Turning payments off

Switching payments off is not one action, and doing it in the wrong order leaves families being charged with nobody able to stop it. This article is the order.

Read How money works in Dojo Tiger first if you haven't — the three switches and their asymmetry are the whole reason order matters.

The safe order

1. 1

   Stop every live subscription, one at a time

   Students then →Enrollments → the Billing column → Stop on every row that is Active, Past due or Paused. Choose Stop at the end of the paid period so families keep the month they have paid for.

   Do this first, while you still can. Every step below takes the Stop button away.

2. 2

   Turn automatic monthly billing off

   Studio then →General → Payments → untick Allow automatic monthly billing. Confirm the dialog.

   Now no new monthly billing can be started. Staff can still take one-off payments.

3. 3

   Turn card charging off

   Untick Allow charging cards at this studio on the same card. Read the confirmation and confirm.

   Now nobody can charge anything: not staff, not families online, not new monthly billing.

4. 4

   Disconnect Stripe — only if you're really leaving

   Disconnect on the status card. The studio drops back to Independent mode and every payments control disappears from the app.

   Before you confirm, the dialog tells you how many subscriptions will keep billing at Stripe. If that number is not zero and you meant to stop them, cancel the dialog and go back to the first step.

   Skip this step if you are only pausing. Reconnecting is easy but it is a round-trip through Stripe's onboarding, and card-charging state is worth keeping simple.

What each step does not do

Disconnecting does not stop billing

This is the one thing to take away from this page. Disconnecting Stripe does not cancel anything. Every subscription that was running keeps running, on your own Stripe account, and families keep being charged every month. Dojo Tiger does not cancel them for you when you disconnect.

What changes is what Dojo Tiger can do:

• It cannot see payments, failed payments or cancellations for those subscriptions.
• It cannot stop, pause, retry or re-price them. The Stop, Retry and Sync buttons are gone for those rows.
• It sends no "payment failed" email about them.
• Its payment history has a gap. Payments your families make while the studio is disconnected are not recorded in Dojo Tiger: not on the student page, not on the Payments ledger, not in reports. The gap starts on the day you disconnect and lasts until you reconnect the same Stripe account. Payments taken during the gap are not filled in afterwards; they are in your Stripe dashboard.

If you've already disconnected Stripe with subscriptions live

The subscriptions are on your own Stripe account, so you still control them, just not from here. Sign in to your Stripe dashboard to manage or cancel them.

Dojo Tiger tells you they are there:

• Studio then →General → Payments shows a notice with how many subscriptions are billed outside Dojo Tiger and since when.
• Students then →Enrollments shows Billed outside Dojo Tiger in the Billing column for each one, with the date it began. The same note appears on the student's own page.
• The amounts and renewal dates Dojo Tiger held for them are no longer shown. They were only what was last known on the day you disconnected.

Reconnecting the same Stripe account

Dojo Tiger takes the subscriptions back. When the connection completes it reads each one from Stripe and:

• if it is still running, manages it again, with its current status and renewal date;
• if you cancelled it in Stripe in the meantime, marks it cancelled.

A studio with many subscriptions is not finished in one go: the rest are picked up overnight, or when you press Refresh status on Payments settings. Until then the notice on Payments settings says how many are still billed outside Dojo Tiger.

While one is still waiting, Dojo Tiger checks it before it lets you act on it. Stop, Retry, changing the amount, starting billing again and deleting the student all read that subscription from Stripe first. If it is still running, Dojo Tiger manages it again and carries on. If Stripe cannot be reached, nothing is changed and you are asked to try again in a few minutes.

Reconnecting a different Stripe account

Dojo Tiger cannot reach the old account, so the old subscriptions stay Billed outside Dojo Tiger and keep billing there until you cancel them in that account's Stripe dashboard.

You can start monthly billing again for those enrollments on the new account. The dialog warns you first, and asks you to confirm, because the old subscription may still be running: starting a new one could bill the family twice. Cancel the old one in Stripe before you start a new one.

Deleting a student

A student whose only subscription is billed outside Dojo Tiger, on a Stripe account that is not connected now, can be deleted. The delete dialog warns that deleting the student does not stop the subscription. Cancel it in your Stripe dashboard if it should stop. Dojo Tiger keeps a permanent record of who deleted the student and which subscription was still running.

If you have reconnected the Stripe account the subscription is on, Dojo Tiger checks it first. A subscription that is still running is managed again, and you stop it on the Enrollments page before deleting, as for any other.

A duplicate registration cannot be merged while the duplicate has a subscription billed outside Dojo Tiger. Cancel it in Stripe and let it end, or reconnect the account it is on, then merge.

What survives being switched off

• Your charge history. The student-level Charge history card and Reports then →Payments keep working with Stripe connected but charging off — a studio that has stopped taking money still has to answer "what did you bill me for?".
• Refunds. Still available with card charging off, for the same reason. A studio that has stopped taking money still has to be able to give some back.
• The two switches themselves. Disconnecting Stripe does not clear them. If you reconnect later, check their state rather than assuming it — card charging in particular may already be on.
• The family's read-only Monthly billing card. It is deliberately not gated on either switch. A family whose card is still being debited every month must not be left with a charge on their statement and nothing on the page that explains it. For a subscription that is billed outside Dojo Tiger the card shows the program and the student, and says the studio manages it directly and to contact the studio with questions. It shows no amount and no date, because Dojo Tiger no longer knows them.

What disappears immediately

Turning card charging off removes the controls: the Charge card panel on students, the Add a card and Pay buttons families see, and the ability to start monthly billing. Going back to Independent mode removes the Billing column on enrollments as well, and the studio looks much like one that never used payments.

Your rates, discounts, tuition report and financial reporting all keep working, because those read the numbers rather than the money.

Pausing versus leaving

Tell the families

Nothing about switching payments off emails anybody. A family who was on monthly billing simply stops being charged, and a family who was about to pay online finds the Pay button gone.

If they were paying you through the app, tell them how you want to be paid instead, before you flip the switches.

Last reviewed 5 October 2026