FR - Add Customer's Credit Card to Customer's Account

digibandit

I'd love to be able to setup a payment method on behalf of a client without logging into their customer portal.

Be able to enter stripe cc and save to profile from invoice on tech/accountant login.

johnny

I love this idea. This shouldn't be to hard to implement since we already have it in the client portal. I would like to get this into June release for sure.

Bigbug

https://forum.itflow.org/d/1679-feature-request-guest-link-for-auto-payment-setup

digibandit

Bigbug The ability to save for recuring later is the key here, while it wasn't mentioned, this would be an (hopefully) obvious inclusion to save the card to later use and to use for recurring invoices.

The next step would be an ITFlow app that talks to a WisePad 3 for in-person card payments 😉

Bigbug

digibandit in person payment would be cheaper with the stripe mobile app

digibandit

Bigbug Stripe mobile app is a damn nightmare for teams, we use Payments for Stripe with an Enterprise account for multiple logins and tracking. $30 down the drain monthly just to enter in payments for the WisePad.

wrongecho

How are you getting the card details from the client in this situation?

I believe if the client isn't the one inputting the details in themselves, this is then considered a manually entered or MOTO payment. It looks like you have to specifically ask Stripe to enable this feature, and you accept that by operating in this way you open yourself to wider PCI DSS compliance. The Stripe fees are also higher for manually entered payments.

That is to say, you cannot just "pretend" to be the customer and enter their details into ITFlow as "them" - it's a different process & API call. The way we operate as the moment will likely prompt for SCA (e.g. approving on a mobile app or entering a code from a text). The customer isn't going to want to give you that (specifically the message will say "NEVER GIVE THIS CODE TO ANYONE"). WHO enters the card details bears an important distinction to Stripe, and presumably other payment gateways.

Take a look at Stripe docs:

digibandit

wrongecho How are you getting the card details from the client in this situation?

We get card details the same way every MSP does - with permission from our clients as their Managed Service Provider. We manage their IT, billing, and payment processing as part of our service agreements.

In this post we've discussed two situations so far:
1.) Manual, in-person via terminal and app, enter transaction manually in ITFlow.
2.) Save payment method and set as recurring payment for recurring invoices.

Right now I am performing #2 on behalf of my clients as there is no method for me to do this on my end, hence this my "FR - Add Customer's Credit Card to Customer's Account." I understand this is problematic, especially as I am paying a human to go and create a customer portal account for our internal use for every single recurring client we have, just so that we can setup their payment profile, this is asinine, a waste of time, money and resources. Please just add a button.

wrongecho I believe if the client isn't the one inputting the details in themselves, this is then considered a manually entered or MOTO payment. It looks like you have to specifically ask Stripe to enable this feature, and you accept that by operating in this way you open yourself to wider PCI DSS compliance. The Stripe fees are also higher for manually entered payments.

This is via their app, website and also via the Payments for Stripe app but as a fallback option, if anyone uses this option they are in a rough spot.

wrongecho The way we operate as the moment will likely prompt for SCA (e.g. approving on a mobile app or entering a code from a text). The customer isn't going to want to give you that (specifically the message will say "NEVER GIVE THIS CODE TO ANYONE").

I haven't had this happen even once with using stripe for the last 6 years.

Let me flip this the other way around, I have a client that doesn't touch a computer, cellphone, printer etc. If it's electrified he's 10 feet away from it. I manage a bunch of apartment buildings internet for this client, several recurring and recurring invoices per month. Every time the client gets a new credit card they call up my billing department and provide the card details for us to input and setup for automatic payments. Seperate cards for recuring and reoccuring invoices. How would you currently process this?

wrongecho

digibandit

We get card details the same way every MSP does - with permission from our clients as their Managed Service Provider

Probably a geographical thing but this happens rarely in the UK for MSPs. It's all customer-initiated online payments or bank transfers.

Right now I am performing #2 on behalf of my clients as there is no method for me to do this on my end, hence this my "FR - Add Customer's Credit Card to Customer's Account." I understand this is problematic, especially as I am paying a human to go and create a customer portal account for our internal use for every single recurring client we have, just so that we can setup their payment profile, this is asinine, a waste of time, money and resources. Please just add a button.

I would recommend you contact Stripe support and check with them that you are actually allowed to do this. My reading of the docs I linked suggests you should not save cards in this way.

I haven't had this happen even once with using stripe for the last 6 years.

Again, perhaps SCA isn't a thing in your region?

Every time the client gets a new credit card they call up my billing department and provide the card details for us to input and setup for automatic payments. Seperate cards for recuring and reoccuring invoices. How would you currently process this?

Currently, we can't. You would need to direct them or their accountant to the portal.

Just to be clear, I'm not disagreeing that this is a needed feature, I'm just saying we cannot just replicate what we currently have written for the portal into the tech/admin side. This was more in response to @johnny saying "this shouldn't be to hard to implement since we already have it". We have part of it, but I think manually entered / moto would be a different endpoint, and seems to require approval from Stripe.

digibandit

wrongecho this and the date of which payments are taken on reoccurring invoices are of the utmost importance to me at this point.

Without the ability to add, edit, and set credit cards via stripe for reoccurring invoices and the ability to set when we take those payments on reoccurring invoices are going to limit my use of this platform to the extent that I may not be able to use it.

wrongecho

digibandit

Yep, money is very important to me too 😉

I am just trying to be open and honest as to my understanding of Stripe rules and how we need to abide by them in designing features. As the contributor for both the one-off Stripe payment and the Stripe save card ability, I felt it was best to weigh in.

As for some history, one-off checkouts with Stripe had been on the feature list for the better part of ~4 years. Then the demand came for saved cards. Now the demand is for MOTO payments. ITFlow has come on leaps and bounds, but many areas are still at the minimum viable product stage. I can assure you we will get there, but only through properly thinking through features - the forum is invaluable for this.

Again, I think this is a good feature suggestion, we just need to implement it properly.

digibandit

wrongecho

I did some additional research on the MOTO requirements, and it looks like this is actually a pretty straightforward implementation. Stripe has official documentation for exactly this use case, and it's designed for MSPs like us who need to save payment methods on behalf of clients. With that said, I'm a generalist and would struggle to make heads or tails for much of those details and will obviously defer to your expertise.

The good news is it looks like you can leverage the existing save-card functionality you already built for the portal. From what I can see, it's mainly adding the moto: true flag to the existing Stripe API calls and creating an admin interface for entering the card details.

Here's my situation: I'm at a decision point where I need to commit to a billing platform for our recurring invoices. I've got about two weeks to make this call due to my oversight on this feature, entirely on me. ITFlow checks all the other boxes for us, but without the ability to save payment methods from the admin side, I can't use it for our main billing workflow. I'm trying to come up with something using stripe's native billing options in the meantime I guess. Though I'd much rather keep everything integrated within ITFlow if possible.

I totally understand if this is a bigger request than I anticipated, or if there are other priorities. If there's any way to fast-track this (even as a basic implementation that we can refine later) it would make a huge difference for us. I am more than happy to test this functionality.

What do you think? Is there a path to get something working in the next couple weeks, or should I start looking at alternatives?

Also, for clarity, my top concern/request is changing the auto-charge date to the invoice due date, followed by adding payments on behalf of clients. This is super duper major for me.

johnny

This is deff something id be interested in but looking at the complexity of how we have it implemented and the laws from various countries / states / province, deff something we wont be able to implement within 2 weeks. If it was simpler then id say we could get it out by next release which should be coming at the end of June, but we have much higher priority items that need addressed in the backend that take much higher priority.

digibandit

johnny Totally understandable. I doubt I'm an edge case, but can accept it if so.

I'll try to spin up something for billing in the meantime!