#DuckHunter - Express accounts

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

heady sorrel
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Hello, all great questions. Quick question: why are you looking to copy customers and payment methods down to your express accounts? Are you trying to make direct charges on the Express account?

idle thicket
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Yes. Our business model requires that direct payments are made (money should flow from Customer -> Connected Account -> Platform Account). We don't need our connected account users to have full access to a stripe dashboard since we (platform account) will be sending invoices as the connected account on their behalf.

I'm already aware that direct charges aren't recommended for express or custom accounts but our business model requires it.

heady sorrel
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Thanks for the clarification. Sounds like you've talked to someone on this server or our support about the business requirement aspect of this?

idle thicket
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I've had a few discussions about it, but if you have additional information I'm more than willing to hear more about it :)

heady sorrel
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To answer the questions about cloning, unfortunately we don't have anything built in that syncs up your objects here. You can clone PaymentMethods down to your connected accounts and create Customer objects on them as well but they won't be automatically updated unfortunately. So typically that means that you will want to listen to webhooks for changes on these objects and make sure to have some mapping from the platform's customer IDs to the connected account's customer IDs so that you can push whatever updates you get to them as well.

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I am not sure how much new info I may have if you already talked about this on this server, I'm just making sure to double check here because I've seen a couple times where it turned out that the normal path was still viable.

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Basically this is a regulatory requirement about how you handle the money I am assuming?

idle thicket
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Our company handles billing and collections services for small service businesses. Many of them are not very "tech savvy" and ultimately we are handling their invoicing from our platform. We choose the express platform so they would have the limited dashboard and not be overwhelmed with information since they won't be sending any invoices, they'll work through us to obtain jobs from customers and we'll dispatch their company to the job then invoice on their behalf.

The main reason for this method of money is for insurance and licensing reasons. If we are accepting money for "cleaning" services, or "landscaping services" etc, then we would need to have extra insurance and be licensed as a cleaning company, a landscaping company, etc

If the money goes from the customer to the service provider, then a fee gets transferred to us, we don't need to be licensed as multiple different companies... We would only be providing invoicing services to small businesses.

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So it's possible to do it the other way around, but that would cost our company significantly more money in licensing and insurance costs that are unnecessary, since the small businesses already pay the licensing and insurance fees

heady sorrel
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Thank you for the explanation. Figured you know this this far more thoroughly than I ever will, just is worth asking sometimes. One thing I will say is that if you have not specifically discussed whether on_behalf_of destination charges with our support team to see if that would fit your needs.

Specifying on_behalf_of will make the connected account the merchant of record which from what I understand is very similar from a regulatory standpoint. Even though the funds do technically pass through your account and then a fee comes back it can often be similar enough to be in similar scenarios though again I am just a dev who doesn't know that this well so if you've already determined that that path is not viable then I believe it. https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges#settlement-merchant

idle thicket
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So you could send an invoice from the platform account, then mark it on behalf of the connected account... Where does the money go then?

heady sorrel
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The money still flows and is distributed the same way. The funds still go to your account initially before the payment amount minus your fee goes to the connected account. The reason I suggested that is that from what I understand the funds passing through your Stripe account doesn't necessarily have the same ramifications than if it was say a bank account. Again though, I am not very knowledgable on when this distinction matters, just raising it because I have seen that distinction save people some effort before. If this sounds feasible to you, I would recommend reaching out to our support team for an actual answer on whether this will meet your requirements

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idle thicket
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I think I'll probably reach out to Stripe Support to confirm if this will work, but quick question on the image you provided:
Starting with that $10 charge.... do you know if Stripe will report to the IRS that the Platform account received $0.64 in income from this transaction, $1.23, or the full $10?

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Also, when using on_behalf_of, does the actual invoice show the platform account details, the connected account, or both?

heady sorrel
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For on_behalf_of, the invoice will show the connected account details. The connected account is also the one that will show up on the bank statement and whatnot.

Unfortunately I don't know the answer to that taxes question, my knowledge here is really limited to the API, so I know that your account's balance would only reflect the 64 cents but our support team will definitely be able to help you figure out how this looks to the IRS.

idle thicket
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Amazing. I very much appreciate your help! I'll continue this with Stripe support to figure out what else needs to be done.

heady sorrel
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Of course! Good luck getting your answers here. I'm sure you can make something that works here either way