Wave/Stripe credit card payments

[Nemo]

Actually stripe pay you the money by bank transfer on a rolling 7 day schedule so if your bank charges to receive a transfer then you may still be subject to the €3 fee each time too.

You can change the payment schedule to manual and decide yourself when to move the money. You can also have a different currency account connected to the same Wave/Stripe account.

Regarding the fee, I just use an online calculator such as this: http://www.clothnappytree.com/ppcalculator/ Put in 1.4% plus the 20p (for UK cards) and it gives you exactly the right amount to charge to the guests. I just did this last week; once the fee was deducted I had the correct amount I requested before fees.

[ManxRed1]

Well, I have to report that - as I had a guest asking to pay by CC - I knocked up a proforma invoice, added 1.42% to the balance due, inserted the guy's name and email, pressed send, and...

... half n hour later I got an email from Wave and an email from Stripe saying the invoice had been paid in full by Visa Card and that the funds would be in my account within 7 days.

Brilliant!

So, I am a convert to this, and would agree that it's not rocket science at all to set up.

[Sandra]

Dotty, could there be an error in the link you gave on the 22 August? I went to your rates page and tapped the visa payment expecting re stripe and all I got was examples of different icons/logos of payment cards and there html to put in websites, perhaps it's me being dense

[Dotty]

Dotty, could there be an error in the link you gave on the 22 August? I went to your rates page and tapped the visa payment expecting re stripe and all I got was examples of different icons/logos of payment cards and there html to put in websites, perhaps it's me being dense

Thanks Sandra. I'll look into the coding. I found the credit card images on line as copyright free source, with the code to put into a website. (Wave suggest you do that). I thought it was just going to put the image there, not put a clickable link back to the images site. I can't link the cc part of the process to the website - using wave I have to send guests an invoice which they can pay using their cc, once they have booked.

To see the free to book part of the booking process you need to click on the button labelled search - again that together with the book now icon, and little calendar thingy is generated by the code which free to book tell you to paste into the website.

I can see now how its confusing Thanks for pointing it out. It must confuse potential guests too, although I have had a booking using it. Will see what I can do to change the code - googling required methinks - but I'm away at the moment so it will have to wait until I get back.

[FelicityA]

Are Stripe and Wave the same company? I had a nice conversation with Stripe a few months ago but it came to nothing as it was going to cost 4.9% (2.9% + €0.25 + today's market exchange rate + 2 %) to receive either Euros or Sterling if the payment was made by a card using another currency - in my case, USA, Canadian or Australian dollars. 4.9% is just too much. I was wondering if the same rate applied at Wave?

[NeatandPicky]

Wave Apps provide a front end - simple invoice templates, record keeping, etc. Stripe provide the card payments end. Somehow Wave seem to have negotiated a better deal than you can get through Stripe alone.

With Wave you can only receive payments in one currency unless you use different email addresses. I believe it was Kevsboredagain who posted info on this previously.

My Wave / Stripe account is registered to my UK bank. As I understand it I can take European bank cards for 1.4% + 20p, but payments have to be made in Sterling.

[FelicityA]

Wave Apps provide a front end - simple invoice templates, record keeping, etc. Stripe provide the card payments end. Somehow Wave seem to have negotiated a better deal than you can get through Stripe alone.

With Wave you can only receive payments in one currency unless you use different email addresses. I believe it was Kevsboredagain who posted info on this previously.

My Wave / Stripe account is registered to my UK bank. As I understand it I can take European bank cards for 1.4% + 20p, but payments have to be made in Sterling.

Thank, NeatandPicky. But if you can take European bank cards and the money ends up in sterling, are you not having to pay a currency conversion fee on top? Euros to sterling. My understanding for taking eg. dollars was that there was an extra fee if you were paying into a bank account of a different currency to the cardholder. My contact at Stripe said:"If you accept a payment in a currency that you do not have a bank account for then the total for that transaction would be 2.9% + €0.25 + today's market exchange rate + 2 %." The 2.9 was quoted as I was asking about dollars. He went on to say "the conversion rates are based off of that days global market exchange rate. The 2% is some thing applied by Stripe for processing the conversion for you."

I am wondering if you are going to be hit with an extra 2% when a payment made with a Euro designated card comes in?
> >

[Nemo]

With Wave you can only receive payments in one currency unless you use different email addresses. I believe it was Kevsboredagain who posted info on this previously.

I don't think this is the case, but it's worth exploring. On my Wave invoices, there is a dropdown menu showing lots of different currencies, leading me to believe I can create an invoice in dollars for example.

From Stripe, in answer to my question of asking if I could have two UK bank accounts linked

each bank account linked to one Stripe account has to be in a different currency. You can't add two bank accounts with the same currency into your Stripe account

My Stripe dashboard has the ability to add another bank account, but only in a different currency to my existing account.
My personal conclusion is that you can invoice, for example, in dollars and then transfer them into a dollar bank account.
Wroth just asking Wave/Stripe the question if you're not 100% sure. Their support service is very good, although not necessarily immediate.

[ClareW]

I am just in the process of setting up my PMP website and working out what payment options to offer. This all sounds very interesting! My questions are

Do you think that if I accept credit card payments via wave apps there is no need to offer paypal, or could there be a case where somebody would prefer to pay paypal over credit card?

If so, would just offering bank transfer or credit/ debit card payments be all the options I'd need to offer?

Can you send invoices through waveapps for bank transfer?

Does Waveapps offer most of what Free to book offers, in which case could I simplify things even more by not having Free to Book? I only have 1 property.

It would seem that most of you charge the 1.4% to the customer by adding it on as a card fee. It seems like such a small amount I am wondering whether to just take it myself to avoid a possible petty/ annoying add on to the customer?? Or even just add £10 on to all the prices (which I still have to set) to cover it which would balance out as I'd be making more on the bank transfers! Am interested in your opinions as to whether people are happy to pay the card fee of 1.4% or whether they do so begrudgingly?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance- have discovered this thread at the perfect time!

[/list]

[ManxRed1]

I've only had one CC payment so far, and I added on the 1.4% (you actually add on 1.42% to get the right figure to charge).

The customer didn't mind paying the 1.42% for the security of paying by credit card.

My view is, if you offer Bank Transfer (0% charge) and CC (1.42% charge) then the customer can decide for themselves which they prefer with all the inherent risk (or lack of) that goes with each option.

Of course, if you're happy to waive the CC fee (£5 - £10 on a £500 booking) then fair enough. It is not a huge amount after all.

[Tivoli]

Do you think that if I accept credit card payments via wave apps there is no need to offer paypal, or could there be a case where somebody would prefer to pay paypal over credit card?

Yes, I think that there are circumstances where people prefer to use PayPal in place of a credit card. Firstly, there is no requirement to type your credit card details into another provider with whom you may have no experience or confidence. Secondly, PayPal performs the whole transaction as a single item, so you are not haunted by your credit card company's desire to show you the additional fee for a foreign currency transaction, which makes the whole experience feel cheaper even if it may not be.

[Nemo]

Do you think that if I accept credit card payments via wave apps there is no need to offer paypal, or could there be a case where somebody would prefer to pay paypal over credit card?

If so, would just offering bank transfer or credit/ debit card payments be all the options I'd need to offer?

As you're in the UK, then yes I think it would. I also accept cheques but some owners don't now. I rarely get taken up on Paypal now especially because of adding the fee on and so offering another way to pay by credit card. I would never take an international payment by choice through Paypal anyway and would encourage the use of a currency exchange service. Credit Card is available for foreign cards through Wave just at a higher fee.

[Vera]

I now have 2 accounts. One for Euro and the other for Sterling.
I had problems with the Sterling one in that it appeared to be OK but would not include the CC input info with the invoice. I needed to change my phone number to be a UK one in the set-up in Stripe.

I have made test payments on both but the Sterling one gave an error with one CC and worked with a different one, my bank could not see any failed transaction. The only real payment I've tried with the Euro account also failed, my client said he tried it twice and then paid by BACS. Wave said they couldn't see any payment attempt and the guest was very slow in paying anyway, so I have my doubts about him.

So some success and a couple of hiccups, has anyone else seen these problems?

[ClareW]

I have decided to try Wave invoices to enable me to take credit/ debit card payments for my newly available holiday let. Being new to all this I have some basic invoicing questions.
Should I put my own name and address as the 'business address and contact details' on the top right hand side of the Wave invoice template rather than the name and address of the holiday cottage?
Also, do you send an invoice for the initial booking reservation deposit payment and then another invoice when the balance is due? Is there any way to give the option to pay the full amount on booking (just incase guests would wish to do so).
Lastly, do the guests automatically get a receipt from Wave when they have made their payment or do we have to denerate a receipt?
Sorry- 3 questions in one post!
Thanks in advance

[NeatandPicky]

I use my home address as the business address. (I'm in the UK, declaring income to HMRC, and rental is in Cyprus).

I have template invoices for:
- rental deposit
- rental balance
- full rental (for use with late bookings)
- security bond

I send Wave invoices for each payment and offer guests bank transfer, cheque or card payments. I ask guests choosing to pay by card to pay the additional fee.

When guests pay by bank transfer they pay the rental balance and security bond in one, but I separate them in my Wave invoices so that I can cancel the security bond payment including card fees (via Stripe dashboard) to refund after the guests' stay. You can also make partial refunds via Stripe, so this may be unnecessary. One set of guests paid the rental via bank transfer and the security bond via card. Quite clever as I assume this gives them the card protection for very little additional fee. As this made it easier for me to return the bond I'm happy for future guests to do this too.

Wave automatically generates receipts for card payments. If a guest pays by bank transfer I edit the invoice in Wave to remove the card fee and record it as a manual payment to cash in hand. (An option in the menu.) Then I generate a professional-looking receipt in Wave to email to the guest.