I'd like to send the customer a Stripe pre-built invoice receipt email when or after their invoice is marked as "paid_out_of_band". There doesn't seem to be a way in the API to replicate the behaviour of the "Send Receipt" button for invoices via the Dashboard: https://stripe.com/docs/receipts#manually-send-receipts-from-the-dashboard
I know it is possible if I used the PaymentIntent which is generated by the Invoice, however this is only available when the invoice is finalised. In this use case the user can edit their order and return to checkout, I'd prefer that we're not creating multiple invoices and finalising them each time this happens. To resolve this I am using a separate PaymentIntent, updating it until the user clicks confirm, then generating the Invoice once the we get the payment_intent.succeeded webhook. You can't link the Invoice and PaymentIntent up this way sadly so I simply cross reference them in the metadata for both objects.
I know I can send my own email with a link to the online receipt which exists on the Invoice but I would prefer to use the pre-built Stripe versions.
Related
Quite suprisingly, it is not possible to automatically generate an invoice after as successfull checkout session with Stripe.
An invoice must always come before a payment in the stripe system.
I am left with having to recreate the invoice through a bunch of API calls fetching the PaymentIntent or the CheckoutSession that was just performed to recompute the data for the invoice and mark it as paid (not even sure I can retrieve everything I need)
This seems quite hacky... Is this the right way to do it or shall I just handle invoicing outside of stripe (quite annoying too) ?
just want clarify if you need Invoice or Receipt, because they are two different things
Invoice is something you send to customer to ask for payment (before payment)
Receipt is a proof of succeeded payment (after payment)
My understanding is that the payment is already collected upon a succeeded checkout session, so you probably want to send receipts to customers. To enable email receipts, you can go to Settings -> Emails and tick the Email customers about Successful payment box. Please note that emails won't be sent in test mode.
Let me explain a solution that you can use to generate invoices after payment in stripe. This solution is based on Zapier connectors.
There are three systems that we should connect.
Stripe
Zapier
Plumsail Documents
First, you have to set up a Stripe connection to Zapier. Go to Zapier, create a Zap, find the Stripe connection, and select "New Payment" as the trigger event. Then, connect your Stripe account with Zapier and make a test in Zap. If everything ok, go to the second step.
Second. After you have done the Zap connection for Stripe, go to Plumsail Documents, create the process, and make a template for your invoice.
Third. Set up a Plumsail Documents connection to Zapier. Go to your Zap (where you have made the connection to Stripe before), find the Plumsail Documents action, and set the Start Process as Action Event. Next, you have to select your process and match output data from Stripe payment with your invoice template in Plumsail Documents.
It seems a bit complicated, so you can read the article with a more detailed description of this solution. Also, there are screenshots for all processes.
As a result, you will get a fully automated custom invoice generation whenever you will get a payment in Stripe.
Max, product manager at Plumsail.
I charge Customers using this guide https://stripe.com/docs/connect/destination-charges adding amount, application fee and Service provider accound_id, after that I listen for "charge.succeeded" event with webhooks. If the payment was successful I generate invoice using this this guide - https://stripe.com/docs/billing/invoices/connect, but I get this error
"Nothing to invoice for customer"
Is it possible Stripe automatically to create Invoice for me?
Do I have to manually create this invoice and then make it paid.
Should I generate the Invoice before Payment or after Payment?
When you process a payment, Stripe will send your customers a receipt automatically per your email settings [1]. In some respects, this receipt serves as an invoice of services rendered, and might be sufficient for your needs. You can see an example of what a receipt will look like for a given payment by looking at a given payment in the dashboard (under the 'Receipt history' heading).
Now, if the receipt automatically generated by Stripe doesn't meet your needs (e.g., you want to be able to list more customer info on there), then you'll want to use the Invoices API [2] instead of the Payment Intents API to process the payment. Using the Invoices API also allows you send the invoice to the customer so they can initiate payment on their own [3].
So, with that out of the way, if you intend to create Invoices for your customers you need to first create Invoice Items on the Customer and then create an invoice off that Customer. Once you finalize the Invoice, Stripe will either process a payment automatically under the hood, or send the Invoice to your Customers via email so they can initiate the payment (through a Stripe hosted page). At that point you can send your customers a copy of the Invoice PDF. With this integration there is no need to process the payment on your own or deal with any other APIs. The Invoices API takes care of everything for you. These steps are documented in detail here:
https://stripe.com/docs/billing/invoices/create
To answer your questions more directly:
No. Stripe will only automatically create invoices when you make subscriptions. But, Stripe does automatically create receipts as described above.
Yes, you manually would need to add Invoice Items to the Customer, then create an Invoice off that Customer. Note that this step will also charge the customer, so you don't need to do that separately.
Invoices process the payment under the hood once they are finalized.
[1] https://stripe.com/docs/receipts
[2] https://stripe.com/docs/billing/invoices/create
[3] https://stripe.com/docs/api/invoices/create#create_invoice-collection_method
I would like to see how I can send subscription invoices with auto charge.
From the Invoice API, billing can be either set to charge automatically or send to customers for manual payment.
But I want to charge my customers automatically and send them the invoices. It seems that it's a common option in Saas monthly subscription. Not sure how I can achieve it.
I've finished creating a subscription for a customer. But the record and invoice are only on the Stripe dashboard.
One way I thought of is to get the invoice pdf file from API and send them on my own. I am using Python / Django now.
Can someone help me out?
There are 2 ways to go about it:
1) Send the invoice with the send_invoice (see the Python example). It will know that the payment was already settled for that invoice based on the invoice ID.
2) Add a webhook endpoint to your Django app and subscribe to the webhook events invoice.created, invoice.finalized, invoice.sent, invoice.payment_succeeded. This way though you need to create your own template (email or PDF up to you)
I create invoice using stripe API (Java) and add argument billing as 'Send_invoice' and the invoice created fine, as documentation says this will email the customer with payment instructions but this not happen (the customer not Emailed automatically by created invoice), the invoice only sent to customer in case when manually click on send button of the invoice. this scenario happens in Test and Live mode, So please I don't understand what makes the customer not Emailed automatically when the invoice is created.
This is expected: Stripe does not automatically send emails in test mode. You can trigger the emails manually via the dashboard.
In live mode, the invoice would be automatically emailed to the customer as you expect.
I have an application that has a recurring monthly subscription built with stripe, my client wants a section of the website where the users can view their payments / recipient.
I see that stripe sends to the users some recipient, but is a little dark to me where should I get the recipient_number, since this value is almost all the time returning null from the webservice.
So,
What information should I show?
How can I get it?
The charge object will include the receipt number if a receipt was sent. Stripe doesn't provide a way for you to link directly to the receipt so you may want to consider making your own receipt view in your webapp or sending your own receipts that you can render in your app.