How to manually process payments in Stripe

Ever wanted to manually process credit or debit cards through Stripe, without putting them through your web store or invoicing software – for example to collect a payment over the phone?

Is this even possible?

The answer is, yes, this is possible, via Stripe’s online dashboard – the precise description for how to do this is detailed in full, below – but it should be noted that you should try not to do this often. Stripe would prefer it if you were processing payments through your (secure) application (like your WooCommerce store!) as they can then be sure you are compliant with PCI DSS rules in this connection, in terms of how you handle client card data, in particular, how you store card data (note – you shouldn’t store client card data, anywhere, ever.)

You can see this in Stripe’s own words, here.

Those caveats aside, sometimes its necessary to quickly process a customer card payment through the Stripe online system “manually” – on the phone, or because customer showed up in person and wants to make a payment against some old invoice. In these cases, the below tutorial will get you there.

How to manually process payments in Stripe’s Dashboard

  1. Login to Stripe
  2. Click “Payments” in the left hand menu
  3. Click “+ New” button (top right) which should reveal a “modal” (popup) window
  4. Input the relevant payment information in the boxes provided.
  5. Hit “Create Payment”
  6. You’re done!

Below are some specific images to show you where these options can be found.

Payments Menu Item

Below is where you can find “Payments” in the menu which runs down the left hand side (in desktop view).

Add a New Payment Button

After clicking payments, you’ll see a list of your recent payments (assuming there are any) and also at the top right, you’ll see the “+ Add” button, which looks like this:

Enter Details Modal Window

The modal which comes up looks like this:

On this “Create Payment” window, the currency will default to your “normal” currency (i.e. the one you setup with your Stripe account) but you can actually select any currency.

Amount is the amount in that currency to charge against that card.

Description is for your records.

Statement description is for the card issuer (i.e. it will show up in statements) – you should try to use your normal account statement descriptor, which in itself has some formatting rules. Clicking the “i” will show your “normal” descriptor (for example, ours is SILICONDALES.COM). The aim with this is so your customer knows what this payment related to.

Also known as – Virtual Terminal / Phone Payments

In other payment providers, the above process may be referred to as virtual terminal, or you may be looking to process phone payments using Stripe. The tutorial above covers both of these alternative descriptions!

Leave a comment below if you have questions or additional points.

1 thought on “How to manually process payments in Stripe”

  1. I’m making a note on this because as of September 14th Stripe no longer allows you to enter payments via the dashboard. Their explanation: “As of September 14th the banking regulations have been tightened and they do not allow for this as merchants aren’t suppose to handle entire card account #’s”

    Reply

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