Connecting Stripe, step by step

What you will need

Get these together first and the whole thing takes ten minutes. Hunting for them halfway through is what makes it feel hard.

• ✓Your bank account number and sort code — where your lesson money will land.
• ✓A photo ID: passport or driving licence. You photograph it with your phone during the process.
• ✓Your address, and your date of birth.
• ✓If you are a limited company: the company number. If you are a sole trader, which most coaches are, you do not need one.

Stripe asks for all this because anyone taking card payments has to be identity-checked by law. It goes to Stripe, not to us — we never see it.

Start it

1. 1Sign in to CoachOS and go to Settings, then Plan & Billing.
2. 2Scroll to the box headed "Taking payments from players".
3. 3Click the green button that says "Set up card payments".
4. 4You will land on a Stripe page. This is normal — Stripe handle the card side, so part of the setup happens on their site.

If you already have a Stripe account

Plenty of coaches already have one from a shop, a website, or another tool. You can connect it instead of making a second.

1. 1Use the smaller link, "I already have a Stripe account", rather than the green button.
2. 2Sign in with the Stripe account you already use.
3. 3Choose the right business if you have more than one — Stripe will ask.

Only do this if that account already belongs to your coaching business. Connecting a personal or unrelated account means your lesson money lands somewhere your accountant is not expecting.

Filling in Stripe’s form

Stripe ask for the same things every payment processor asks for. In plain English:

• ✓"Business type" — sole trader if it is just you, which covers most coaches. Limited company if you have one.
• ✓"Industry" or "what do you sell" — sports and recreation, or coaching. Nothing hangs on picking perfectly.
• ✓"Business website" — your CoachOS booking page is fine. Copy it from Settings → Your public page.
• ✓"Statement descriptor" — the short name that appears on your player’s bank statement. Use your academy name so nobody rings you asking what the charge was.
• ✓"External account" — your bank account. This is where your money goes.

When you get back

• ✓You return to CoachOS automatically. Nothing more is needed from you.
• ✓A new section appears where you set your swing review prices, and another for discount codes. If you cannot see them, Stripe has not finished checking yet.
• ✓Checks are usually done in minutes but can take a day. Nothing is broken while you wait.

When it says something confusing

Every one of these has caught somebody out, including us. None of them means you have broken anything.

• ✓"Restricted" or "Payments paused" on your Stripe account — Stripe still wants something from you. Open Stripe and look for "Actions required"; it lists exactly what.
• ✓Stripe says everything is fine but CoachOS still shows the setup button — give it a minute and reload. Stripe tells us separately, and occasionally it lags.
• ✓"No organisation found for this account" — you are signed in as the wrong account. Coaches and golfers are separate logins, and it is easy to be signed in as yourself-the-golfer. Sign out and back in as your coach account.
• ✓You started from your own domain and something failed — payments setup always happens on coachos.golf. Sign in there and start again from Plan & Billing.
• ✓The page asks for a business website and you do not have one — use your CoachOS booking page. That is a real website with your name and your prices on it.

Testing that it works

Worth doing once, so you find out on your terms rather than a player’s.

1. 1Set a price on something cheap — a single swing review, for instance.
2. 2Sign in as a golfer, or ask a player you trust, and buy it with a real card.
3. 3Check it lands in your Stripe dashboard under Payments.
4. 4Refund it from Stripe if you want your money back.

Stripe normally keeps its processing fee even when you refund, so a test costs you that fee rather than nothing. How much depends on the card — a UK debit card is cheapest, business cards and Amex cost more — and your own rates are on your Stripe dashboard under Settings. It is pence either way, and worth it to know the whole thing works.

Still stuck

• ✓hello@coachos.golf reaches a human who has done this. Say what the screen says and we will tell you what it means.
• ✓You can leave card payments off entirely and keep taking cash in the bay. Nothing else in CoachOS depends on it.