Accepting Payments with Stripe's Universal Payment Element

Overview

Whether you want to improve conversion in your domestic market or expand globally, surfacing relevant payment methods to your customers is key. Here’s what's new with the Stripe Universal Payment Element:

Automatic input collection: The Payment Element automatically adjusts to collect input fields based on the payment method and country (e.g. full billing address collection for SEPA Direct Debit).
Dynamic sorting and filtering: The order in which payment methods are displayed adapts to your customer’s device and location to optimize for conversion. Payment methods are also filtered to show only those supported by your customer’s local currency.
Turn on payment methods instantly: You can turn new payment methods on and off directly from the Dashboard without having to request a new payment method.

Get Started

You can find the option for Stripe's Universal Payment Element (also referred to as Stripe Elements) under Settings > Payments.

There will be a Stripe Elements icon with options for "Elements" and "Standard (Deprecated)" near the top of the page. Newer accounts will be set to "Elements" by default, but older accounts may need to manually make this selection. After seeing that you have Elements enabled, configure your payment methods directly in Stripe. More on that below.

Note: Support has been deprecated for Stripe Standard, and Stripe Elements is now the recommended option.

As always, be sure to save any changes you make by clicking Save at the bottom left of the table.

Enabling Payment Methods

Once enabled in Paycove, all of the available payment methods that you've configured in your Stripe Dashboard will appear. Each payment method has an additional "Status" and "Recurring" column associated with it.

"Status" reflects whether or not the payment method has been activated in your Stripe account.
"Recurring" displays whether or not a payment method supports subscriptions.

You may have to refresh/resync your available payment methods after enabling them in Stripe - you can do that by clicking "Refresh Payment Methods" here:

Available Payment Methods:

Here's a list of the payment methods that are generally available once enabled. Many more payment methods may be added by Stripe over time, so this is not intended to be a complete or permanent list. If you don't see a specific payment method available, you may need to enable it from your Stripe Dashboard or contact Stripe directly.

Payment Method	Benefits
Credit & Debit Cards	Widely accepted, convenient, and fast for both consumers and businesses
Giropay	German-based online bank transfer system, secure and reduces fraud risk
ACH Debit	Low-cost and secure method for transferring funds within the United States
Google Pay	Secure, contactless mobile payments, and fast checkout
Afterpay / Clearpay	Provides buy now, pay later options, increasing customer purchasing power
Affirm	Offers financing options, allowing customers to pay over time, and boosts conversion rates
iDEAL	Most popular online payment method in the Netherlands, trusted and secure
Alipay	Popular Chinese mobile wallet, offering familiarity and trust
Klarna	Offers flexible payment options, improves customer experience, and increases conversions
Konbini	Convenient Japanese convenience store payment method, offering offline payments
BECS Direct Debit	Simplifies direct debit payments within Australia, offering cost savings
OXXO	Popular offline payment method in Mexico, allowing customers to pay in cash at stores
Bancontact	Popular local payment method in Belgium, offering familiarity and trust
Przelewy24	Popular Polish online payment method, secure and fast transactions
Boleto	Widely used Brazilian payment method, allowing customers to pay offline
SEPA Direct Debit	Simplifies cross-border transactions within the European Union
EPS	Secure and popular Austrian online transfer method, no chargebacks
Sofort	Real-time online bank transfer system popular in Europe, secure and simple
Bacs Direct Debit	Simplifies direct debit payments within the United Kingdom, offering cost savings

Business Use Cases:

For businesses who primarily accept only Credit Card or Bank Transfer, the amount of new available payment methods can be overwhelming. To help better understand which payment methods are relevant to your business, Stripe has created this table which groups available payment methods by business use case.

Source: A guide to payment methods - Stripe

Reduce Payment Fees with Surcharges and Fees

We've extended the ability to add surcharges and fees to this update. This allows certain businesses to offset processing fees or incentivize lower cost payment methods like Bank Transfers.

Three fields are available when configuring surcharges: "Fee label", "Surcharge ($)" and "Surcharge (%)".

Fee label: Enter the text or name of the fee that will display in your invoice subtotal. i.e. "Credit Card Processing Fee" or "ACH Discount".
Surcharge ($): Allows you to enter a fixed amount. Use negative values to offer a discount.
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i.e. $5.00 or -$10.00
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Surcharge (%): Allows you to enter a percentage. Use negative values to offer a discount.
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i.e. 3.90% or -0.50%
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Important Notes

If you are a Rotary Club member/DACdb user, then please refer to the Paycove help articles provided here instead of relying on this article for help with payment.
Subscriptions are now officially supported in our integration!
Our Stripe Elements integration doesn't support multiple Stripe accounts connected to different templates, though we are building out this feature.
Payment methods may need to be activated in Stripe before using them with Paycove. Make sure to check the "Status" column to see if it's "Active" and refresh the payment methods if it has already been activated in Stripe, but still says "Unrequested" in Paycove.
Does a payment method say "Active" in Paycove, but still isn't working properly? Check your settings in Stripe to be sure every step has been completed to fully enable the payment type. For instance, it may state "Paused" if further action still needs to be taken.