Sign in
Get a Demo
Talk with an accountant.
Is Stripe's billing automation right for you? This guide evaluates its invoicing, accounting, and ERP integration features. Make an informed decision today.
As your business grows, that once-manageable bookkeeping spreadsheet becomes a liability. It’s prone to manual errors that can seriously skew your financial picture. This is where automation becomes your best friend. Stripe automatically captures every transaction, creating a clean, reliable record from the start. But is it a complete solution? This guide will help you evaluate the fintech company Stripe on its invoicing software and its capabilities as an accounting and bookkeeping software. We'll explore how to use these tools to streamline your finances and build a foundation that supports your growth.
Before we get into the specifics of accounting, it helps to understand the broader landscape. The term "fintech" gets thrown around a lot, but what does it actually mean? At its core, fintech—or financial technology—refers to any business that uses software to provide financial services. This could be a company whose entire product is a financial service, like a digital bank or a lending platform. It can also be a non-financial company that adds a financial service to its existing product, like a salon management software that starts handling its clients' payments directly. This innovation is all about making financial services more accessible and efficient for everyone.
Think of a fintech company as a business that uses technology to improve or automate financial services for consumers or businesses. Instead of walking into a brick-and-mortar bank, you use an app to manage your money, get a loan, or invest. Stripe itself is a prime example of a fintech company, simplifying online payments for millions of businesses. The goal is to take traditional financial processes—which can often be slow and complicated—and make them faster, easier, and more user-friendly through software. This shift has opened up new possibilities for how businesses manage their money, from payments to complex accounting.
Building a successful fintech company isn't just about having a great idea; it requires a deep understanding of customer needs and a solid strategy for growth. The most successful companies often start by identifying a specific problem that traditional financial institutions have overlooked. From there, they focus on creating a seamless user experience and choosing the right operational model to support their services. This involves everything from finding a niche market to deciding on the technical and banking infrastructure that will power the product. Let's look at a few key strategies that are foundational to getting a fintech business off the ground.
Many of the most successful fintechs started by focusing on a group of people who were being ignored by traditional banks. For example, almost half of small businesses report not getting the funding they need, often because they are too new or lack an extensive credit history. By identifying these gaps in the market, you can build a product that solves a real, pressing problem for a specific audience. This targeted approach allows you to create a solution that truly resonates with your customers, building a loyal base from which you can expand.
Once you've identified your niche, you need to figure out how your business will make money. There are several common models in fintech, including subscription fees, transaction fees, or interest-based revenue. The best way to determine the right model is to talk directly to your potential customers. Understanding what they value and what they're willing to pay for is critical. This customer-centric approach ensures that your monetization strategy aligns with the value your product delivers, creating a sustainable business model that supports long-term growth and customer satisfaction.
A critical decision for any fintech is how to handle the underlying banking infrastructure. You can partner with a Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) provider, which offers a platform with pre-built banking functionalities, or you can establish a direct partnership with a bank. BaaS providers can help you get to market faster, while a direct partnership might offer more control and better economics in the long run. Your choice will depend on your business goals, timeline, and resources. A thorough evaluation process, focusing on capabilities like payment processing and subscription management, will help you select the right partner.
The shift toward digital-first operations has made invoicing software an essential tool for businesses of all sizes. This technology automates the process of creating, sending, and tracking invoices, which saves time and reduces the risk of human error. As more companies move away from manual, paper-based systems, the demand for efficient and integrated invoicing solutions has grown significantly. This market isn't just about sending bills; it's about streamlining the entire accounts receivable process, improving cash flow, and gaining better visibility into a company's financial health. The continued growth in this sector reflects its importance in modern business operations.
The numbers tell a clear story about the importance of this technology. The market for invoice processing software was valued at an impressive $22.0 billion in 2022. This is already a substantial figure, but the growth isn't stopping there. Projections show the market is expected to expand to $25.3 billion by 2033. This steady growth highlights a widespread business need for more efficient financial workflows. As businesses continue to scale and transaction volumes increase, the reliance on automated invoicing and billing systems will only become more critical for maintaining accuracy and efficiency in financial operations.
Selecting the right billing and invoicing software is a critical decision that can have a lasting impact on your financial operations and customer relationships. The right tool does more than just send invoices; it integrates with your existing systems, automates tedious tasks, and provides valuable insights into your business's health. With so many options available, it's important to approach the decision with a clear set of criteria. Think about your entire workflow, from the moment a sale is made to the final revenue report. A comprehensive solution should support your sales team, simplify payment collection, help retain customers, and provide the data you need to make informed decisions.
To make the best choice, you need a structured way to compare your options. An evaluation checklist is the perfect tool for this. It helps you move beyond the flashy marketing and focus on the features that truly matter for your business. Your checklist should cover the entire billing lifecycle, including how the software handles sales and subscriptions, payment collection, customer retention, and financial reporting. By systematically assessing each potential solution against these core criteria, you can ensure that you choose a platform that not only meets your current needs but can also scale with you as your business grows.
Your billing software should work seamlessly with the tools your sales team already uses. A key question to ask is whether it integrates with your customer relationship management (CRM) system. This integration allows your sales team to easily create custom quotes and convert them into active subscriptions or invoices without manual data entry. This not only saves time but also reduces the risk of errors that can lead to billing disputes and frustrated customers. A smooth transition from sales quote to active subscription is the first step in creating a positive customer experience.
Making it easy for customers to pay you is fundamental to maintaining healthy cash flow. The right software should offer flexibility in how you collect payments, supporting various methods and currencies. A crucial feature to look for is a self-service customer portal. This allows your customers to manage their own subscriptions, update their payment information, and view their billing history without needing to contact your support team. Empowering customers with this level of control not only improves their experience but also frees up your team to focus on more strategic tasks.
Customer churn, or the rate at which customers cancel their subscriptions, can silently undermine your growth. Good billing software should include tools to help you manage both voluntary churn (when a customer actively cancels) and involuntary churn (when a payment fails due to an issue like an expired card). Look for features like automated payment retries, as some systems can recover over a third of failed payments this way. Proactive notifications to customers about expiring cards or payment issues can also prevent involuntary churn before it happens, protecting your recurring revenue stream.
Your billing software is a goldmine of financial data, but that data is only useful if you can easily access and understand it. The platform should provide clear, accurate reports on key business metrics like monthly recurring revenue (MRR) and customer lifetime value (LTV). While many platforms offer basic reporting, high-volume businesses often need a more robust solution for complex revenue recognition. Tools like HubiFi can integrate with your payment processor and other systems to provide real-time, audit-proof analytics that align with accounting standards like ASC 606, giving you a truly accurate picture of your financial performance.
When you're meeting with potential software providers, having a list of specific questions ready can help you cut through the sales pitch and get to the information that matters. These questions should be tailored to your unique business needs and focus on how the software will function in your day-to-day operations. Think about the entire customer lifecycle, from how your sales team will use the tool to how your customers will interact with it. Getting clear answers to these questions will help you make a confident decision and choose a partner that truly understands and supports your business goals.
One of the first questions you should ask is about the software's quoting capabilities. Your sales process might involve custom pricing, discounts, or unique terms for different clients. It's essential that your billing software can accommodate this complexity. Ask if your sales team can easily create custom quotes within the platform and, just as importantly, if those quotes can be seamlessly converted into an invoice or an active subscription with just a few clicks. This functionality is key to creating an efficient and error-free workflow between your sales and finance teams.
For many software and subscription-based businesses, the ideal customer experience is one where billing feels like a natural part of the product, not a separate, clunky process. Ask potential providers if their billing features can be embedded directly into your own application or website. This could include allowing customers to upgrade their plan, purchase add-ons, or update their payment information without ever leaving your product's environment. A seamless, integrated experience can significantly improve customer satisfaction and reduce friction in the payment process.
A self-service portal is a must-have feature for any modern subscription business. It empowers your customers by giving them control over their own accounts. Ask providers if they offer a portal where customers can manage their subscriptions, view their invoice history, and update their payment details on their own time. This not only improves the customer experience by providing instant access to important information but also reduces the burden on your customer support team, freeing them up to handle more complex issues.
Customer churn is one of the most critical metrics for any subscription-based business to track. It represents the percentage of customers who cancel their service over a given period. High churn can quickly erode your revenue base and make sustainable growth impossible. Effectively managing churn requires understanding why it happens and implementing strategies to prevent it. This involves differentiating between the types of churn and using automated tools to address the root causes, particularly when it comes to issues that are entirely preventable, like failed payments.
Not all churn is created equal. It's important to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary churn. Voluntary churn is when a customer makes a conscious decision to cancel their subscription, perhaps because they're unhappy with the service or no longer need it. Involuntary churn, on the other hand, happens when a customer is lost due to a payment failure, often without them even realizing it. This can be caused by an expired credit card, insufficient funds, or a bank decline. Addressing involuntary churn is often considered low-hanging fruit because these are customers who haven't actively chosen to leave.
This is where your billing software can become a powerful ally. A robust platform will have an automated payment retry system, often called smart dunning. Instead of just giving up after the first failed payment, the system will automatically retry the charge at strategic intervals. Some systems are sophisticated enough to analyze why a payment failed and adjust their retry schedule accordingly. These systems, combined with automated emails to customers notifying them of payment issues, can recover a significant portion of otherwise lost revenue and prevent customers from churning involuntarily.
To truly understand the health and trajectory of your business, you need to be tracking the right metrics. Your billing and invoicing software should serve as the source of truth for some of the most important indicators of your company's performance. These metrics go beyond simple revenue numbers; they give you insight into the predictability of your income, the value of your customer relationships, and the overall sustainability of your business model. Having easy access to accurate, real-time data on these key performance indicators (KPIs) is essential for making strategic decisions about where to invest your time and resources.
For any subscription business, Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) is the North Star metric. It represents the predictable revenue that your business can expect to receive every month. This figure is calculated by multiplying your total number of active customers by the average amount they pay each month. Tracking MRR gives you a clear view of your company's financial momentum. It helps you understand the impact of new sales, upgrades, downgrades, and churn on your revenue stream, allowing you to forecast future growth with a much higher degree of confidence.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) is a metric that predicts the total revenue your business can expect to earn from a single customer account throughout your entire relationship. It's a crucial metric because it helps you understand how much you can afford to spend on acquiring new customers while still remaining profitable. A high LTV indicates that you have a sticky product and a loyal customer base. Your billing software should provide the data needed to calculate LTV accurately, helping you make smarter decisions about marketing spend, customer retention efforts, and product development priorities.
When you think of Stripe, you probably think of payment processing. And you're not wrong—it’s a powerhouse for accepting payments online. But its capabilities go far beyond that initial transaction. Stripe is also a robust financial tool designed to simplify your accounting, automate tedious tasks, and give you a clearer picture of your revenue. It acts as the financial infrastructure for your business, helping you manage money more effectively from the moment a customer clicks "buy."
The real magic happens when you use Stripe not just to get paid, but to organize your financial data. It’s built to reduce manual data entry, which means fewer errors and more time to focus on growing your business. For high-volume businesses, this level of automation is essential for maintaining accurate books and making informed strategic decisions.
At its heart, Stripe offers a suite of tools designed to make your financial management smoother. One of its standout features is Stripe Invoicing, a platform that lets you create and send professional invoices to customers around the world, helping you get paid faster. But the features don't stop at payments and invoicing.
Stripe’s true power for accounting lies in its integration capabilities. It’s designed to connect seamlessly with the accounting software you already use, like QuickBooks or Xero. This allows you to automatically sync payment data, which means your books are always up-to-date without you having to lift a finger. This ability to streamline financial management is what turns Stripe from a simple payment processor into a core component of your accounting tech stack.
When a customer makes a purchase through Stripe, much more happens than just a transfer of funds. Behind the scenes, Stripe is meticulously recording every important detail of that transaction. It automatically captures the payment amount, date, customer information, and payment method used. This creates a clean, accurate digital record for every single sale, eliminating the need for you to manually log this information later.
This automated data capture is the foundation of Stripe’s accounting features. It ensures that the data flowing into your financial reports is reliable and complete from the very start. By providing tools to manage your money better, Stripe helps you build a solid, trustworthy record of your revenue, which is the first step toward accurate financial reporting and easier bookkeeping.
Once Stripe processes your payments, it gives you the tools to effectively manage that transaction data. You can easily view, track, and organize all your sales directly within the Stripe Dashboard. This centralized view is incredibly helpful for getting a quick snapshot of your daily, weekly, or monthly performance without having to dig through spreadsheets.
One of the most practical features is how Stripe helps you reconcile your books. It provides detailed reports that make it simple to match the payments you’ve received through Stripe with the deposits that land in your bank account. This process, often a time-consuming headache for business owners, becomes much more straightforward. With clear reporting, you can confidently balance your books and ensure every dollar is accounted for, giving you peace of mind and a solid foundation for financial planning.
As your business expands, your financial operations inevitably become more complex. The simple spreadsheet that worked when you were just starting out won't be enough to sustain you as you scale. Stripe offers a suite of features designed to handle this growing complexity, helping you build a solid financial foundation for growth. Think of it as more than just a way to accept payments; it’s a toolkit for managing your company’s financial health. By automating tedious tasks and providing clear insights, these features free you up to focus on the bigger picture—like developing new products or reaching new customers.
From keeping your books in order to making tax season less of a headache, Stripe’s built-in tools are a great starting point for any growing business. They help you turn raw transaction data into meaningful reports, ensure your records are accurate, and even simplify the challenges of selling internationally. While these features provide a powerful base, many businesses find they eventually need more specialized solutions to handle high transaction volumes and complex compliance requirements like ASC 606. You can find more insights in the HubiFi blog on how to build a truly scalable financial tech stack that goes beyond the basics. Let’s look at the core Stripe features that support your journey from startup to enterprise.
If you’re still tracking transactions in a spreadsheet, it’s time for an upgrade. Manual bookkeeping is not only time-consuming, but it’s also prone to human error. Stripe helps you automate your financial record-keeping by tracking and organizing all your monetary data in one place. This automation is key to understanding your financial health, as it reduces mistakes and gives you a clear, up-to-date picture of your finances without the manual effort. It’s the first step toward creating a system that can grow with your business, ensuring your records are always accurate and reliable.
Making smart business decisions depends on having access to timely and accurate data. Stripe turns your raw financial data into easy-to-understand reports, like income statements and balance sheets. These reports show you exactly how your business is performing, highlighting profits, losses, assets, and liabilities. Instead of waiting until the end of the month to see where you stand, you can access this information in real time. For businesses that need even more dynamic segmentation and deeper analytics, you can schedule a demo with HubiFi to see how to get more from your data.
Bank reconciliation—the process of matching the transactions in your books with your bank statements—is a critical but often tedious accounting task. It’s how you catch discrepancies, spot potential issues, and confirm your financial records are accurate. Stripe includes a feature that helps automate this process, comparing your Stripe transaction data with your bank payouts to ensure everything lines up. This saves you hours of manual work and gives you confidence that your books are correct, which is essential for accurate financial reporting and planning.
Tax season can be a major source of stress for any business owner. Stripe helps lighten the load by automating parts of the tax preparation process throughout the year. The platform can automatically track and categorize your transactions, making it easier to identify tax-deductible expenses. By sorting everything into the right categories as it happens, you reduce the risk of manual errors and the last-minute scramble to get your documents in order. This continuous, automated process helps you stay organized and compliant, making tax time a much smoother experience.
If you have ambitions to sell to customers around the world, you’ll need a system that can handle international payments effortlessly. Stripe is built to simplify cross-border commerce by managing transactions in different currencies. It helps with currency conversions and ensures that your bookkeeping remains straightforward, even when dealing with a global customer base. For businesses with complex international revenue streams, it's important that your systems work together seamlessly. HubiFi offers integrations with HubiFi that connect your payment processor, ERP, and other tools for a unified view of your finances.
Stripe is a powerhouse for processing payments, but you realize its true potential when you connect it to the other tools you use to run your business. Integrating Stripe with your accounting software, ERP, or CRM creates a seamless flow of information that saves you time, reduces manual errors, and gives you a crystal-clear view of your company's financial health. Think of it as building a bridge between your sales and your books, ensuring every transaction is accounted for automatically.
While many platforms offer direct integrations, they sometimes only scratch the surface. For businesses with high transaction volumes or complex revenue models, a more robust connection is often necessary to handle the nuances of financial reporting and compliance. This is where you can move beyond basic syncing and create a truly automated financial workflow. Let’s walk through how Stripe connects with some of the most popular accounting platforms and what to do when you need a more tailored solution.
Connecting your invoicing software to your accounting system is like creating a superhighway for your financial data. Instead of manually exporting reports from Stripe and importing them into QuickBooks or Xero, an integration automates the entire process. This direct link ensures that every sale, refund, and fee is recorded accurately and instantly in your general ledger. It’s the key to closing your books faster and with more confidence. For any business owner who has spent hours hunting down a single discrepancy, this level of automation is a game-changer. It transforms your financial tools from separate silos into a cohesive, intelligent system that works for you.
The real strength of using Stripe for accounting comes from its ability to connect with the software you already use. When you integrate Stripe with your accounting platform, you create an automated workflow that syncs payment data in real time. Every time a customer pays an invoice, the integration captures all the essential details—like who paid, how much, and when—and sends that information directly to your accounting software. This means your books are always current without you having to manually enter a single line item. It eliminates the risk of typos and forgotten entries, giving you a consistently accurate view of your cash flow and revenue.
A good integration does more than just copy data; it organizes it intelligently. When a transaction syncs from Stripe, the system automatically categorizes the income and, just as importantly, accounts for the processing fees. For example, a $100 sale isn't just $100 in revenue. The integration will correctly record the gross sale and also log the Stripe fee as a separate expense. This ensures your financial statements are precise, reflecting your true profitability. This automated record-keeping builds a trustworthy financial history from the ground up, which is the foundation for accurate reporting and makes bookkeeping significantly easier as your transaction volume grows.
For many small and medium-sized businesses, QuickBooks Online is the heart of their accounting operations. Connecting it with Stripe is a logical step to streamline how you record sales and payments. A proper integration helps you automatically log every transaction, track Stripe’s processing fees, and keep your financial records accurate without spending hours on manual data entry.
While a basic connection is possible, using a dedicated third-party application is often the most effective approach. These tools are designed to automatically sync sales data, including item details and sales tax, directly into QuickBooks. This automation frees you from the tedious task of cross-referencing reports and gives you more time to focus on analyzing your financial performance and growing your business.
Xero is another favorite in the world of cloud accounting, known for its user-friendly interface and strong features. Like other platforms, Xero offers a level of native integration with Stripe, which can simplify your payment reconciliation process. When a customer pays an invoice using Stripe, the integration can automatically mark the invoice as paid and match the transaction in your bank feed.
This direct link is a great starting point for businesses with straightforward sales processes. However, if you manage subscriptions or have more complex revenue streams, you might find that the native integration doesn't capture all the detail you need for accurate reporting. In these cases, you’ll want to explore solutions that provide a deeper, more detailed sync between the two platforms.
When your business scales, your financial systems need to scale with you. Oracle NetSuite is a powerful Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system used by growing companies to manage all their core business processes in one place. Integrating Stripe with NetSuite is essential for maintaining a single source of truth for your financial data, from sales and order management to accounting and compliance.
Connecting these two systems ensures that payment data from Stripe flows directly into your central ERP, providing real-time visibility into cash flow and revenue. This is particularly important for businesses that need to adhere to strict revenue recognition standards like ASC 606. A proper Stripe-NetSuite integration automates complex accounting entries, supports multi-currency transactions, and gives you the detailed data required for accurate financial statements and audits.
FreshBooks is a go-to accounting solution for freelancers, consultants, and service-based businesses, largely because of its excellent invoicing capabilities. Syncing it with Stripe makes getting paid faster and easier. When you send an invoice from FreshBooks, your client can pay it instantly with a credit card through the Stripe integration, which simplifies the entire payment cycle.
The connection automatically records the payment in your FreshBooks account, marks the invoice as paid, and helps you keep track of your income without any extra steps. This automation is perfect for busy professionals who need to maintain a clear and up-to-date picture of their cash flow and outstanding payments. It removes the friction from getting paid, so you can spend less time on administrative tasks and more time serving your clients.
What happens when your business has a unique workflow that off-the-shelf integrations can't support? That’s where Stripe’s powerful API comes in. The API (Application Programming Interface) allows your developers to build completely custom connections between Stripe and any other software your business relies on, whether it's a proprietary CRM or a specialized reporting tool.
Building a custom solution gives you total control over how your data moves. You can create automated workflows tailored to your exact needs, from handling complex subscription logic to generating detailed reports for revenue recognition. This approach is ideal for businesses with specific compliance requirements or those looking to create a highly optimized financial tech stack. If you don't have an in-house team, working with a data consultation partner can help you design and implement the perfect custom integrations to support your growth.
Stripe is powerful right out of the box, but its real strength lies in its adaptability. You can shape it to fit your specific business model and operational workflows. Whether you need to build a unique payment experience, generate specialized financial reports, or automate tedious tasks, Stripe provides the tools to make it happen. This flexibility is key for scaling businesses that have outgrown standard, one-size-fits-all solutions. Let’s look at a few ways you can tailor Stripe to better serve your company’s goals.
Stripe is well-known for its robust developer tools and powerful API, which are fantastic resources if you want to build a truly custom payment setup. This gives you the freedom to create unique checkout flows, embed payment forms directly into your site, and connect Stripe to any other software in your tech stack. For businesses with specific operational needs, the API allows you to build custom logic for everything from payment processing to data synchronization. This level of control ensures that your payment system works seamlessly with your other business processes, creating a more efficient and cohesive operation. You can explore various integrations to see how these connections can streamline your data flow.
While Stripe’s dashboard offers a great overview of your finances, you can also create and download detailed reports on sales, transaction types, and payment methods. This is incredibly useful for digging into your data and preparing it for your accounting software. You can filter and export the exact information you need for monthly bookkeeping, sales analysis, or investor updates. However, as your business grows, you might find you need more advanced reporting, especially for complex revenue streams. For deeper analysis and strategic financial planning, you can find more insights on how to leverage your financial data effectively.
One of the best ways to make your financial operations more efficient is through automation, and Stripe has several features to help. You can automate recurring tasks like invoicing, subscription billing, and payment reminders, which frees up your team to focus on more strategic work. These financial automation tools help reduce manual data entry and minimize the risk of human error. By connecting Stripe with your other business systems, you can create a smooth, automated flow of information from the point of sale all the way to your final financial statements. This not only saves time but also gives you a more accurate, real-time view of your company’s financial health.
For businesses with recurring revenue, like SaaS or subscription models, proper revenue recognition is critical for compliance and accurate reporting. Stripe offers a Revenue Recognition tool designed to help you track and report income correctly, reducing some of the manual work involved in accrual accounting. While this is a great starting point, high-volume businesses or those with complex contracts may find they need a more powerful solution to handle ASC 606 compliance. If you're managing thousands of transactions or intricate billing schedules, a specialized automated revenue recognition platform can ensure accuracy and audit-readiness. You can schedule a demo to see how a dedicated solution can handle these complexities for you.
While Stripe’s native tool is a great starting point for managing revenue, it’s designed for more straightforward business models. When your company handles high transaction volumes, multi-element arrangements, or frequent contract modifications, the complexities of ASC 606 compliance can quickly outgrow a basic solution. Manually tracking performance obligations and deferrals across thousands of transactions isn't just difficult—it's a recipe for inaccurate financial statements and a stressful audit process. For businesses that need to ensure their reporting is precise and audit-ready, a dedicated platform that can automate revenue recognition becomes essential. It bridges the gap between your payment data and true compliance, giving you confidence in your numbers as you scale.
If you sell to customers around the world, you know how complicated international payments can be. Stripe simplifies this process by helping you handle transactions in different currencies and across borders. It supports over 135 currencies and local payment methods, making it easier for your international customers to buy from you. This functionality streamlines your global sales and simplifies your international bookkeeping by consolidating everything in one place. While Stripe handles the payment processing, it's still important to understand how these transactions fit into your overall financial picture. Using the right bookkeeping software in conjunction with Stripe is key to keeping your global finances organized and compliant.
When you start selling globally, you'll quickly find that credit cards aren't the only game in town. In some regions, like Germany, a popular option is "payment on invoice." This method allows customers to receive their goods first and pay for them later, typically within 30 days. From the customer's perspective, this builds a great deal of trust and reduces the perceived risk of an online purchase. For your business, however, it introduces a delay between when a sale is made and when you actually receive the cash. This creates a new layer of complexity in your accounting, as you need to track accounts receivable and manage a different kind of revenue cycle than you would with immediate credit card payments.
Offering flexible payment options like "payment on invoice" is great for conversion rates, but it also comes with the risk of late or non-payment. To protect your cash flow, it's smart to have a few strategies in place. Before offering this option to a new customer, consider running a credit check to assess their payment history. Once the sale is made, use an automated system to send payment reminders as the due date approaches and if it becomes overdue. Using dedicated invoicing software can help you manage this entire process, from sending the initial bill to tracking its status. These proactive steps help you minimize risk while still providing the payment flexibility that international customers appreciate.
Handling payments means prioritizing security and compliance. A misstep can be costly, which is why Stripe builds protective features directly into its platform. This gives you a solid foundation to protect your business and customers. Here’s how Stripe helps you stay secure.
Stripe is known for its strong, built-in fraud protection. Its system, Stripe Radar, uses machine learning to analyze every transaction, helping spot and block fraudulent payments in real time. This proactive approach helps you avoid chargebacks without creating friction for legitimate customers. You can also set custom rules to flag suspicious transactions. The platform's robust analytics provide insights into fraud patterns, helping you refine your strategy.
Protecting customer data is non-negotiable, and Stripe takes this responsibility off your plate. When a customer enters payment information, it goes directly to Stripe’s secure servers, never touching your own. This reduces your risk and simplifies security. Beyond payments, Stripe’s finance automation tools also help manage other sensitive information by automatically calculating sales tax and tracking financial rules. This automation minimizes human error and keeps your financial records secure.
If you accept credit cards, you must follow the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Stripe simplifies this by being a validated Level 1 PCI DSS Compliant Service Provider—the highest level available. Using its standard integrations means sensitive cardholder data is handled entirely within its secure environment, taking the compliance burden off you. This security is complemented by tools that help you balance your books and maintain the auditable records required for business compliance.
Tax compliance is a challenge, especially when selling across different regions. Stripe Tax solves this by automating sales tax, VAT, and GST calculations. The platform automatically determines the correct tax to collect based on your customer's location, which is invaluable for staying compliant. It also provides detailed reports for filing. By automatically tracking transactions, Stripe ensures you have accurate, organized data ready for tax season, saving you time and reducing errors.
Stripe is more than just a way to accept payments; it’s a powerful engine for streamlining the financial side of your business. When you move beyond the basics, you can automate tedious tasks, reduce manual errors, and get a clearer picture of your financial health. This efficiency isn't just about saving time—it's about building a scalable foundation that supports growth. By setting up your financial operations correctly from the start, you can ensure your data is clean, your reporting is accurate, and you have the insights you need to make smart decisions.
Getting your financial operations in order means you can spend less time buried in spreadsheets and more time focusing on your strategy. It involves creating systems that work for you, not against you. From optimizing how you get paid to automating how you bill your customers, each step you take builds on the last, creating a more resilient and efficient business. Let’s walk through the key ways you can use Stripe to get your financial house in order and find more actionable insights in the HubiFi Blog.
A smooth payment process is the first step to healthy cash flow. Stripe is well-regarded for its robust technical tools that make accepting payments simple and secure for your customers. It comes with built-in fraud protection to minimize risk and provides detailed analytics to track your sales performance. You can accept payments online through your website or even in person using a card swiper connected to a phone. The key is to create a seamless experience for your customers while ensuring the backend data flows cleanly into your systems. This is where a solid integration strategy becomes essential, connecting Stripe to your other business tools to create a single source of truth.
If you’re still creating and sending invoices by hand, you’re losing valuable time that could be spent growing your business. Stripe Invoicing is a global software platform designed to automate this entire process. You can create and send professional invoices to customers in just a few clicks, saving you from manual data entry and follow-ups. The platform helps you get paid faster by making it easy for customers to pay directly from the invoice. Automating this workflow not only speeds up your accounts receivable but also reduces the chance of human error, ensuring your financial records are consistently accurate. It’s a simple change that can have a big impact on your day-to-day operations.
Using invoicing software transforms a clunky, manual process into a smooth, automated workflow. It starts with creating a professional invoice, where you can easily add customer details, line items, and payment terms. Once sent, the software helps you keep track of everything in real time—you can see when a client has viewed the invoice and when a payment is made. This eliminates the guesswork and the need for constant follow-up emails. The system then automatically records the payment, reconciles the transaction, and feeds that data directly into your financial reports, giving you an accurate, up-to-the-minute view of your accounts receivable without the manual data entry.
Switching from manual invoicing to an automated system is one of the most impactful changes you can make for your financial operations. The most immediate benefit is the time you get back. Instead of spending hours creating, sending, and chasing down payments, you can set up recurring invoices and automated reminders. This automation also significantly reduces the risk of human error, like typos in amounts or incorrect due dates, which can delay payments and damage client relationships. Ultimately, automated invoicing helps you get paid faster, improves your cash flow, and provides a more professional experience for your customers, all while you streamline financial management.
When you're evaluating invoicing software, it’s important to look for features that will support your business as it grows. Start with the basics: customizable templates that let you create professional, branded invoices. The software should also offer flexible payment options, allowing your clients to pay via credit card or bank transfer. Look for real-time tracking and automated payment reminders to help you manage your cash flow effectively. Finally, strong reporting capabilities are a must, as they give you insights into your sales trends and outstanding revenue. The ability to connect with your other financial tools is also critical, as strong integrations ensure your data flows seamlessly across your entire tech stack.
For any business with recurring revenue, managing subscriptions is a critical and often complex task. Stripe Billing simplifies this by letting you set up flexible billing models, whether you charge a flat monthly fee or bill based on usage. It automates the entire lifecycle, from initiating subscriptions and sending invoices to retrying failed payments. This level of automation is crucial for maintaining a steady revenue stream and keeping your customers happy. It also provides clean, structured data that is essential for accurate revenue recognition, helping you understand your financial performance and stay compliant without the manual reconciliation headaches.
Every payment processor charges fees, and it’s important to know exactly how they impact your bottom line. Stripe’s standard fee is 2.9% plus 30 cents for each successful card transaction, which is automatically deducted from your payouts. While this is straightforward, you need to account for these fees properly in your bookkeeping to get a true picture of your profitability. Don’t let these costs be an afterthought. By tracking them diligently, you can better analyze your margins on different products or services. Understanding the nuances of payment processing fees helps you price your offerings more strategically and avoid surprises when it’s time to close your books.
If your business runs on subscriptions, Stripe Billing is designed to automate your recurring revenue. It handles everything from initiating subscriptions and sending invoices to retrying failed payments, which helps reduce customer churn. For businesses just starting out, the Starter plan is often a great fit, as it allows you to set up flexible billing models without an upfront cost. As you grow, you might move to the Scale plan, which offers more advanced features. The key is that you’re paying for a system that automates a complex process, giving you clean data for accurate revenue recognition and saving your team from manual follow-ups.
For businesses that invoice clients after a service is complete, Stripe Invoicing streamlines the process of getting paid. The platform has a couple of tiers. The Starter plan lets you send invoices for free, and you only pay the standard payment processing fee when your client pays with a card. If you need more advanced features, like automatic reconciliation or custom quote-to-invoice workflows, the Plus plan is available for a small fee per paid invoice. This structure allows you to choose the level of automation that fits your business needs, helping you improve your accounts receivable process without a major investment.
Tax compliance can quickly become a headache, especially if you sell to customers in different states or countries. Stripe Tax is an add-on service that automates the calculation and collection of sales tax, VAT, and GST. Instead of manually tracking tax rates for every location, the tool does it for you in real time. This service comes with a per-transaction fee in the regions where you are registered to collect taxes. While it’s an additional cost, the value comes from reducing compliance risks and saving countless hours of administrative work, making it a worthwhile investment for any business looking to scale responsibly.
Stripe is a powerful piece of the puzzle, but it works best as part of a complete financial toolkit. Good bookkeeping software is the central hub for tracking, recording, and managing your company’s money. When you connect Stripe to your accounting system, you automate tasks, reduce errors, and gain access to instant financial reports. This integration gives you the visibility needed to understand your financial health at a glance. Instead of spending hours manually matching transactions, you can focus on strategic planning. If you want to see how automated data integration can transform your financial reporting, you can schedule a demo to explore a tailored solution.
Using Stripe effectively is about more than just accepting payments. It’s about building a solid financial workflow that supports your business as it grows. By setting up your account correctly and establishing clear processes for managing your data, you can turn Stripe into a powerful engine for your financial operations. These practices will help you save time, maintain accurate records, and gain the clarity you need to make smarter business decisions.
Getting your Stripe account running is the first step, and it’s important to do it right. Think of Stripe as a payment processing partner for your business. It’s different from a traditional merchant account, which is a direct relationship with a bank. Understanding this helps you know what to expect regarding payouts, fees, and account reviews. When you sign up, provide clear and accurate information about your business to prevent any holds or delays down the line. Connecting your primary business bank account is also crucial for smooth fund transfers and simpler bookkeeping.
Reconciliation is the process of making sure the money Stripe says it paid you matches what actually arrived in your bank account. It’s a critical check-in for your financial health. As one guide on the topic explains, you need to match the money Stripe sends to your bank with the records in your accounting software. Setting aside time to do this weekly or monthly helps you catch any discrepancies early, before they become major headaches. Regular reconciliation ensures your financial reports are accurate and gives you confidence that your cash flow is what you think it is.
A solid record-keeping strategy is your financial foundation. Good accounting practices help you track your progress, stay compliant with tax laws, and make informed choices about everything from pricing to hiring. Your strategy should define what records you need to keep—like invoices, transaction details, and fee breakdowns—and where you’ll store them. Whether you use your accounting software’s built-in storage or a separate cloud drive, having an organized system makes it easy to find what you need when you need it. This simple habit will save you countless hours during tax season and any potential audits.
Once your records are in order, you can use them to generate meaningful financial reports. Stripe provides a ton of raw data, but its true power is unlocked when you turn that data into easy-to-understand reports like income statements and balance sheets. This is where bookkeeping software becomes invaluable, as it translates transaction lists into a clear picture of your business's health. Set a schedule—monthly is a great start—to run and review your key reports. This routine helps you monitor trends, assess profitability, and make strategic decisions based on real numbers, not guesswork.
Manual data entry is not only time-consuming but also prone to human error. Stripe offers tools to help you match payments with deposits, but the real efficiency comes from automation. Integrating Stripe with your accounting software can automatically sync sales, fees, and refunds, saving you hours of work. For businesses with high transaction volumes or complex revenue models, this is where specialized automation truly shines. Solutions like HubiFi can handle intricate data flows, ensuring every transaction is categorized correctly for ASC 606 compliance and providing real-time analytics. If you're ready to streamline your financial data, you can schedule a demo to see how it works.
Stripe is incredibly versatile, offering tailored features that meet the unique demands of various business models. Whether you're selling products online, managing a subscription service, or running a large enterprise, Stripe has tools to help you streamline payments and manage your finances more effectively. Let's look at how it supports different industries.
Stripe is a game-changer for e-commerce stores. It simplifies the entire process of accepting payments from customers anywhere in the world, helping you expand your market without the usual headaches of international transactions. The platform is designed to handle high volumes efficiently, so as your business grows, your payment system can keep up. You can see how a wide range of e-commerce companies use these tools to scale their operations and provide a smooth checkout experience for their customers. This is key to building loyalty and driving repeat business.
If your business runs on subscriptions, you know how critical consistent cash flow is. Stripe offers fantastic tools specifically for this model. With Stripe Invoicing, you can automate recurring billing, create professional invoices, and send them out without lifting a finger. This automation not only saves you a ton of time but also helps you get paid faster by making the payment process seamless for your subscribers. It takes the manual follow-up out of the equation, letting you focus on delivering value to your customers instead of chasing payments. This streamlined approach is essential for maintaining healthy financials.
SaaS companies love Stripe for its powerful integration capabilities. It’s built to connect with the other tools you already use, which is a huge advantage for streamlining your financial operations. By syncing payment data directly with your accounting software, you can automate billing, invoicing, and financial reporting. This eliminates tedious manual data entry, which in turn reduces the risk of human error. Having accurate, real-time data is crucial for making smart business decisions. These Stripe accounting integrations are what allow SaaS businesses to scale efficiently while keeping their financial records clean and compliant.
Stripe isn't just for startups; it's a powerhouse for large, enterprise-level businesses too. As companies grow, their payment needs become much more complex, involving multiple currencies, payment methods, and business units. Stripe offers a robust suite of tools designed to handle this complexity with ease. It provides the financial infrastructure needed to manage high-volume transactions, both online and in-person, across the globe. For enterprises, this means having a reliable, secure, and scalable payment platform that can support their continued growth and expansion into new markets without skipping a beat.
If you run a professional services firm—like a consultancy, agency, or law practice—managing client billing and payments effectively is paramount. Stripe helps by integrating with popular accounting software, making it easier to track project costs, send invoices, and reconcile payments. While many accounting platforms offer some level of native integration, connecting your systems can sometimes be tricky. For a truly seamless workflow, you might need a more advanced solution. HubiFi offers custom integrations that ensure all your financial data flows perfectly between Stripe and your other business systems, giving you a clear, accurate picture of your firm's financial health.
Can Stripe replace my accounting software like QuickBooks or Xero? Think of Stripe as a powerful partner to your accounting software, not a replacement for it. While Stripe is fantastic at processing payments, tracking sales, and automating invoicing, it isn't a full-fledged accounting system. Its real strength comes from how it feeds clean, accurate transaction data directly into platforms like QuickBooks or Xero. This connection eliminates hours of manual data entry and ensures the information you use for financial reporting is reliable from the start.
How do I know when my business needs more than just Stripe's built-in tools? You'll likely start to feel the growing pains. A key sign is when manual reconciliation begins to take up a significant portion of your week. If you're dealing with a high volume of transactions, managing complex subscription models, or struggling to get clear reports for compliance standards like ASC 606, you've probably outgrown the basic features. This is the point where a more robust, automated solution becomes necessary to maintain accuracy and give you back your time.
What's the difference between a basic integration and a more advanced, custom solution? A basic integration is a great starting point that connects Stripe to your accounting software to sync general sales data. It’s perfect for businesses with straightforward operations. An advanced or custom solution, however, creates a much deeper and more detailed connection. It can handle complexities like separating Stripe fees, managing multi-currency transactions accurately, and automating revenue recognition entries. This level of detail is essential for scaling businesses that need a flawless and auditable financial record.
What is the most common mistake businesses make when using Stripe for their accounting? The most common pitfall is treating it as a "set it and forget it" tool. While Stripe automates a great deal, you still need to perform regular bank reconciliations. This means consistently matching the payouts Stripe sends to your bank with the transactions recorded in your accounting software. Skipping this step can lead to small discrepancies that snowball into major headaches, giving you an inaccurate picture of your cash flow and overall financial health.
My business has a subscription model. Why is revenue recognition so important? For subscription businesses, revenue recognition is about accurately reflecting your company's performance. You earn revenue over the life of a subscription, not just when a customer pays you upfront for the year. Accounting standards like ASC 606 require you to report this income as you deliver the service. While Stripe’s tools can help you track this, a dedicated automated solution becomes critical as you scale. It ensures your financial statements are accurate and compliant, which is vital for making strategic decisions and securing investor confidence.
Former Root, EVP of Finance/Data at multiple FinTech startups
Jason Kyle Berwanger: An accomplished two-time entrepreneur, polyglot in finance, data & tech with 15 years of expertise. Builder, practitioner, leader—pioneering multiple ERP implementations and data solutions. Catalyst behind a 6% gross margin improvement with a sub-90-day IPO at Root insurance, powered by his vision & platform. Having held virtually every role from accountant to finance systems to finance exec, he brings a rare and noteworthy perspective in rethinking the finance tooling landscape.
Meet with an expert in revenue recognition and order-to-cash accounting and automate revenue close.
Talk with an accountant →*Or watch 2 minute demo here.
Power your high-volume business's revenue compliance and reporting needs with one platform.
