Set up card and bank payments with Stripe

Overview#

TradesWork takes card and bank payments through your own Stripe account. You sign in to Stripe (or create an account), Stripe verifies your business, and from then on every payment on an invoice, pay link, customer portal or Tap to Pay lands in your Stripe balance and pays out to your bank. The account is yours: your own Stripe dashboard, your payouts, your disputes. TradesWork never holds your money.

Before you start#

• You need the Owner or Admin role.

• About 15 minutes.

• Have ready: your business legal name and EIN (or SSN if you're a sole proprietor), business address and phone, the owner's date of birth and last 4 of SSN, a photo ID on your phone, and the bank routing and account number for payouts.

• Already use Stripe? Sign in with that account when Stripe asks. Nothing in it changes.

Steps#

1. Open Settings › Integrations › Payment Processing. The page is titled Payments; the first card is Get paid with cards and bank payments.

2. Step 1: Connect your Stripe account. Press Connect with Stripe. You'll finish on Stripe's secure pages: sign in or create an account, then Stripe sends you back here. If you stop halfway, you come back here too and can continue later.

3. Step 2: Verify your business with Stripe. If Stripe still needs anything, it's listed under Stripe still needs:. Press Continue setup in Stripe to go straight to the missing item. Verification usually takes minutes, sometimes a couple of days. When it's done you'll see Stripe verified your business. Card and bank payments are on.

4. Step 3: Get paid out to your bank. Press Add bank account in Stripe and add the account Stripe should pay into. Until then Stripe keeps your card payments safely in your Stripe balance. Payouts are automatic, usually 2 business days after a card payment. Press Payouts in Stripe to change the schedule or bank.

5. Step 4: Send yourself a $1 test payment. Press Send yourself a $1 test payment and pay $1 with your own card. It's a real payment (Stripe's fee applies). When Stripe confirms it, the step shows done. Refund it from your Stripe dashboard if you like. Any real customer payment also completes this step.

6. Below the steps, choose how customers can pay, then press Save payment settings:

   • Bank payments (ACH): tick Offer "Pay by bank" on the pay page. Bank payments take about 4 business days to clear; the invoice shows "Bank payment processing" and counts as paid only once the money settles. The table compares the cost of card, Tap to Pay and bank on a few job sizes.

   • Tips: tick Ask customers for a tip and set three presets (Preset 1 (%) to Preset 3 (%)). Tips go to the technicians on the job, split evenly, and are kept apart from invoice revenue and sales tax.

   • Tap to Pay: tick Show Tap to Pay in the TradesWork Field app so technicians take contactless cards and phone wallets on their own phone.

Settings that change this#

• Settings › Integrations › Payment Processing: everything above, plus Refresh status, Open Stripe dashboard and Disconnect.

• Settings › Accounting › Billing & Collections: card retries for memberships, overdue reminders and credit holds use your connected Stripe account.

• Settings › Integrations › QuickBooks Online: payments and refunds post to QuickBooks.

Tips#

• The fee estimates on the page use typical rates (about 2.9% + 30¢ for cards online, about 1% for bank capped at $10). Your actual fees are what Stripe charges your account.

• Offer bank payments on big jobs: on a $8,500 install the bank fee is a fraction of the card fee.

• TradesWork doesn't add card surcharges or convenience fees: the rules differ by state and card network. Ask your accountant before charging customers for card use.

• Tap to Pay needs signal; a tap can't be saved for later.

Troubleshooting#

• "Card payments aren't set up for this company yet" on an invoice → no Stripe account is connected (or it was disconnected). → Press Connect with Stripe. Meanwhile record cash or check.

• "Card payments aren't ready yet" → Stripe hasn't switched charges on. → Step 2 lists what's missing; press Continue setup in Stripe.

• The status didn't change after I finished in Stripe → Stripe's update hasn't arrived yet. → Press Refresh status.

• Stripe says "This onboarding link expired" → the links Stripe uses are single-use and short-lived. → Press the button again for a fresh link.

• Cards work but step 3 isn't done → no payout bank yet. → Press Add bank account in Stripe. Your money waits in your Stripe balance.

• Payouts are paused or failed → Stripe couldn't verify or pay into the bank. → Fix the bank in your Stripe dashboard; Stripe retries. TradesWork shows a notice in Accounting when a payout fails.

• Tap to Pay says it needs your business address in Stripe → Stripe needs an address to set up in-person payments. → Add the business address in your Stripe dashboard.

• Disconnect is refused → money is still moving (a bank payment settling, a refund pending, an open Tap to Pay). → Wait for it to finish (bank payments take about 4 business days).

• The page says "Card and bank payments aren't available yet." → TradesWork hasn't switched payments on for your account. → Contact support; record cash and check meanwhile.

FAQ#

Who pays Stripe's fees? Stripe charges its processing fees to your Stripe account directly. They come out of each payment before payout.

What happens if I disconnect? Press Disconnect under Stop taking card payments through this Stripe account. Card and bank payments stop until you connect again. Your Stripe account, its balance and payouts stay yours, untouched. Press Reconnect Stripe later to get the same account back.

Can I move saved cards from ServiceTitan? Not as a file. Cards on file can only move processor-to-processor, which you request from your old processor into your own Stripe account. Until then, ask customers to save their card again on their next payment. See What can't move when you switch, and what to do instead.

Who handles chargebacks? Disputes land in your Stripe account and you respond in your Stripe dashboard.

Coming from ServiceTitan#

ServiceTitan Payments runs through ServiceTitan's processor and ServiceTitan holds the relationship. In TradesWork the processor account is yours (Stripe), with its own dashboard you can sign in to directly. Card, bank (ACH), Tap to Pay, tips and membership autopay all run through it. ServiceTitan's per-business-unit merchant accounts aren't supported yet: one Stripe account serves the whole company.