Stripe integration

Is there any update on this?

Hi Thomas,

We are happy to say that Strip integration is now something we have begun to work on. There is currently no estimate as to when this will be completed, however we will be introducing this in the near future as we realise how useful this will be to all our users.

Thanks

Chris

Will second the request for subscriptions. It's currently very hard to automate subscriptions out of Clearbooks, so much so that it is a pain to do. Stripe offers the great payment gateway to do this, just need Clearbooks to make it possible to easily manage on the accounting side.

Yes - subscriptions would be awesome using stripe!

And obviously automatic statement imports like I can do with Paypal.

Added my vote to this. And to second Matthew's request for including subscriptions, a great way to handle recurring billing.

7 months since latest update here, any ETA? Thanks.

I asked the support team for an update on the Stripe integration, and I received this reply:

I have contacted the development team regarding update on the Stripe integration, They have informed me that it is currently not on our product roadmap, but it is something we would definitely consider for the future.

We have alternative products to Stripe which we have integrated with, just to name a few PayPoint, eWay and PayPal integrations.

So, that doesn't look good, and seems to contradict what Chris McBride said 4 months ago - that the Stripe integration work had already begun.

It is frustrating that both Xero and Freeagent already have Stripe integration. I accept that not all integrations can be achieved, but Stripe is a very popular choice with developers and e-commerce business owners.

How has it gone from "something we have begun to work on" to "not on our roadmap", and taken four months to tell us this? Every other decent accounting package has Stripe integration (Xero, Freeagent, KashFlow, Freshbooks) plus many more integrations, and cost either the same or less than ClearBooks.

Anyone can accept payments in minutes with Stripe. All the others take either forever to set up, charge an arm and a leg or are simply inconvenient for customers. Go Cardless is great in concept, but in practice nobody wants to set up a direct debit to pay one bill. Stripe is perfect for exactly the type of business that uses Clear Books - and every day you don't have it you will lose business to the other, better integrated packages.

I've been trialling Quickfile, which is free and is more than adequate for my purposes. It has a number of third-party integrations, including Stripe.

Before we all jump to places where the 'grass is greener', let's look at what they actually offer, re Stripe:

Looks like Xero's Stripe integration is not that great:

https://community.xero.com/business/discussion/2211421/

• Doesn't push transactions
• Doesn't split fees from revenue
• Doesn't record invoice #s in Stripe.

Freeagent doesn't seem to handle the Stripe fees well either - they recommend that each explanation is manually handled:

http://www.freeagent.com/support/kb/banking/split-a-transaction-for-commission-or-charges-deducted

Kashflow don't handle fees automatically either, BUT they have recently acknowledged a feature request, saying "Thanks for your feedback on this. We will take a look into this and see what we can do."

https://kashflow.uservoice.com/forums/191840-kashflow-customer-forum/suggestions/4255924-handle-stripe-fees-automatically

So, all three offer Stripe integration, but I'd argue in each case it's not fully-featured.

For anyone who's interested, I see two main use cases for Stripe integration:

1. Regular, manually-created invoices, which are emailed to customers, with a pay link.
2. Sales which are made on an e-commerce site, which need to be recorded in Clearbooks

With either use case, not having to manually explain Stripe fees for every payment is a major bonus, but especially so with e-commerce where there could be a very large number of transactions.

For me, the answer is something similar to the current PayPal integration. In my opinion, Clearbooks have an opportunity here to not only match their competitors' Stripe integrations, but to significantly improve it.

I guess another use case to consider is recurring invoices, as Stripe can be configured to take payments on a recurring basis (eg for subscriptions), which is very handy. Yet more reason to automate the invoice generation and fee explanation.

Hi all,

We are still very keen to complete the stripe integration and it is very much on the road map (sorry about the mixed message!). Development has been on hold for a while due to other priorities within the dev team, however we will let you know as soon as the integration goes into testing stage.

Thanks for the response, John (and via email).

When you're ready to start work on this I would be happy to offer some thoughts on the development and be a beta tester.

As a point of reference to respond to some of the issues raised here please have a read of this news post.

Any update on the strip integration?

We also need stripe integration.

Any movement on this? I have just started using Clearbooks, and use Stripe to take all payments. Will it be integrated in the near future?

Please advise.

Hi all, I have been using clear books for some years now and have started to use stripe to take out international payments. Now with the introduction of MOSS I was wondering how people are handling their MOSS returns? Any advise would be gratefully received.

Hi all, I have been using clear books for some years now and have started to use stripe to take out international payments. Now with the introduction of MOSS I was wondering how people are handling their MOSS returns? Any advise would be gratefully received.

Hi all, I have been using clear books for some years now and have started to use stripe to take out international payments. Now with the introduction of MOSS I was wondering how people are handling their MOSS returns? Any advise would be gratefully received.

Any updates on Stripe? Its been sometime since the first request.

This was suggested three years ago. I think its about time we had. Especially now they have further reduced their rates. 1.4% + 20p per transaction. Thats a considerable saving over PayPal. Your major competitors have had integration with Stripe for ages. They also have lower monthly subscription rates. I'll certainly be switching at the end of my financial year if this isn't brought in by then.

I agree with Steve –  the new, lower rates from Stripe (for European cards) makes this even more desirable. I have several e-commerce sites that need this integration and it's starting to get desperate. I would rather not have to move away from Clearbooks as apart from this integration I am a Clearbooks fan …

Kerry - re MOSS take a look at Taxamo https://www.taxamo.com/

Very disappointed about the lack of implementation after three years. Not to mention the lack of response and communication. As a bare minimum we should he able to add a payment link to an invoice. The API is incredibly simple and easy to use. Importing data manually is a pain but not impossible.

Hi Steve, I can confirm that Stripe integration is being worked on at present by our Development Team. I cannot confirm when it will be ready to be released, however, as our Development Resource is limited and there are other things which must take a higher priority.

That being said, I would not expect to see it for at least two months and quite possibly longer.

Any update on stripe integration now? I see people have pledged £160 to contribute towards this and I guess that is on top of the monthly fee they pay to use Clearbooks as an accounting system.

I see that other accounting systems have integrated to stripe - such as Xero, Zoho Invoice, Wave, Ultradox, Sellsy, FreeAgent, Freshbooks, Chargify, Chargebee, KashFlow. Quickbooks online allows stripe integration using the stripe .11f file format or via plugins such as Commerce Sync, Connex, Cloud Cart Connector, SaaSOptics, PEnnyPipe, S2Q.

Any update on strip integration? It's been 3 years this this feature was suggested, there's 27 likes and people have pledged £160 to pay for the development, even though they already pay clearbooks a handsome monthly fee for use of the software product. I had a quick look at the competition, here's a short list of some of the other accounting packages and invoicing companies who have already added Stripe integration: Xero, Freshbooks, Quickbooks online (via plugins Commerce Sync, Connex, Cloud Mart Connector, SaaSOptics, PennyPipe, S2Q or from importing the .11f file format from stripe), Expensify, FreeAgent, Zoho Invoice, Avalara, Less Accounting, ZipBooks, Zoho Books. There's a list of many, many more here: https://stripe.com/docs/integrations

Any update on strip integration? It's been 3 years this this feature was suggested, there's 27 likes and people have pledged £160 to pay for the development, even though they already pay clearbooks a handsome monthly fee for use of the software product. I had a quick look at the competition, here's a short list of some of the other accounting packages and invoicing companies who have already added Stripe integration: X e ro, F reshbooks, Quick books online (via plugins Commerce Sync, Connex, Cloud Mart Connector, SaaSOptics, PennyPipe, S2Q or from importing the .11f file format from stripe), Expensify, FreeAgent, Zoho Invoice, Avalara, Less Accounting, ZipBooks, Zoho Books. There's a list of many, many more here: https://stripe.com/docs/integrations

Any update on strip integration? It's been 3 years this this feature was suggested, there's 27 likes and people have pledged £160 to pay for the development, even though they already pay clearbooks a handsome monthly fee for use of the software product. I had a quick look at the competition, here's a short list of some of the other accounting packages and invoicing companies who have already added Stripe integration: X e ro, F reshbooks, Quick books online (via plugins Commerce Sync, Connex, Cloud Mart Connector, SaaSOptics, PennyPipe, S2Q or from importing the .11f file format from stripe), Expens ify, Free Agent, Zoho Invoice, Avalara, Less Accounting, Zip Books, Zoho Books. There's a list of many, many more here: https://stripe.com/docs/integrations

Any update on strip integration? It's been 3 years this this feature was suggested, there's 27 likes and people have pledged £160 to pay for the development, even though they already pay clearbooks a handsome monthly fee for use of the software product. I had a quick look at the competition, here's a short list of some of the other accounting packages and invoicing companies who have already added Stripe integration and there's a list of many of them here: https://stripe.com/docs/integrations

Any update on stripe integration? It's been 3 years this this feature was suggested, there's 27 likes and people have pledged £160 to pay for the development, even though they already pay clearbooks a handsome monthly fee for use of the software product. I had a quick look at the competition and there's a list of many of them here: https://stripe.com/docs/integrations

any update?

Hi David,

I completely understand your frustration and have escalated all the issues you have posted on today to our executive team to get a more comprehensive response.

Just one thing though - I'm not sure if it was intentional, but can I please just request that you don't spam any community posts.

oh sorry! It completely wasnt intentional - the page didnt show any of my responses so I presumed it was lost for some reason

Hi Matthew. Looks like I will be doing the same. I've looked at the various options. How are you finding Xero? Was the move across relatively painless?

Matthew – last time I looked, Xero's Stripe integration didn't include an explanation of Stripe's fees, which, being per transaction, can really mount up (eg for e-commerce sites where there are many transactions).

As a comparison, Clearbook's PayPal integration does an automatic reconciliation / explanation of fees, which is a big time saver.

Does Xero now support the explanation of Stripe fees?

I did come across this third party service which creates a Stripe transaction within Xero to reconcile against the relevant invoice.

http://silversiphon.com/

But it does seem to me that it should be part of any 'true' integration with Stripe, and not something a user needs to pay extra for.

Having been a Clearbooks user since 2012, I have found the monthly price and lack of support/updates increasingly frustrating. It's one thing to release updates to make the interface look more modern, but there are requested functional features that have been 'in development' for years. My colleague is also using Xero and has been saying how good it is. I would have also loved to have seen Stripe integration and have been waiting a long time for this. Time to move away for the next financial year I think.

I've just signed up for the Xero trial. The only thing that is stopping me leaving immediately is the fact that I would have to carry on paying for Clearbooks for quite some time - until my accountant has signed off 15/16 and 16/17. Either that or I would have to re-create 18 months of accounts in Xero. I wonder how many other Clearbooks users are trapped and would leave if it was easy.

Xero offered me 50% off for a year to try out the service. So glad I did. Importing my exisiting data for this current inancial year wasn't too bad. Although Clearbooks haven't made it easy. My accounts are relatively simple. If I had a high transactional ECommerce site then I would wait until the start of a new year. Bank feeds update every morning and appear automatically. Reconciling is a breeze. I can even do it on the mobile app. So I'm up to date everyday. Invoicing is much better. Stripe integration is integrated well for taking payments. Accounting for fees can be done once you know how but room for improvement. The interface is faster and much easier to use. The mobile app works well unlike the disaster that is Clearbooks. Intergration with other apps is much better rather than non-existant. I'm just annoyed I didn't move earlier.

Thanks Steve - that's a really useful update! Glad it's worked out well for you. In my case, I think I'm going to have to wait until March 17 but great news that Xero does things so well. I also use 'Wave' free accounting for a smaller side business of mine and even that has automated bank import and reconciliation. As an app developer myself, I agree that the Clearbooks app is a bit of a joke.

You have until March to get this stuff sorted out Clearbooks!! :)

Just to let everyone know that Xero have just improved their Stripe integration. Invoices are automatically marked as paid. Stripe fees are automatically imported and assigned to a code of your choice. Absolutely brilliant. The importing and reconciliation is really well done. My business account statements are pipped through automatically every morning. As is PayPal. In fact not only did I restart 2016/17 in Xero but I imported everything from 2015/16 too. Didn't take long at all. So I can now submit to my accountant way ahead of schedule and stop paying Clearbooks any money. I couldn't be happier.

Any update on Stripe intergration with clearbooks? It's disappointing to see this still isn't an option despite it being raised 4 years ago.

Hi Christine,

We will be making official announcements about this soon.

I hope you will plan to make the announcement before the start of April 2017 as I plan to move to another platform at the start of the new financial year due to the lack of stripe support.

Hi Aran,

Was there an announcement on this since? I still haven't heard anything.

Thanks

Hi Christine,

No, you have not missed it; there has not been an announcement regarding a Stripe integration.

Is development of this still on the cards for the near future? This feature would make a huge difference to the ease of payment and overall customer experience; the lack of it is making me seriously consider moving platform.

Thanks

At the moment, we have no official plans to integrate with Stripe. This is due to our focus on larger projects like establishing Clear books Micro and making sure that we are MTD compliant.

We are aware of the demand for this integration and how helpful it will be to some of our customers, and will consider it once we can realistically work towards making it a reality.

Any update on this ? My clearbooks subscription will be up soon and I intend to move providers if this is not implemented.

Hi Killian,

I am very sorry, there is no update on this as yet.

Crazy. 6 years and no update!

Hows that integration coming along?

Any update? We're implementing aspects of Stripe shortly and an accounting integration is essential.

I'm leaving Clearbooks because of their failure to implement Stripe - it's such a pain importing

We're about to move to quickbooks for the same reason

"there are no updates on Stripe as this is not currently in any stage of development." posted by John 5 days ago on https://secure.clearbooks.co.uk/community/questions/24418/is-clearbooks-still-developing.