Updating your card

Your card is held by Stripe. Scout has no card form anywhere in the dashboard, so changing the card on file means opening Stripe's Customer Portal from Settings → Billing, which only the church owner can do.

Open the Customer Portal

1. 1

   Open the billing page

   Click Settings at the bottom of the sidebar, or in the More sheet on a phone. Billing sits to the right of the tab strip, beside Who hears what and Ministry areas.

2. 2

   Click Manage billing

   Scout hands you to Stripe's Customer Portal in the same tab. Stripe hosts it, so Scout never sees your card number.

If a charge has already failed, there's a second way in: the banner across the top of the dashboard reads "Your last payment didn't go through." and gives the owner an Update payment link straight to this page.

If Manage billing is greyed out, the page also shows "Subscription not yet set up. Refresh this page after completing checkout." Your church has no Stripe customer record yet, so there is no card to change until checkout is finished.

Update the card

In the portal, add the new card and set it as the default. The next charge runs on it. You can keep more than one card on file and switch between them, and if you only need to correct an expiry date you can edit the card that's already there instead of adding a second one.

Coming back to Scout

Use the portal's return link. It lands you back on Settings → Billing. Don't close the tab: the portal opened in the tab Scout was already in, so closing it closes Scout.

That return trip does more than navigate. The Plan and Status rows on the billing page are read fresh from Scout's record of your subscription every time the page loads, and Stripe's webhook updates that record. The dashboard banner and the lock screen for a lapsed subscription read a copy stored in your sign-in session instead, and coming back through the portal's return link is what refreshes that copy. If you leave the portal some other way and the banner still shows the old state, sign out and back in.

If you can't access the portal

Manage billing is owner-only, and so is the request behind it. Ownership is a flag on one account, normally whoever created the church, and it sits alongside whatever role that person holds.

Everyone else doesn't see Billing on the Settings page. Someone who can open Settings and goes to /settings/billing directly gets the plan, the status, and the next charge date, plus a card headed Read-only access naming the owner and their email address. If the subscription has already lapsed, the lock screen tells them "Billing is managed by the church owner." and gives them the same name to ask.

If the current owner is still reachable, they can hand billing over themselves: Settings → Users, Edit beside the person taking over, then Transfer ownership. That person has to hold the Admin role first. The confirm reads "Transfer ownership to {name}? You'll become an Admin and they'll gain billing & church-deletion rights," and the old owner stays on as an Admin afterward. How roles work covers the rest of what ownership carries.

If the previous owner has left your church and can't sign in to do that, email support@scout.church and we'll move ownership for you.

To change the plan itself, see Switching plans. To stop the charges, see Canceling your subscription.