How payments work
Short version: the money goes from the person paying to your group's bank. DuesDesk keeps the records. It never touches the money.
Online payments
- Your group has its own Stripe account. You connect it in Settings (or create one there). It belongs to your association or club, in its name, with its bank account. Use the group's own details, not a volunteer's personal ones.
- A member clicks the pay link in a reminder or in the portal and pays by card or by bank transfer on a Stripe page.
- Stripe pays the money out to your bank on its usual schedule and takes its processing fee from your account.
- DuesDesk records it. Stripe tells us the payment happened, and it appears on the member's account with a receipt. Refunds and disputes you handle in Stripe show up in your ledger too.
What it costs. DuesDesk charges no fee per payment and no percentage. Stripe charges its standard processing fee to your group; at the time of writing a US bank transfer costs far less than a card payment, which is why the pay page offers bank transfer first. Current prices are on stripe.com/pricing.
Bank transfers take a few days
A bank transfer (ACH) shows as pending for a few business days while the banks settle it. If it fails, for example for lack of funds, the payment is reversed in your ledger and you are told. Card payments confirm at once.
Autopay
Members can choose to pay automatically. They save a payment method with Stripe and agree to be charged when dues come due; they get an email before each charge, and can switch autopay off whenever they like. If a charge fails they get a pay link instead.
Checks, cash and everything else
Many groups collect most of their dues on paper. Recording a check or cash takes a few seconds: amount, date, check number. It lands in the same ledger, the member gets a receipt, and the statement shows it like any other payment. If your members send money by a bank's own transfer service, record it the same way.
Matching what the bank shows
Stripe pays out in batches, so one deposit at your bank can cover many members' payments. DuesDesk lists each payout with the payments inside it, so the deposit on your bank statement can be ticked off against your books without a bank feed.
What we cannot do, on purpose
- We cannot move, hold, redirect or refund your money. Refunds are made by you, from your Stripe account.
- We cannot see card numbers or bank account numbers.
- We do not add convenience fees to your members' payments.
When the treasurer changes
The Stripe account stays with the group. The outgoing treasurer adds the new one to the Stripe account's team and removes themselves; nothing has to be reconnected. DuesDesk has a handoff checklist for the rest.