

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yes - but I want to not be doing a separate charge

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i want to be doing a single charge with a piece being sent to a connected account

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:07 PM

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yeah

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Wouldn't it work to have a subscription with transfer_data set?

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like each year you charge $150 and the connected account gets $50

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automatically, without you doing anything else

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:11 PM

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yes - very nice. Now, suppose there was a tertiary party. how would i manage that?

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:12 PM

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is there? or is it just hypothetical?

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:12 PM

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there is

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:13 PM

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Ultimately, it really looks you have no plan to float the money, which is the main question

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I can't really advise you until you decide that

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and I can't imagine a non profit being willing to float thousands of dollars to a partner while you wait for Stripe to pay you

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but only you know that for sure

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:13 PM

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we do

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not necessarily the best way for sure

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but thats what we do right now

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:14 PM

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I really don't get why anyone would do this

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:14 PM

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we started with stripe in 2014

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:14 PM

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that's not really related though

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:15 PM

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probably just didn't have the capabilities at that point or weren't smart enough to use them!

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:15 PM

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sure but let's focus on what you want the real experience to be

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then I can say if it can be built

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:16 PM

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i want customer A to pay User 1 (connected account) and have that cash be split between User 1 (connected) and USer 2 (connected) with the platform account being paid our transaction fee

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I want customer A to see he is paying User 1 NOT the platform

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:17 PM

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The first part is doable, the second part isn't

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:18 PM

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I as the platform would rather not float the money

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:18 PM

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you're a platform here, you're the one aggregating the funds and splitting it in 2

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:18 PM

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right thats what i thought

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:18 PM

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If you make the charge on behalf of User 1, they get $150 of "revenue" when really you give them $50 so I don't think that's okay

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like that can be done technically but doesn't mean it should be done

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:20 PM

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its two connected parties using a platform to facilitate their partnership basically

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think of it this way. A barber shop has subcontractor barbers, the shop uses a platform to collect payment from their customers. The customer wants to pay "Joes barbershop" who receive the money and gives the subcontractor barber their piece. Meanwhile, the platform gets a transaction fee for enabling it

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:26 PM

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sure but you're still splitting funds between 3 entities and in that world you, the platform, are the one accepting the funds

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:26 PM

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then, more to the point, the barber shop wants to keep that relationship but offer a monthly subscription that does the same thing

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:26 PM

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But ultimately, it's what you already have today right

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as far as I can tell what you are missing is this: https://stripe.com/docs/connect/charges-transfers#transfer-availability

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when you create the transfers to user 1 and user 2 you say "please tie the payout schedule to the original charge's schedule"

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:27 PM

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and you can use that with subscriptions?

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ah

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right

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:28 PM

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we don't have a way to do "automatically split funds between N parties" so you always need custom code. When you get invoice.payment_succeeded you can create the 2 Transfers and for each one pass source_transaction: 'ch_123' which is the id of the Charge associated with the paid invoice

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that should fit your need, except that you are the "merchant of record" here so it's not the exact flow you need but that's the only way I can think of

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:29 PM

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right

simple rain Jan 28, 2022, 10:29 PM

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it also means everyone has a Custom account (or Express) and you own the liability/refund/dispute flows

indigo glen Jan 28, 2022, 10:29 PM

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yea thats what i've run into before

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thanks for your help Koopajah

#rayray - Separate Charges and Transfers with Subscriptions