# Take payments with Stripe

> Make a key for Crewtavo in Stripe with one button, paste it on the Apps page, and clients pay invoices by card or bank from the Client Hub. The same key lets you refund from Crewtavo and charge saved cards with autopay.

Crewtavo takes card and bank payments through your own Stripe account, so the money goes straight to you. Connecting takes one key, which Stripe makes for you: Crewtavo sets up everything else in Stripe. The same key lets you refund payments from Crewtavo and charge clients' saved cards with [autopay](https://crewtavo.com/docs/billing/autopay/).

## Connect Stripe

1. In Crewtavo, open **Apps → Stripe**, click **Install**, then **Get a key from Stripe**. Sign in to Stripe if it asks.
2. Stripe opens a new key named Crewtavo, with what Crewtavo needs already set. Most of the list stays at **None**: that's expected, so leave it as it is.
3. Scroll to the bottom of Stripe's page, click **Create key** and enter the code Stripe sends you.
4. Copy the key Stripe shows you and paste it into Crewtavo.
5. Type **Your Crewtavo password** ("To make sure it's you. No password yet? Set one under Settings → Profile.") and click **Connect**.

Crewtavo checks the key and adds the webhook it needs to your Stripe account, so there's nothing else to set up. Stripe then shows as installed, with a check on the Apps page. The key can only do what Crewtavo needs, not everything in your Stripe account.

Stripe decides where your clients' payments go, so connecting, replacing or removing the key always asks for your password. It's kept in the activity, and every owner gets a notification about it, and an email once [email is set up](https://crewtavo.com/docs/connections/email/).

:::tip[Try it first with no real money]
A key from a Stripe sandbox (it starts with `rk_test_`) works the same way. Switch to your live key when you're ready by pasting it under **Stripe key** on **Apps → Stripe**.
:::

:::note[If Stripe opens an empty form]
Name the key Crewtavo and leave everything at **None** except: **Write** for webhook endpoints, customers, invoices, Checkout Sessions, SetupIntents, PaymentMethods, PaymentIntents and refunds, and **Read** for balance, balance transaction sources, charges, payouts and accounts. Your full secret key (`sk_live_`) also works, but a key made just for Crewtavo is safer: Crewtavo warns you as you paste a full secret key, and the Stripe card keeps asking you to swap it for one ("This is your full Stripe secret key, which can do anything in your Stripe account, including payouts.").
:::

## Update your key for autopay and refunds

Keys made before autopay can't save cards, charge them or make refunds. With one of those, **Apps → Stripe** says "Update your key to turn on autopay. Saving cards, charging them and refunds need a new key with more permissions." To update it:

1. Choose **Get a new key**. Stripe opens a new key named Crewtavo, with the added permissions already set.
2. Click **Create key** at the bottom of Stripe's page, and copy the key.
3. Back on **Apps → Stripe**, paste it under **Stripe key**, type **Your Crewtavo password** and click **Connect**.

Then turn autopay on in **Settings → Payments**: see [Charge clients' saved cards automatically](https://crewtavo.com/docs/billing/autopay/). Once your key can charge cards, the Stripe card also reminds you: "In Stripe, turn off emails about failed payments and receipts, so clients don't get two." Crewtavo sends its own receipts and notices.

## Getting paid

- **Sending an invoice** also creates it in Stripe. Crewtavo still emails or texts the client, as before; Stripe doesn't. The **Pay** button in the Client Hub opens Stripe's page for that invoice, and a client can't pay it twice.
- **Bank payments** show as on their way until they clear. Meanwhile **Remind all** skips the invoice and the invoice asks before you record another payment, so the client isn't charged twice. The past-due automation doesn't check, so if the due date passes while one is clearing, its reminder still goes out.
- **A check you record** replaces the Stripe invoice with one for what's still owed.
- **A few cents left over**, less than Stripe can charge (50¢), aren't put in Stripe. Collect them another way.
- **Stripe's payment page** shows the logo and color from your Stripe account (**Settings → Business → Branding** in Stripe), not the logo in Crewtavo. Add it there too so the page looks like yours.
- **Tips**: to let clients add one, an owner or admin turns on **Let clients add a tip when they pay online** under **Defaults** in **Settings → Company**, then chooses **Save company settings**. The Client Hub then asks "Add a tip for the crew?" before the client pays, with **No tip**, **10%**, **15%**, **20%** or **Other**, and the receipt after an automatic charge asks too. Invoices made in Stripe don't offer one. Tips are recorded with the payment, with their fees, and don't count toward the invoice's balance. They aren't sent to QuickBooks or Zoho Books, since they aren't on the invoice there; **Finance → Payments** shows them.
- **Autopay**: a client saves a card or bank account on Stripe's page, from their Client Hub, and agrees to your terms. Each finished visit is then billed as a Stripe invoice that Stripe charges to that card straight away. Cards stay in your Stripe account, saved to the client's customer there. See [Charge clients' saved cards automatically](https://crewtavo.com/docs/billing/autopay/).

## Fees, deposits and refunds

Each payment records the fee Stripe kept. To see what reached your bank, open **Invoices** and choose **⋯ → Stripe deposits**. The page, **Deposits**, shows each payout to your bank, what Stripe kept in fees and the payments in it, plus what's on the way.

**Refund a card or bank payment** from the invoice: choose **⋯ → Refund** on the payment, check the amount and choose **Refund $…**. Crewtavo sends the refund through Stripe, and Stripe keeps its fee. It needs a key that can make refunds: see [Update your key for autopay and refunds](#update-your-key-for-autopay-and-refunds). You can also refund in your Stripe dashboard, as before. Either way, the refund shows up on the invoice by itself, as a payment marked "Refunded in Stripe". A refund comes off the invoice's part of the payment first, then the tip. See [Refund a card or bank payment made through Stripe](https://crewtavo.com/docs/billing/invoices/#refund-a-card-or-bank-payment-made-through-stripe).

**Record a refund**, on payments you recorded yourself, is only for money you gave back outside Stripe. A payment made in a Stripe account you've since left is refunded in that account.

Failed bank payments and disputes show up on their own too. A dispute adds a note on the client's page with the amount and the date to respond in Stripe by. If the client's bank wins it, the money comes off the invoice like a refund.

## Invoices you make in Stripe

A one-off invoice you'd rather make in Stripe comes into Crewtavo by itself, matched to the client by email or added as a new client, and its payment is recorded when it's paid. Record payments on those invoices in Stripe, not in Crewtavo, since Stripe is the one asking the client to pay:

- Paid in full some other way: mark it paid in Stripe.
- Paid in part: issue a credit note in Stripe for what they paid, so Stripe asks for only the rest.

## Bring in your Stripe history

**Bring in your Stripe history**, on the Stripe card in **Apps**, imports past invoices, their clients and payments, and deposits, from a date you choose. History comes in quietly: no automations, reminders or notifications. Running it again only updates what's already there.

With a key that can save cards, it also brings in the card each client saved in Stripe, and says how many: "14 clients have a card saved in Stripe." Nothing is charged until each client confirms autopay, or an owner records that they agreed. See [Cards already saved in Stripe](https://crewtavo.com/docs/billing/autopay/#cards-already-saved-in-stripe).

## Replacing the key or uninstalling

A new key pasted under **Stripe key**, with your password, only takes over once Crewtavo has set up the webhook with the new key. If it can't, Stripe stays connected as it was.

When the new key is for another Stripe account, or it's your live key after a test one, Crewtavo stops using the old account: the open invoices Crewtavo made there are voided, and clients get a new Stripe invoice in the new account when they pay. **Uninstall**, at the top of **Apps → Stripe**, does the same, and asks for your password too. A bank payment still clearing in the old account is left alone, and a note on the client reminds you to record it once it clears.

Cards saved for autopay stay in the old account, so autopay stops for those clients, and you're told which need to set it up again.

Source: https://crewtavo.com/docs/connections/stripe/ (last updated 2026-11-02)