Card Payment Matching links a Client in TutorCruncher to the customer record they already have in your Stripe account, so the card they have saved in Stripe can be used to take payment inside TutorCruncher. You will find it at System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Card Payment Matching.
This is for businesses that were already taking card payments through Stripe before they started using TutorCruncher. Without matching, those Clients would have to save their card details with you all over again.
Note: Card Payment Matching is only available on the legacy version of Stripe. If you are on the new version of Stripe, your customers are copied across as part of the migration instead - you can read about that here.
Note: You need the 'Edit Accounting' Administrator permission to open this page, and the feature is not available on a demo Branch.
Before you start
Connect your Stripe account first, at System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Card Payments with Stripe. Nothing can be matched until TutorCruncher has access to your Stripe account.
TutorCruncher begins searching for matches automatically as soon as your Stripe account is connected, so the list is often already populated the first time you open the page.
How matching works
TutorCruncher compares the customers in your Stripe account against your Clients and shows you the pairs it believes belong together. Three fields are compared:
Email: the Client's email address against the email held on the Stripe customer.
Name: the Client's full name against the name or the description held on the Stripe customer.
Address: the Client's address against the address held in Stripe.
Each suggested pair appears as its own card, with a table putting those three fields side by side. Rows that agree are highlighted green and rows that do not are highlighted red. The strongest matches are listed first.
Two things limit what appears in the list:
Only Clients who are not already linked to a Stripe customer are included.
Only Stripe customers with a saved card are included.
Note: A suggested pair is not a confirmation. Check the email address and name yourself before linking, as a match on name alone can pair the wrong people. Nothing is linked until you click Link.
Linking a Client to their Stripe customer
Go to System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Card Payment Matching.
Find the Client you want to link. Their name at the top of the card opens their Client profile if you want to check their details first.
Click View Customer in Stripe to open that customer record in Stripe in a new tab and confirm it is the right person.
Click Link.
The card disappears from the list once the link has saved, which is how you know it has worked. The card saved against that Stripe customer is then available on the Client's Billing tab, at People > Clients > select the Client > Billing. There is more on that here.
Refreshing the list
Results are held for two hours. Once every suggested pair has been dealt with, or if no matches were found at all, a Refresh Matches button appears at the bottom of System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Card Payment Matching. Use it to run the search again, for example after adding new Clients or after a Client saves a new card in Stripe.
The search can take up to 30 minutes. A spinner is shown while it runs, and a second search cannot be started until the first has finished.
Frequently Asked Questions
A Client exists in both systems but is not in the list
Usually one of the following:
The Client is already linked to a Stripe customer.
The Stripe customer has no active card saved against them. Customers without a saved card are not pulled through.
Neither the email address nor the name lines up. TutorCruncher needs the email address to match, or the Client's full name to match the name or description held on the Stripe customer.
That Stripe customer has already been suggested against a different Client. Each Stripe customer is only offered once.
Why are some rows in the comparison table red?
Red means the two records disagree on that field. A pair can still be a genuine match with a red row, for example where the address held in Stripe is out of date. Use the green rows, and what you know about the Client, to decide.
I clicked Link but the Client is still showing
Reload the page. If the Client is still listed, the Stripe customer they were matched to most likely has no active card saved in Stripe.
What happens to my matches if I remove Stripe?
Removing your Stripe account at System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Card Payments with Stripe clears the link between every Client and their Stripe customer. They would all need matching again after you reconnect.
Can I do the same for Direct Debit?
Yes. The GoCardless equivalent is Direct Debit Matching, at System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Direct Debit Matching. You can read about it here.