Setting Up Stripe Payments in Civic Review
This guide will walk you through the steps to connect your Civic Review account with Stripe, allowing you to accept online payments for fees.
Step 1: Log in and Navigate to Settings
Log in to your Civic Review account.
In the left-hand navigation menu, scroll down to the bottom and click on "Settings."
Under the Settings menu, select "Payment."
Step 2: Connect with Stripe
On the Payment page, scroll down until you see the blue button that says "Connect with Stripe."
Click this button to be redirected to the Stripe website.
Step 3: Create or Log in to Your Stripe Account
Pro Tip: You'll want to have your bank account and routing number handy for this step.
You will be prompted to either log in to an existing Stripe account or create a new one.
If creating a new account, you will enter your email and create a password. Stripe will then guide you through the process of setting up your account. This process is usually quick and can often be completed within a day or two.
Here's a couple of things to keep in mind as you complete your Stripe account:
Individual Representative:
You'll be asked to provide "Individual Representative" information, which can be confusing if you're setting up the account for the city organization as a whole. However, this individual does not have to be the "owner' of the organization; they mainly just function as the point of contact and can be updated later if needed.
As a fraud prevention measure you may be asked to upload documentation for this individual (ID) to ensure it matches the information you provided.
Tax Information/Organization Info:
On the Tax Information page there's not a super straightforward route for public entities like cities or counties. Here's Stripe's recommended settings for a municipal organization:
Once your Stripe account is set up, it will automatically link with your Civic Review account, and you will be able to accept payments.
Here's a quick video that walks you step-by-step through that process:
Contacting Stripe Support
For questions related directly to Stripe settings and setup, feel free to reach out the Stripe Customer Support team: https://support.stripe.com/.
When you get to the support page, click "Contact Support"...
It will launch an AI support chat in a sidebar, but you can right away ask to speak to a human and it will route you pretty quick. However, we have found that the AI support is fairly good at answering basic how-to questions.
From our experience, Stripe is fairly quick to respond to chat, and also provides phone call options as well.