If you want to start offering prepaid tickets, gift vouchers, and takeaway, your guests need to be able to somehow pay for these online. This is where Stripe comes in. If you don't want to ask for a prepayment, it is also possible to ask for a credit card guarantee. This allows you to charge the card when guests don't show up.

We at Formitable are good at creating an online guest experience - we leave the payments to the professionals. That is the reason why we work together with Stripe. They make sure your guests can pay with all modern payment methods like VISA, MasterCard, iDeal, or ApplePay.

Everything is seamlessly integrated into your reservation widget. Easy for your restaurant to set up and effortlessly for your guests.

What are the costs for Stripe?

Stripe charges a fee per transaction. Other than that, there are no minimum costs, no contracts, no monthly fees. You only pay for successful transactions.

Transaction fees charged by Formitable can be found here.

Set up your Stripe account

Create a Stripe account on their website or use this link.
Activate your account! This is really important to complete to pay out to your account.
Add your bank account and double-check that it’s correct. Stripe will sometimes ask for more information to help them verify your bank account.

Link Stripe to Formitable

Once your Stripe account and payment methods are activated, go to Formitable and select the Settings Setup page.
Scroll to the Payments section, click on the blue Connect via Stripe button.
A dialog pop-up opens, and you might be asked to log in with your Stripe account.
Click on the Connect button at the bottom.
The window will automatically close itself.
Your Stripe account is now connected to Formitable! 🎉

Ask for a credit card guarantee for Tickets

Is your Stripe account linked to Formitable? You can now ask for a credit card guarantee for Tickets. You can then charge the card used for payments when guests don't show up.

Go to Products > Tickets and select the Ticket for which you would like to ask for a credit card guarantee.
Under Price, click on No Show Fee.
Fill in an amount that you will charge per guest in case they don't show up.

In case of a no-show: it is possible to charge the entire group or just a part.

📌 Read this article to learn how you charge the card in case of no-shows.

Sell Tickets, Vouchers, and Takeaway

Is your Stripe account linked to Formitable? Start to generate revenue:

Which payment methods you want to offer for tickets, vouchers and takeaway can be set individually. Also, you can decide if you want to pay the Stripe transaction fee yourself, or if you want to let the guest pay the fee.

In Formitable, go to Settings > Setup, the Payments section, and click Manage payment methods.

Test the payment process: If you want to see how the whole payment process looks like from a guests' point of view, enable the test mode. You can now make 'free' purchases in the widget on your website.

Enable or disable the test mode at Settings > Setup > Payments > Test mode.

⚠️ Set your widget offline while you test. While Stripe is in test mode everyone can order for free - even your guests. Set your widget offline to prevent guests from ordering. You can set your widget offline at the top of the Widgets page. Then click on the configuration page to see a preview of your widget. After testing, don't forget to turn test mode off again and set your widget online again.

How and when do I get my revenue?

Once you have activated your account you can manage your payouts in your Stripe Dashboard via Settings > Bank accounts and scheduling > Edit. Here you can select whether you prefer weekly or monthly payouts or even switch off automatic payouts if you prefer to do it manually.

When you start processing live payments from your customers with Stripe, you won’t receive your first payout until 7–14 days after receiving your first successful payment. The first payout usually takes a little longer to establish the Stripe account. Processing subsequent payouts then happen according to your account’s payout schedule.

You can view a list of your payouts and the date they are expected to be received in your bank account in your Stripe Dashboard.

Financial administration - how to get it right

In Formitable you can see your generated product revenue in the Dashboard, or you can export all your orders including and excluding VAT as Excel files at Order Insights via de ⋮ menu.

We do advise using Stripe for your financial administration, as you can generate different kinds of exports there and they also integrate with bookkeeping systems.

💡 Find all information about handling your financial administration in Stripe here.

Frequently asked questions

💳 How do I add more payment methods?

If you want to add more payment methods to your Formitable widget, you need to add them in Stripe first. Once the payment method is approved by Stripe, you can activate them in Formitable.

Stripe supports several credit cards such as VISA, MasterCard, and AmericanExpress without needing any additional configuration. To add a new payment method to Stripe you have to get approval via payment-methods-feedback@stripe.com.

💡 Here you can find all accepted payment methods.

Once Stripe approved your payment method:

Go to Formitable and go to Settings > Setup. Scroll down to Payments.
Click on Manage payment methods and activate your new payment method in case they are not automatically activated.
The new payment methods will now be available to your guests.

💔 How can I give guests a refund for their ticket or order?

You can always check the status of a transaction or refund in Stripe. To quickly go to the right order within Stripe, go to Order insights in Formitable and click on the order. Then click on the 'View in Stripe' link in the ⋮ menu. You will be forwarded to the specific order in your Stripe Payments Overview.

If a guest cancels within the refund window of a reservation, Stripe will take care of everything. Your guest will automatically receive their refund on their bank account or card within 5-10 business days.
If you cancel a guests' reservation, you can choose if you want to give a refund or not.
If you cancel a guests' takeaway order, you can choose if you want to give a refund or not.
If you want to manually give guests a (partial) refund, you can do so at any time in the Mollie dashboard by clicking on the 'View in Stripe' link in the order.

👩‍🍳 How do I switch to another Stripe account?

If your restaurant is under new management or you simply want to change the Stripe account linked to Formitable, you need to disconnect your current Stripe account and connect to the new account. To make sure you do not link the wrong account again, you need to log out of Stripe in the process.

In Formitable, go to Settings, select the Setup page, scroll to the Payments section, click on the disconnect button.
Go to Stripe and then log out.
Follow the steps mentioned above for Link Stripe to Formitable. When asked to log in at the Stripe pop-up enter the credentials for the new Stripe account.

💸 How do I switch from Euro to another currency?

Is your restaurant situated outside of the Euro-zone? Stripe accepts 135+ different currencies.

💡 Read here how you can change your restaurants' currency.

What's next?