User guide
Online payments - the complete guide
Everything your lodge can collect online - membership subscriptions and festive-board event fees - with the money settling straight into your own bank account.
Powered by Stripe
Lodge Dashboard lets a lodge collect money online in two ways: annual membership subscriptions (paid in one go or monthly) and event fees for the festive board. Members pay by Pay by Bank, bank transfer, Direct Debit or card, whichever the lodge switches on. Every lodge has its own Stripe account, so funds settle directly into that lodge's bank account; Lodge Dashboard never holds the money.
The three phases
-
1
Set up Stripe
An Admin or Secretary creates the lodge's own Stripe account once.
-
2
Set up annual subscriptions
Choose the yearly fee; members pay it in one go or monthly.
-
3
Collect event fees
Add a price to a festive board; members pay when they reply to the invitation.
Phase 1
Setting up Stripe
You only need to do this once. An Admin or Secretary starts it from Settings → Payments with Set up Stripe. Stripe's own form then asks about the lodge, the person setting it up, the officers who run the lodge and the bank account.
Create and connect the account
How the account is created, what connecting it means and how to change it.
Who does it and which documents
Who is named, what to have ready and the UK documents Stripe accepts.
The set-up, step by step
Every step from agreeing who does what to the first payout.
Online payment is only offered once the lodge's account can take it. Until then it shows as unavailable on the reply forms, so no member is sent to a payment that can't start. A lodge already connected to GoCardless keeps using it until its Stripe account is ready, and its running plans keep collecting.
What Stripe charges
Stripe charges no set-up or monthly fee, only a fee per payment at its published UK prices. The lodge pays it, so members pay exactly the subscription or festive-board price. A lodge that wants members to cover the fee can raise its price.
Pay by Bank
0.5% + 20p, maximum £5.
Bank transfer
0.5%, maximum £5.
Direct Debit (Bacs)
1%, minimum 20p, maximum £4.
Cards
1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards, up to 3.15% + 20p for international cards.
An Admin or Secretary chooses which methods members can use on Settings → Payments, separately for festive boards, a subscription in one go and a monthly subscription.
Phase 2
Annual subscriptions (membership dues)
Collect each member's yearly subscription online. The lodge sets the fee once; members then pay it either in a single payment or spread over the year.
Setting it up
-
1
On Settings → Payments, set the annual subscription amount and, if you like, a due date.
-
2
An Admin or Secretary chooses whether to allow members to pay monthly, in the same table as the payment methods.
-
3
Save. Members can now pay from their Subscriptions page.
How a member pays
In one go
The member pays the whole year at once on Stripe's secure page, by any method the lodge offers.
Monthly
The member saves a Direct Debit or card once, then the fee is collected automatically each month. The monthly amount is the yearly fee divided across the collections (rounded up by a penny so the lodge is never short).
Keeping track
The Members subscriptions page shows every member's status at a glance - paid, on track, or behind - with progress for those paying monthly. You can sort and filter the roster to see who still needs to pay. At the end of the year, a completed subscription automatically raises the following year's, so renewals look after themselves.
Phase 3
Event fees (the festive board)
Collect payment for the festive board - the formal dinner after a meeting - at the moment a member replies to the invitation.
Setting it up
-
1
When creating or editing an event, add a festive board and set the price per head.
-
2
Enable paying online for the event. The option needs the lodge's Stripe account to be able to take payments.
How a member pays
When a member replies attending and is dining, they can choose to pay online. Lodge Dashboard shows an itemised total - their own place, plus any visiting guest whose cost they are covering. On confirming, they pay on Stripe's secure page by any method the lodge offers. There is no Stripe account to create.
Bringing visitors
A member can add named visitors to their reply and choose whether to pay for them (the cost folds into the member's own payment) or have them pay themselves (the visitor gets their own link). Where an event has no festive-board cost, no payment is required and these options are hidden.
Seeing who has paid
Each event's attendee list shows every member's status - Paid or Pending - updating automatically as Stripe confirms each payment, with no manual reconciliation. A bank transfer shows as paid when the money arrives, and a Direct Debit takes a few business days to confirm.
Tracking payments & payouts
The Finance area gives officers a single ledger of every online payment - subscriptions and event fees alike - each clearly marked Paid, Pending, Failed or Refunded, with the method used and Stripe's fee. You can filter the list, export it, and reconcile it against the payouts Stripe makes to the lodge's bank account.
Refunds and disputes
An officer can refund a settled payment from the Finance ledger using the Refund action. The refund goes through Stripe and the payment's status updates to reflect it.
One thing to know: refunds come out of the lodge's available Stripe balance. If it is short, a card refund waits as pending and a refund by any other method fails straight away. Lodge Dashboard shows Stripe's actual reason in plain words, rather than a generic error.
If a member disputes a payment with their bank, the lodge sees the reason and any deadline on the payment, and answers it in its own Stripe Dashboard.
When Stripe needs something
Stripe can ask for more details at any time. The Stripe card on Settings → Payments lists what it needs, why, and which payment methods are held back until it is given.
Security and your data
- Members enter bank and card details on Stripe's own pages. Lodge Dashboard never sees or stores them.
- The ID and documents for the Stripe set-up go to Stripe on Stripe's own pages and never reach Lodge Dashboard.
- Every amount - subscriptions and event fees - is calculated on Lodge Dashboard's server, so the figure a member is charged cannot be altered in the browser.
- Each lodge has its own account, so funds settle into the lodge's bank - Lodge Dashboard never holds the money.
Need help?
If you have any questions about setting up or using online payments, contact the Lodge Dashboard team at hello@mail.lodgedashboard.co.uk.