Connecting Your Stripe Account
Online payment collection in Octavia is powered by Stripe Connect. Before families can pay invoices online, you need to connect a Stripe account to your school. This is a one time setup that takes a few minutes. Once con
What Is Stripe Connect?
Octavia uses Stripe Connect so that each school has its own Stripe account and receives payments directly. Octavia never holds your money — when a family pays an invoice online, the funds go straight to your connected Stripe account and then to your bank.
Stripe Connect is separate from the Octavia subscription (which you pay to access the platform itself). This is about setting up Stripe to accept payments from your families.
If your school uses Practiceathon fundraising with Donate now enabled, the same connected Stripe account is also used for those donations. That means the donation is processed by your school's Stripe account, your school receives the money directly, and refunds are handled through your Stripe account.
Before You Start
You will need your school's country set in Octavia before you can connect Stripe. Stripe requires a country code (in ISO-2 format, e.g. AU, US, GB) to create your connected account. If this is missing, the connection screen will show a prompt directing you to set your country in Invoice Settings first.
How to Connect
- Go to Profile → Billing Settings
- Find the Stripe card in the billing settings area
- Click Connect Stripe
- You'll be redirected to Stripe's hosted onboarding — follow the steps to create or connect your account, verify your identity, and add your bank details
- When Stripe is done, you'll be returned to Octavia automatically
Once you're back, Octavia syncs your Stripe account status. You'll see three status badges on the Stripe card:
- Charges enabled — Stripe can accept payments on your behalf
- Payouts enabled — Stripe can pay out to your bank account
- Details submitted — your onboarding information is complete
All three should show as active before you start sending invoice payment links to families.
Returning to Complete a Partial Setup
If you started onboarding and didn't finish, Octavia tracks your partial progress. When you return to Profile → Billing Settings, you'll see a Finish setup button instead of the initial "Connect Stripe" button. Clicking it reopens your Stripe onboarding exactly where you left off.
Updating Your Stripe Details Later
If you need to update your bank account, identity information, or other Stripe details after your initial setup, you can reopen Stripe onboarding at any time. From Profile → Billing Settings, click Update Stripe details. This opens Stripe's onboarding for your existing account — it won't create a new one or disrupt existing payment activity.
Refreshing Your Stripe Status
Occasionally your Stripe status badges in Octavia may not reflect the latest state from Stripe — for example, if Stripe has completed a verification check since you last loaded the page. There is a Refresh button on the Stripe card that re-syncs the status from Stripe immediately.