Setting up LakeOps Payments: what Stripe asks for

Turning on LakeOps Payments opens a Stripe account in your business’s name and walks you through Stripe’s own questions. It is a one-time job of about ten minutes if you have your tax ID and bank details to hand. This page is what to have ready, what LakeOps fills in for you, and what the settings screen says while Stripe finishes its checks.

Before you press the button

• Set up what your customers see first. Your statement name and your support phone go to Stripe when the account is opened, and after that they are changed in Stripe, not here. Fill in Settings → Account & payments → What your customers see before you start — see your name on checkout and card statements.
• Check the country. The panel says “Opens a US Stripe account in USD” or “Opens a Canadian Stripe account in CAD”. That comes from your LakeOps account and cannot be changed once the Stripe account exists.
• Who can do it. Only someone whose role includes configuring payments — an owner, or an admin — sees the button.

What LakeOps fills in for you

When you press Turn on LakeOps Payments, LakeOps creates the Stripe account and sends what it already knows, so Stripe does not ask you twice:

• your company name, and an admin’s email as the contact;
• the country and currency;
• your website, support email and support phone, if you set them;
• the statement name your customers see on their card statement;
• your brand color and logo, for Stripe’s checkout page and receipts;
• a description of what you sell: dock and boat lift installation, removal and repair.

It also asks Stripe for two abilities: taking cards, and your country’s bank debit — ACH in the United States, pre-authorized debit in Canada.

What Stripe asks for

You then land on Stripe’s own pages. Stripe decides the questions, and they vary with your country and whether you are a company or a sole proprietor, but expect:

About	Typically
The business	Business type, legal name, address, phone, and tax ID — an EIN in the United States (or a Social Security number for a sole proprietor), a business number in Canada.
The person responsible	Name, date of birth, home address and identity details. Companies may also be asked about owners and directors.
Payouts	The bank account the money is paid out to.

If Stripe cannot verify someone from those details it may ask for a photo of an ID document, then or later. There are no API keys to copy and nothing technical anywhere.

If Stripe offers you Stripe Tax

Stripe may show a page headed “Know when and where you need to collect sales tax”, asking for the kind of product you sell and offering Opt in to Stripe Tax. Choose Not right now. LakeOps already works out the tax from the rates you enter under sales tax, at the property’s address rather than wherever the customer’s card is billed, and the pay page asks for exactly that total. LakeOps never asks Stripe to calculate tax on top of it.

If you already opted in, your LakeOps payments are unaffected. Stripe says its fees for Stripe Tax apply once tax is calculated on your transactions, and LakeOps payments never ask it to. Anything else you sell through your own Stripe account is between you and Stripe.

Coming back to LakeOps

When you finish, Stripe sends you back to Settings → Payments, which reads your account from Stripe straight away and shows one of these:

The panel says	What it means
LakeOps Payments is on and taking money	Pay buttons are live on your customers’ pages. It also says whether payouts are enabled yet — they can lag behind if Stripe still needs your bank account.
Setup isn’t finished	Press Finish setting up payments. It opens the same Stripe account, and you are asked only for what is missing.
Your details are being reviewed	Nothing to do, so there is no button to press. Payments switch on by themselves when the review finishes. If anything more is needed, the panel goes back to Setup isn’t finished.

Stripe’s setup links expire. If you follow an old one, Stripe sends you back through LakeOps for a fresh link rather than a dead page. LakeOps also reads every connected account back from Stripe each night, so the panel stays current even if a message from Stripe goes astray.

Once it is on

Customers see a pay button on their completion page, their statement and the completion email. Stripe can still ask for more details later, and payments can go on hold; what that looks like, and the emails your admins get, are in LakeOps Payments.