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Payment receipts & Stripe setup

When a family pays online, Stripe emails them a receipt automatically. No action needed on your part. This guide explains how that works and, more importantly, how to fill in a few details on your Stripe account so every receipt clearly comes from your co-op and looks professional.
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1. Who this is for

This is for the account owner who sets up your co-op's online payments. It walks through connecting Stripe and then configuring it so every receipt clearly comes from your co-op.

The connection happens once inside HomeschoolGo; everything after that is a one-time setup in your own Stripe Dashboard.

2. Connect your Stripe account

Before anything else, connect a Stripe account so families can pay online and the money lands in your co-op's bank account (HomeschoolGo never holds it). Only the account owner can do this. There are two ways to connect, depending on whether your co-op has used Stripe before.

1Go to Admin › Billing and click Set up on the online payment collection card.
2Choose Create new account if your co-op has never used Stripe — you'll be walked through creating one step by step, which takes about 10–15 minutes. Have these handy: your legal name and date of birth, the last 4 digits of your SSN (or your EIN and business address if your co-op is an LLC or nonprofit), a phone number, and your bank's routing and account numbers. Stripe saves your progress, so you can step away and finish later if you need to.
3Or choose Connect existing account if your co-op already accepts payments through Stripe — sign in and link that account in a few clicks, no re-entering your bank or business details.
4Either way, Stripe sends you back to Billing when you finish. Once your account is verified, you'll see “Online payments are on.” That's it; families can now pay online.
Note: Verification can take a few minutes (occasionally longer if Stripe needs more info). If Billing still shows “setup not finished,” reopen it and complete any remaining Stripe steps. Your progress is saved.
Tip: Don't worry about getting the receipt details perfect during onboarding. You can set your business name, branding, and support info anytime in the next steps.

3. How receipts work

Every successful online payment — class fees, dues, join fees, paid events — triggers an automatic receipt:

1A family pays through HomeschoolGo's checkout using the email on their account.
2Stripe emails that family a receipt to that address, usually within a minute. It includes the amount, the date, the card used (brand and last four digits), a receipt number, and a line item describing what they paid for.
3The payment runs through your co-op's own Stripe account. Your co-op is the merchant of record, so the receipt comes from your co-op and shows your co-op's name and branding (once you've filled those in, below).

One variation you may see: if your co-op accepts bank (ACH) payments, those receipts behave exactly like card receipts, co-op branded, sent automatically once the debit settles. See the bank payments guide for how that option works.

Tip: You don't need to turn anything on. There's no “send receipts” switch to flip. HomeschoolGo asks Stripe to send a receipt on every payment automatically.
Note: A handful of your co-op's very earliest payments may have been processed before per-co-op receipts existed, and those can't be changed after the fact. Everything from now on carries your co-op's name. If you need a copy of an older one, you can resend it from your Stripe Dashboard (see the FAQ).

4. Make receipts show your co-op

The receipt pulls its name, contact details, and logo straight from your Stripe account's public profile. Filling these in is what turns a bare-bones receipt into one that looks like it came from your co-op. Log in to dashboard.stripe.com and set the following.

Public business name & support details

In Stripe, go to Settings › Business › Public details (direct link) and fill in:

1Public business name — your co-op's name as you want families to see it. This is the “Receipt from …” name at the top of the email.
2Support email — where families can reply with billing questions. Use an address you actually check.
3Support phone & address (optional) — adds legitimacy and is required for some receipt formats. A PO box or the co-op's meeting address is fine.
4Business website (optional) — your co-op's public page or HomeschoolGo site works well here.

Logo & brand color

Go to Settings › Business › Branding (direct link) and upload a logo (or icon) and pick a brand color. Stripe uses these on both the receipt email and the hosted checkout page, so this also makes the payment screen look like yours.

Tip: Use a square logo at least 128×128px for the icon slot. It's what shows in the receipt header and in some email clients' preview.

5. What shows on a card statement

Separate from the receipt, there's the short text that appears on a family's credit-card statement, the statement descriptor. If a parent doesn't recognize it, they may dispute the charge, so it's worth setting to something obviously yours.

Set it under Settings › Business › Public details on the same page as above. Keep it short (Stripe allows roughly 5–22 characters) and set it to something your families will recognize. An abbreviation of your co-op's name is ideal.

Note: Statement descriptors can only contain letters, numbers, and basic punctuation, and must be at least 5 characters. Stripe shows you a live preview as you type.

6. Send yourself a test receipt

Once you've filled in your details, confirm everything looks right by having Stripe send you a real receipt:

1In your Stripe Dashboard, open Payments and click any successful payment.
2Click Actions › Send receipt (or the “…” menu on the payment).
3Enter your own email address and send. You'll get the exact receipt your families receive. Check that the name, logo, and support email look the way you want.
Tip: This is also how you give any family a duplicate copy of a receipt: open their payment and resend it to their address.

7. Refunds

The easiest way to refund a payment is the Refund option in that payment's menu on the family's ledger (Admin › Billing, open the family, find the payment). It can issue the refund through Stripe for you right there, or just record a refund you already issued elsewhere (cash back, a refund from your Stripe Dashboard) so HomeschoolGo's ledger matches. Either way, the family's balance reopens for the refunded amount.

The dialog asks for a Refund amount. It arrives filled in with the whole payment, so refunding all of it is the two clicks it has always been. Type a smaller number to send back only part. A student who moved to a class with a lower fee, for example, gets the difference rather than a full refund and a fresh charge.

After a partial refund the payment stays on the ledger with a $X refunded badge, and the rest of it still counts as paid. The balance reopens by exactly the amount you sent back, not by the whole payment. If you tick “Keep them paid”, the covering credit follows the refund amount too.

That reopened balance is deliberate: the family owes the charge again unless you say otherwise, and an unpaid balance stops them enrolling in anything else. If you meant to let the charge go entirely, open the same family ledger, find the charge the refunded payment was against, and choose Cancel charge from its menu. That voids the charge and clears the balance. No money moves and the payment record stays exactly where it is.

If you'd rather the family stay marked paid instead of showing a reopened balance (a scholarship, a fee waiver, or anything you're covering another way), check “Keep them paid” in the same dialog. Pick a reason and an amount, and the refund and the covering credit both apply in one step.

Applied a credit by mistake, or need to take one back? Open the family’s ledger, find the credit under Credits applied, and choose Cancel credit from its menu. The credit stays on the ledger struck through for the record, and the balance it was offsetting reopens.

If you refund straight from your Stripe Dashboard without using this action, Stripe still emails the family a refund receipt automatically. You'll need to open the same Refund action in HomeschoolGo afterward and check “I already refunded this in Stripe” so your co-op's ledger reflects it too.

8. Disputed payments

Once in a long while a family disputes a payment with their bank or card issuer. Because your co-op is the merchant on these payments, your co-op is who has to answer for it, and the money is pulled back out of your Stripe balance while it's open.

A Disputed payments card appears on Admin › Billing as soon as one comes in, listing the family, the amount, the reason the bank gave, the date your evidence is due, and where the case stands. Owners and admins get an email about it as well. If your co-op has never had one, the card isn't there at all.

You respond in Stripe, not here. The card tells you a dispute exists and by when; submitting evidence happens in your Stripe Dashboard, which is also where the deadline is enforced. Missing it counts as conceding.

Note: Read the reason carefully before you talk to the family. Payments taken straight from a bank account come back with a generic “not authorized” label whatever actually happened, so HomeschoolGo shows the specific bank code underneath it when there is one. A stop payment, for instance, means the account holder told their bank to halt it. That is not the same as a fraud claim, and telling a family their bank flagged fraud when it didn't sends them on a phone call that goes nowhere.
Tip: A clear business name and a recognizable statement descriptor (sections 3 and 4) are the cheapest dispute prevention there is. Most disputes start with somebody not recognizing a line on their statement.

9. Common questions

Do I need to turn on receipt emails in Stripe?

No. HomeschoolGo asks Stripe to send a receipt on every payment automatically, so you don't have to enable the account-wide “successful payment” email setting. Filling in your business name and branding (section 3) is the part that matters.

A family says they didn't get a receipt. What now?

First have them check spam and confirm the email on their HomeschoolGo account is correct. The receipt goes to whatever address they used at checkout. To get them a copy right away, open the payment in your Stripe Dashboard and use Send receipt to re-send it (you can even send it to a different address).

Why did an early receipt say something other than my co-op?

A few of your co-op's very first payments may have been processed before per-co-op receipts were in place. The sender on those specific charges can't be changed retroactively, but every payment going forward shows your co-op's name and branding.

Does HomeschoolGo see card numbers?

No. Card details go straight to Stripe and never touch HomeschoolGo's servers. We only ever see a tokenized reference to the payment.

Can I customize the wording of the receipt?

The layout is Stripe's standard receipt and isn't fully editable, but the name, logo, color, support email, and the line item describing the charge all come from you. Between your Stripe profile and the charge description, the receipt reads clearly as your co-op's.

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