Letting groups pay online

You can connect your own GoCardless account, your own Stripe account, or both, and let groups pay online instead of you chasing a bank transfer. Either way the money goes straight to your own account, not ours — we never hold it, and we take nothing from it. Connect either one from Online payments, under Money in the menu, which only an owner can see. It opens the Subscription page at the right place.

We charge no commission on anything a group pays you, and we never will, on either. GoCardless charge you 1% + 20p per payment, capped at £4; Stripe charge their own published rate per card. Both are theirs, not ours, and are the only per-payment costs anywhere in this.

Once you have connected at least one, every invoice you email carries a Pay online button. There is also a link on the invoice page to copy, for when you are sending it some other way. Anyone holding that link can see that invoice and pay it, so treat it like the invoice itself.

If you connect both, bank transfer is offered first and card second, because a card costs you roughly double what a bank payment does on anything but a small amount. A group can still choose either.

A deposit paid by bank sets up a Direct Debit at the same time, so the balance can be collected later without the group doing this twice. A balance does not — there is nothing further to take, and leaving a standing authorisation on somebody’s account that will never be used just gives them something to cancel. Cards carry no standing authorisation either way; each payment is its own.

Bank payments take a few working days to clear, so one appears against the booking when it actually arrives, not when the group presses the button. A card payment confirms in seconds, so it shows up on the booking straight away. You do not have to do anything for either to be recorded.

If you do not connect an account, nothing changes: groups pay you by bank transfer as before, and you record it yourself.