Set up Stripe Connect

Scout takes online gifts through Stripe. Your church connects its own Stripe account, gifts land in your church's bank, and Scout records every one, which is what makes giving insights possible.

The same screen offers a second destination: point churchHQ's Give tab at a giving page your church already uses. Scout processes nothing in that mode, so giving insights stay dark. This article covers Stripe.

What you'll need

Have these ready before you start:

• Your church's EIN (federal tax ID)
• Bank account and routing number
• A photo of a government ID for the person setting up (it's uploaded on Stripe's site, so Scout never sees it)
• Your 501(c)(3) determination letter, if your church is registered

You also need two permissions: View giving data and Edit church settings. Owners, Admins and Pastors have both. The seeded Finance role holds View giving data without Edit church settings, so a bookkeeper can open the Giving page but lands on an access-denied page at the setup screen. See How roles work.

Connect the account

Open Giving in the sidebar, click Giving setup in the page header, then click Connect with Stripe. Scout hands you to Stripe's hosted onboarding, where you fill in the church's legal name, address and bank details and upload the ID photo. Stripe returns you to Scout when you finish.

Scout creates the account for you as a nonprofit carrying your church's name, and it's a standard Stripe account. Your church owns it outright and signs in at dashboard.stripe.com with its own credentials.

If you leave Stripe partway through, the card on Giving setup changes to Finish Stripe Setup with a Continue Stripe Setup button that picks up where you stopped.

While Stripe reviews

Once you've submitted everything and Stripe is still checking it, Giving setup shows a banner reading "Stripe is verifying your account" and an Almost there card. Stripe's review usually takes a few minutes.

Nothing in Scout is watching for the moment Stripe finishes, so no notification arrives. Click Refresh status on that card, or reload the page.

When it's connected

The Connected card on Giving setup shows your Stripe account ID and two tiles, Charges and Payouts. Both read Enabled once Stripe is done. Until they do, hold off on telling the congregation to give.

Scout never sets or displays a payout schedule. When money moves from Stripe to your bank is a setting in your own Stripe Dashboard, and Stripe holds the first payout longer than the ones that follow it.

Create a fund before anyone gives

Every gift has to be assigned to a fund, and Scout creates none for you. Until one exists, the Give tab in churchHQ reads Giving not yet configured even though Stripe is connected.

Go to Giving → Funds (/giving/funds) and click New Fund, or Create General Fund on the empty state. One fund named General is enough to start.

Apply for the 2.2% nonprofit rate

If your church is a 501(c)(3), Stripe drops card processing from 2.9% + $0.30 to 2.2% + $0.30. Bank transfers (ACH) are 0.8% capped at $5 either way. For a church taking $200K online, the card discount is roughly $1,400 a year, and Scout takes no cut of any gift, so all of it stays with the church.

The discount isn't automatic. You apply with Stripe directly after connecting, and Stripe applies the rate within 1–2 business days. Get the 2.2% nonprofit rate walks through the application.

Test it end to end

1. 1

   Send yourself a gift

   Scout hosts no public giving page, so gifts are made inside churchHQ by someone who is signed in. Open churchHQ (the member app at /m, or the phone app), go to the Give tab, and send a small amount. Your Scout login has to be linked to a person record in your church, or the Give tab can't load your giving data.

2. 2

   Check that it landed

   Open Giving. The gift appears in the Recent gifts table (Donor, Fund, Method, Amount, Date) within a minute.

3. 3

   Refund the test gift

   Scout has no refund control for gifts anywhere in the app, so refund it in your Stripe Dashboard. Scout marks the donation refunded when Stripe reports the refund, and it drops out of your giving totals.

Once both tiles read Enabled and your test gift has landed, tell the congregation to give from the Give tab in churchHQ. Giving from the app covers what they see there.

What Scout does not do at year end

Scout generates no year-end statement PDFs and emails none. What you get is a gift-level export of the year's giving. See Year-end giving records, and Recording offline gifts for the cash and check gifts that never touch Stripe.