Connect Stripe for payments

Connecting Stripe lets customers pay invoices online by ACH or card. Funds go directly to your bank account — Construction Scope never touches the money. This is the single highest-leverage thing you can do on day one: customers pay 3-4x faster when they can click a Pay button in the invoice email vs. mailing a check.

What you'll need before you start

Stripe's onboarding asks for the same info any business banking application asks for. Have these ready and the whole flow takes about 3 minutes:

• Your business's legal name and EIN (or SSN if you're a sole proprietor).
• A US bank routing number and account number — this is where customer payments land.
• A personal SSN or ITIN for the responsible party (the owner or principal of the business). Stripe is legally required to verify a human, even for LLCs.
• A government-issued ID for the responsible party (driver's license or passport — uploaded to Stripe, never to us).
• Your business address and phone number.

Set up

Billing → Set up payments. You'll be redirected to Stripe's hosted onboarding (URL on stripe.com — we don't proxy it; it's directly between you and Stripe). Fill in the prompts: business info, banking, identity verification.

Most accounts are approved instantly. Higher-risk industries or unusual ownership structures may go to manual review, which adds 1-2 business days. You'll get an email from Stripe directly when verification completes.

What activates

Once Stripe approves your account, three things light up in Construction Scope:

• Pay buttons appear on customer-facing invoices. Customers tap, choose ACH or card, pay, get a receipt.
• Deposit collection on the approval-link flow goes live. Customers can sign an estimate and pay the deposit in the same flow.
• If you're on Pro, the customer payment portal turns on — customers can log in to one screen showing every invoice you've ever sent them, with payment history.

Fees

Stripe's published rates apply:

• Card payments: 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction (US cards). International cards add 1%.
• ACH (bank transfer): 0.8%, capped at $5 per transaction. This is the cheapest option for invoices over $625.
• Refunds: no fee to refund, but the original transaction fee is NOT returned. Build that into your refund policy.
• Disputes/chargebacks: $15 per dispute, deducted from your balance.

Construction Scope does not add a platform fee on top of Stripe's fees by default. What you see in Stripe's fee schedule is what you pay.

Payout schedule

By default, Stripe holds new accounts on a 7-day rolling payout — money lands in your bank account 7 days after the customer pays. After your first month of consistent activity, Stripe usually shortens this to 2 days. You can also request manual payouts from the Stripe dashboard.

Common questions

• "Can I use my existing Stripe account?" — No, Construction Scope creates a Stripe Connect sub-account that's purpose-built for receiving payments through us. If you have a separate Stripe account for, say, an e-commerce side business, that account stays separate.
• "What if I don't have an EIN yet?" — You can onboard with a personal SSN as a sole proprietor. We recommend getting an EIN (free, takes 5 minutes at irs.gov) before going live so the W-9s and 1099s come out cleanly at year-end.
• "Does Stripe see my Construction Scope data?" — Stripe sees payment-related data (invoice number, amount, customer email). They don't see your jobs, time entries, or estimates. We pass the minimum required to process the payment.