Connect Stripe for online payments

With a Stripe account connected, your guests can pay their bill online, and pay a deposit when they book on your booking page, by card, Apple Pay, Google Pay and the other methods you switch on in Stripe. The money goes into your dive center's own Stripe account and from there to your bank. DivePilot never holds the money and never sees a card number. How guests pay is in Payment links and the My bill page, refunds and disputes in Online refunds and disputes, deposits in Deposits for online bookings.

Before you start

• Open Settings, then Online payments in the Prices & payments group. The tab needs the permission See online payments. Connecting, Stripe's forms, the account details and disconnecting need the permission Connect Stripe, which of the built-in presets only Admin has.
• Your dive center needs its country, which is set when the dive center is created. A dive center without one is told so on the tab; write to support@divepilot.app to set it.
• Online payments are always in your dive center's currency.

Countries

You can connect Stripe in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Gibraltar, Hong Kong, Japan, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Switzerland, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and every country of the European Union. These are the countries where Stripe opens accounts for businesses.

Elsewhere, for example in the Philippines, the Maldives, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Fiji, French Polynesia, Türkiye, Colombia or Costa Rica, the tab explains that Stripe does not offer accounts there and offers no Connect Stripe. India and Indonesia, South Africa and Kenya, and Guadeloupe, Martinique and Réunion are not offered yet either. Payments at the counter and bank transfers work as before in every country.

Connect

The tab leads you through four steps, shown at the top until guests can pay online: Connect Stripe, Add your details, Stripe checks and Take payments. A step that is done gets a tick.

On a first connect, the Connect Stripe card first asks Do you already have a Stripe account?:

• Yes, we already use Stripe: in Stripe's form, enter the email you already use for Stripe and sign in. Stripe offers your business and copies its checked details. Do not create a second login.
• No, not yet: enter your email in Stripe's form. Stripe creates your login, then asks for your business details.

Below that, Have these at hand lists what Stripe asks for: the ID card or passport of the person who runs the dive center, your bank account details for the payouts, your business registration or tax number, and a mobile phone for a code by text message. It takes about 10 minutes. What DivePilot sends to Stripe lists what DivePilot passes to Stripe, so you only check it there: Business name, Address and Tax number from Business & tax, Website and Phone from Branding, and you as the Contact person. What DivePilot does not have yet reads Not in DivePilot yet, with a link to the tab where you add it; adding it first saves typing in Stripe's form. Stripe checks each value on its own and asks again for any it does not take, such as a website it cannot open.

1. Press Connect Stripe.
2. In some countries the tab first shows a note on the fiscal rules of your country, which you confirm, see "The note for your country" below.
3. DivePilot creates your Stripe account, or takes the one you connected before, and Stripe's own form opens in the tab under Set up your Stripe account: your business, the people behind it, an ID check and the bank account for payouts. Until you have signed in to Stripe there, a reminder above the form reads Already use Stripe? Sign in with your existing Stripe login. You can stop and come back; what you entered is kept. Opening the account takes a few seconds: the button and a line under it say so, and the confirmation of your country's note cannot be cancelled meanwhile.
4. Stripe checks what you entered. The status card then says "Stripe is checking your details. This usually takes a few minutes, sometimes up to two business days. This page updates by itself.", and the tab looks again every 30 seconds. When Stripe asks for more, the steps go back to Add your details. Right after you finish, Stripe can hold card payments back for a few minutes while it checks; the card then reads Stripe is checking your details as well.
5. Once Stripe is done, the steps make way for the status card, which reads Online payments active, see "The status card" below. Until then nothing is offered to guests.

A Stripe account in test mode, where no real money moves, shows Test mode on the status card, and above Stripe's form Test mode: values Stripe accepts lists the values the form takes there, such as 000000 for the text message code, and says to choose Stripe's test bank account.

Your account is a full Stripe account of your own: Stripe charges its fees to you directly, and you can also sign in at dashboard.stripe.com with it.

The status card

Once you have connected, the tab starts with one card. A dot and a headline say where the account stands: Online payments active, Stripe is checking your details, Stripe needs a few details or Online payments restricted, with a Test mode pill on a test account. While payments are active, a line names what comes next: send a payment link from a guest's bill, or ask for deposits on online bookings under Deposits & cancellations. Under the headline, one line gives DivePilot's fee and when Stripe was last asked ("Checked …").

Next to the headline (under the text on a phone):

• Stripe Dashboard opens dashboard.stripe.com, where you see payouts, Stripe's fees and every detail. It shows once the setup is done.
• The refresh button, Check again, asks Stripe again.
• The ... menu holds Disconnect Stripe; on a phone it is a button of its own. It shows only to people with Connect Stripe.

Only while something is not active does the card also list Card payments and Payouts, each as Active, Being checked, Restricted or Not set up yet, and what Stripe still needs from you. When card payments stop being active on an account that was taking them, or Stripe asks for something new, everyone who may see online payments gets the notification Stripe needs your attention, and a banner on this tab and on the dashboard says what to do next. When Stripe asks for something while card payments are still active, the headline stays Online payments active and a line says what Stripe needs and by when, for example "Stripe needs more details by 12 Nov 2026, or card payments stop". While the setup still asks for details, the dashboard shows Finish setting up online payments with a link to this tab.

The tabs under the card

Once Stripe has activated the account, three tabs sit under the card:

• Payments: the payments guests made online, as Stripe sees them. Refunds are not started here: start them from the bill, so the reason is recorded, see Online refunds and disputes. Answering a dispute here needs Connect Stripe. The tab shows only to people who also have See every bill.
• Stripe account: your business details, bank account and the people on the account, in Stripe's own form. It needs Connect Stripe. When Stripe needs more details, you add them here.
• My bill: the settings of the guests' My bill page, see Payment links and the My bill page.

While payments are restricted, Payments is not offered. Someone who may see only My bill gets its settings without a row of tabs. While the account is still being set up, the My bill page card sits under Stripe's form instead.

The note for your country

In France, Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece, Croatia and Malta, recording customer payments can fall under fiscal rules, and DivePilot records every online payment on the guest's bill. The tab shows a note, the same one as on the payment methods, see Payment methods, and Connect Stripe works only once you tick the confirmation under Before you connect Stripe. The confirmation is kept with who gave it and when.

In Germany and Austria a note says that DivePilot is not a certified till, that payments guests make online away from your centre are generally outside the cash register rules (KassenSichV, RKSV), that payments you take in person stay in your own till, and that a guest paying with the link at your counter is a case for your till or your tax adviser; there is nothing to confirm.

The Online payment method

The first time you connect, DivePilot adds the payment method Online payment. It is used only by payments that arrive from Stripe:

• It is not offered when your team takes a payment or a refund at the desk.
• It does not count in the cash drawer. Under Payment methods its switch is locked on while Stripe is connected, with a line saying why. You can rename it.
• A payment made with it cannot be voided: the money sits in Stripe. Refund it to the card instead.
• In the cash-up, online payments count under their method, and under Online in the takings, never in anyone's own takings. A refund to card asked for from the bill counts under the person who asked for it, see Cash-up.

Apple Pay and Google Pay

When you connect, and every night while you are connected, DivePilot registers the address of its guest pages (my.divepilot.app) with Stripe for your account, so the Apple Pay and Google Pay buttons appear on the guest's phone or computer when it supports them. Which payment methods guests see is set in your Stripe Dashboard, under payment methods.

Fees

DivePilot keeps 1 % of each online payment, 0.75 % with a yearly subscription, at most 5 USD per payment or the equivalent in your dive center's currency, worked out from weekly exchange rates. Payments taken during the free trial carry no fee, also once you subscribe before the trial is over. The Online payments tab shows the fee before you connect, and the bill shows it as DivePilot fee with each online payment. After a refund to card or a lost dispute, the line shows the fee that is left and how much was given back.

In Brazil, Mexico, Malaysia and Thailand, Stripe cannot take the fee from each payment, because DivePilot is a Swiss platform. DivePilot adds the fee up and bills it once a month in USD on a separate invoice next to your subscription, charged to the same card. There the bill shows DivePilot fee ... with Billed monthly under it. No invoice is made below USD 1.00; the amount carries over to the next month. Refunds and lost disputes lower the fee, also after a month was billed; the credit is set off against later fees.

On the Subscription tab, Online payments fee this month so far shows the running total, and the monthly invoice appears in the payment history as Online payments fee. While it is unpaid, a notice with Pay now appears. Your account is never locked for an unpaid fee invoice.

Stripe's own card fees are separate: Stripe charges them to your Stripe account, as your Stripe account shows them. Guests never pay a surcharge.

When an online payment is refunded to the card, from the bill or in your Stripe Dashboard, or you lose a dispute on it, DivePilot's fee on it is refunded in proportion, see Online refunds and disputes.

Disconnect

Disconnect Stripe, in the ... menu of the status card (a button of its own on a phone), asks you to confirm first. Afterwards:

• The My bill page says "Please pay at the dive centre." and payment pages still open are closed.
• New online bookings get no deposit. Bookings that already have a deposit due are handled as described in Deposits for online bookings. Your deposit rules stay saved: under Deposits & cancellations a rule that is on reads Paused, and it applies again once guests can pay online.
• Your Stripe account is not deleted, and refunds of earlier online payments still work from the bill.
• Connect again connects the same account again, and the deposits you had switched on are asked again.

If Stripe closes your account, or someone removes DivePilot from it in the Stripe Dashboard, online payments stop the same way and the payment pages still open are closed. Everyone who may see online payments gets the notification Stripe closed your account or DivePilot was removed from your Stripe account, and the tab says that connecting again opens a new Stripe account. Payments made through the old account can no longer be refunded from DivePilot: refund them in your Stripe Dashboard or at the counter.

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