Enabling Stripe payments for your HOA

HomeHerald uses Stripe Connect to route resident payments directly to each HOA’s own Stripe account. Your HOA is the merchant of record for every payment — the money settles in your Stripe balance, you show on your residents’ bank statements, and disputes come to your dashboard. HomeHerald takes a small platform fee per transaction and handles the rest of the plumbing.

This guide walks through getting your HOA’s Stripe account set up correctly so residents can pay.

What you need before you start

• An email address for the HOA (or the treasurer who manages finances)
• The HOA’s business type and EIN (if the HOA is registered as a business/non-profit). Individual sole-prop setups work too.
• A bank account for payouts — the account where dues deposits should land
• 10–15 minutes

Step 1 — Connect your Stripe account

1. Log into HomeHerald as an admin
2. Go to Settings → Community Settings → Payment Methods panel
3. Click Connect Stripe Account
4. You’ll be redirected to Stripe’s secure onboarding flow. Fill in:
   • Business type (individual, LLC, non-profit, etc.)
   • Business address
   • Representative name + SSN or EIN as applicable
   • Bank account details for payouts
   • A statement descriptor — the short name that appears on residents’ credit card statements (see below)
5. Stripe will verify your info (usually instant for US accounts) and return you to HomeHerald

Once complete, the Payments settings page will show “Stripe Connected” with a green checkmark.

Statement descriptor — this matters

The statement descriptor is the name residents will see on their credit card / bank statement next to every charge. Stripe limits it to 22 characters, uppercase recommended.

Pick something residents will recognize as the HOA. Examples:

• MAPLEWOOD HOA ✓
• ABUNDANCEPOINTE ✓
• LEGACY HOA ✓

Bad examples:

• 4BRUNCH LLC — confusing, doesn’t match the HOA name residents know
• Blank / unset — Stripe falls back to a generic platform name, residents won’t recognize the charge

If your descriptor is set wrong, edit it in the Stripe Dashboard → Settings → Public details → Statement descriptor.

Required capabilities

Stripe capabilities are the specific payment types your account is authorized to process. HomeHerald needs at minimum:

Capability	Purpose	Required?
card_payments	Accept credit/debit cards	Yes — always required
transfers	Receive transfers from HomeHerald	Yes — always required
us_bank_account_ach_payments	Accept ACH bank transfers	Optional — see below

card_payments and transfers are activated automatically during standard Stripe onboarding for US accounts. If Stripe needs additional information, you’ll see it flagged in your Stripe dashboard with a yellow banner — resolve it there and the capability activates.

Optional — enabling ACH Direct Debit

ACH (bank transfers) is a great option for larger payments since the convenience fee is lower than on cards (2% flat vs. 4% + $0.30 per card transaction). It’s disabled by default — your HOA needs to explicitly turn it on.

To enable:

1. Go to your Stripe Dashboard (the HOA’s dashboard, not HomeHerald’s) → Settings → Payment methods
2. Find ACH Direct Debit
3. Click Turn on
4. Confirm any business info Stripe asks for (takes 1–2 minutes typically)

Once active, HomeHerald auto-detects the capability on your next transaction and will start showing residents a “Bank” option alongside Card at checkout. No config changes in HomeHerald needed.

If ACH isn’t enabled on your Stripe account: residents will see card-only at checkout. No errors, no broken flows — just no bank option.

What happens if a capability is missing

HomeHerald checks your Stripe account’s capabilities every time a resident tries to pay:

• card_payments not active → payments fail entirely. This is a setup problem — finish your Stripe onboarding.
• transfers not active → funds can’t be routed to your HOA. Same fix.
• us_bank_account_ach_payments not active → residents see card-only (no bank option). Intentional, no action needed unless you want ACH.

You can check your current capability status anytime in the Stripe dashboard under Settings → Capabilities.

The fee structure

For every card payment a resident makes:

Who takes what	Rate
HomeHerald convenience fee (covers all processing)	4% + $0.30
Your HOA	Remaining ~96% of the gross

For ACH (when enabled):

Who takes what	Rate
HomeHerald convenience fee (covers all processing)	2%
Your HOA	Remaining 98% of the gross

You can configure whether the convenience fee is absorbed by the HOA or passed on to the resident — toggle under Settings → Community Settings → Payment Methods panel. In pass-through mode the resident pays the fee on top of the base amount so the HOA nets the exact dues or rental; in absorb mode the resident pays the base amount and the HOA nets the base minus the fee.

How chargebacks and disputes work

Because your HOA is the merchant of record, disputes (a resident calls their bank to reverse a charge) land in your Stripe dashboard — not HomeHerald’s. You’ll get an email notification from HomeHerald when a dispute opens, with a link to respond in Stripe.

You have about 21 days to respond with evidence (booking confirmation, resident communication, payment history). If you don’t respond, Stripe auto-awards the dispute to the resident and withdraws the funds from your Stripe balance.

HomeHerald notifies every board member and admin when a dispute opens and again when it closes (won or lost). Make sure at least one person on your board is checking email.

Where to go next

• Want to accept ACH? Follow the ACH section above, then read about how convenience fees work when paid online (coming soon).
• Setting up amenity bookings with deposits? See the deferred-charge booking model article (coming soon).
• Need to refund a payment? See issuing refunds (coming soon).

If you get stuck connecting Stripe, contact support@homeherald.ai with your community name and a screenshot of whatever message Stripe is showing you.