Overview
Processing credit cards through Shelterluv allows your rescue or shelter to do away with a separate card reader and its related hardware, and instead, process payments on the adopter's own phone (via a text message). For a walkthrough of how this works take a look at How do I process Stripe credit card transactions in Shelterluv?
To start processing credit cards through Shelterluv to take advantage of all our Shelterpay features and benefits, there are a few steps you need to take.
Shelterpay is powered by a service called Stripe to process credit cards on your behalf; it handles all matters of PCI compliance and transfers money directly to your bank. Shelterluv is a Stripe Verified Partner.
A Stripe account needs to be set up for your organization in order to receive the proceeds from your credit card transactions into your bank account.
*Please note: you should not purchase a physical Stripe terminal if you would like to utilize the integrated payment system. Please reach out to help@shelterluv.com if you have more questions about this.
To set up or link an existing Stripe account
Navigate to the onboarding page by clicking the link below (you must be logged in to your Shelterluv account before opening this page):
https://www.shelterluv.com/shelter-onboard
From this page, click the "Begin Setup" button, and enter the email address of the person who is responsible for this part of your organization (someone with access to your organization's bank account information, for example).
After you submit the appropriate email address, that address will receive an email from Stripe that lays out instructions of how to set up an account.
- New to Stripe? In order to complete this process you'll need information like EIN, business address, and bank account numbers so please have that handy before starting. If your organization is a 501c3, be sure to ask for the non-profit rate when setting up your account.
- Have an existing Stripe account? The email will give you instructions on how to link your Stripe account to Shelterluv.
Shortly after your Stripe account is all set up and ready to go, credit card processing via Shelterpay will be enabled in your account. You'll receive an email notifying you of when it is ready to start using.
Related: When will payments processed through Shelterluv appear in our account?
Additional Notes
- We can update the donation page for you to display dog-only, cat-only, or generic animal donation descriptions. The default version will display a combination of both cat and dog donation descriptions. Let us know if you'd like your donation page to be made dog or cat only by emailing help@shelterluv.com.
- Stripe charges a separate fee of 2.9% + $0.30 transaction fee
- You should not set up two accounts with Stripe as they may suggest. Shelterluv can only integrate with one account at the moment.
- A nominal 0.5% fee is assessed by Shelterluv to cover the costs of setting up and maintaining the connection to Stripe; this is automatically deducted from each transaction.
- There will always be an option at checkout called "use credit card reader" to use a separate credit card reader if you do not want to use one of the two integrated Stripe payment methods - texting the checkout or selecting "customer has no phone" to complete on screen.