Connecting Stripe
The hand-off to Stripe, the four connection states afterwards, and what each one means.
Dojo Tiger never holds your money. You connect your own Stripe account, the money lands in it, and Stripe pays it out to your bank on its own schedule. Your studio is the merchant of record for every charge.
Stripe is the only working processor. Square appears in the picker and is not usable.
Before you start
Have to hand the things Stripe will ask for, because its onboarding is a single sitting and it does not save well halfway:
- your legal business name and address, and your tax ID if you have one;
- the bank account you want payouts to land in;
- a photo ID for the person who owns or controls the business;
- your website or, if you don't have one, the address of the public studio page Dojo Tiger builds for you.
Connecting
Open the Payments card
Studio then General, then scroll to the Payments card at the bottom.
Pick Stripe and accept the terms
Select Stripe in the provider list. A terms checkbox appears: it says that Dojo Tiger's publisher is a software platform and is not a party to your payment transactions, and that you are the merchant of record. Tick it.
If you have accepted before, the card says so instead and there is nothing to tick.
Click Connect Stripe
One button does both jobs — it saves the mode change and hands you straight to Stripe. You are now on Stripe's own site, not Dojo Tiger's.
Finish Stripe's onboarding
Work through Stripe's questions. At the end Stripe returns you to your settings page and a toast confirms the connection.
Connecting is not the same as being able to charge
Coming back with a green status still leaves you unable to take a single payment. Card charging is a separate switch, off by default, on the same card — see Turning on card charging.
The four states afterwards
Once connected, the Payments card shows a status card for your Stripe account.
| Status | Meaning | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Connected and ready (green) | Stripe has enabled both charges and payouts. | Nothing. Move on to card charging. |
| Charges pending Stripe review (yellow) | Stripe has your account but has not switched charges on yet. | Wait. This is Stripe's queue and Dojo Tiger cannot hurry it. |
| Onboarding incomplete (amber) | Stripe wants more information from you. | Click Resume onboarding — it takes you back into Stripe where you left off. |
| Disconnected (grey) | The link between Dojo Tiger and Stripe has been broken. | Reconnect, or pick a different mode. |
Underneath the status you get the account's masked id, three flags straight from Stripe — Charges enabled, Payouts enabled, Details submitted — and the date and time you connected.
Pending review is not a bug
New Stripe accounts are frequently reviewed before charges are enabled, particularly for businesses that take payments from children's guardians. Nothing on the Dojo Tiger side affects the outcome or the timing. If it drags on, Stripe's own dashboard is where the conversation happens.
Refresh status
Stripe tells Dojo Tiger about changes as they happen, but if you have just finished something in the Stripe dashboard and want to see it here now, click Refresh status. It re-reads the three flags and the connection state immediately.
Use it after: finishing a Stripe review, adding a bank account, or completing a verification Stripe asked for by email.
Disconnect
Disconnect breaks the link between this studio and your Stripe account. Dojo Tiger stops acting on the account, and the studio drops back to Independent mode — which means every payments control disappears from the app.
Your Stripe data is untouched: past charges, payouts and customers all stay in your Stripe dashboard, and you can reconnect the same studio later.
Disconnecting does not cancel monthly billing
Subscriptions live at Stripe, on your own account. Disconnecting removes Dojo Tiger's ability to talk to that account; it does not tell Stripe to stop anything. Families on monthly billing keep being charged, and there is no button in Dojo Tiger to stop them until you reconnect.
Stop every live subscription before you disconnect. The full order of operations is in Turning payments off.
Test credentials
A studio connected with Stripe test credentials is flagged with a loud, permanent Test mode banner on this card, and again inside every dialog that moves money. No real money moves in that state. See Test mode.
If something went wrong
| What you see | What it usually is |
|---|---|
| You came back from Stripe and nothing seems connected | Onboarding was abandoned partway. The card offers Click to connect Stripe to resume. |
| "Stripe is selected, but onboarding isn't finished yet" | Same thing, stated plainly. Resume, or use Use a different mode to go back to Independent. |
| Green status, but nobody can charge anything | Card charging is still off. It is the next switch down on the same card. |
| Status says connected but charges are disabled | Stripe has not finished reviewing the account. Check the Charges enabled flag. |
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