Re: [stripe-api-discuss] Send receipts to multiple people

[Matthew Arkin]

*Updated subject to make this a little more clear and removed mafs from cc to spare his inbox*

Being able to set an option like "BCC me on all receipts" would be nice, though this seems like it would be replacing the Payment Confirmation emails that get already sent (the receipts are more detailed than the payment confirmation emails so it would be an improvement). 

However, thinking more specifically in Stripe Connect terms, this doesn't totally solve the problem. With Connect, there are three people involved in the transaction. The Connect Application, right now, can only ensure that the end-customer gets a receipt. The user of the Stripe Connect app may or may not get an email depending on his or her Stripe settings, its possible that the Stripe Connect app would always want to send this user an email. The user would also get a pretty basic email, not as descriptive as the receipt is. Then the developer of the Stripe Connect application has the same issue, where he can get an email when he receives application fee's but the email doesn't describe the details of the charge that occurred. 

 

And just to add one more receipt feature request:

It would be really nice to be able to get a link to the receipt linked to the charge object, I could see a use case where a website will show a list of charges and instead of having to do all the annoying design work of a receipt page just link to the stripe receipt.

Matt

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 2:51 PM, Michelle Bu <mich...@stripe.com> wrote:

Hi Matthew,

Actually, most of the receipts functionality is only available through
the dashboard--for example, resending receipts and viewing receipt
sending history are both dashboard-only features that we hadn't
planned to bring to the API. In fact, the `receipt_email` parameter on
a charge cannot be changed after charge creation.

As for the use case you presented, would it be helpful if we allowed
you to specify one or two email addresses to BCC on all email receipts
that we send? We actually considered building it before launching, but
weren't sure if folks would find it useful.
- Michelle

On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 2:47 PM, Matthew Arkin <mar...@kollective.it> wrote:
> I just thought it was a bit inconsistent that you could do it on the
> dashboard but not do it through the API.
>
> I could see a potential use case being that I want to send a receipt to
> myself, the customer and a vendor. I've seen a couple people in the IRC room
> say they'd like to send a receipt to themselves (the stripe connect app),
> the vendor (so the stripe user to which the charge was placed under), and
> the customer.
>
> I prefer to send my own email since I like the customization ability, but
> this seems to be one of the few cases that you can do something in the
> dashboard that you can't do through the api.
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Robert Lord <rl...@stripe.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hey Matt! Hmm...we're trying to understand the use case for that
>> feature. If we were to add the ability to submit multiple
>> `receipt_email`s through the API, what would you use it for?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> ~Robert
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Matthew Arkin <mar...@kollective.it>
>> wrote:
>> > Hey Robert, I noticed in the dashboard there is the ability to send a
>> > receipt to multiple email address (simply by comma separating), but this
>> > isn't available in the api. Any plans on allowing receipt_email to
>> > support a
>> > comma separated list of emails?
>> >
>> > Matt
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Aug 11, 2014 at 12:27 PM, <rl...@stripe.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hey all! Two new features from this past week, one big, and one small:
>> >>
>> >> Dashboard:
>> >> - Email receipts have been completely revamped...read more about the
>> >> new
>> >> features on our blog. [0]
>> >> - CSV exports of charges now include the custom statement description
>> >> of
>> >> each charge, if it has one.
>> >>
>> >> Have a wonderful week!
>> >>
>> >> ~Robert
>> >>
>> >> [0]: https://stripe.com/blog/improved-email-receipts
>> >>
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[Michelle Bu]

> However, thinking more specifically in Stripe Connect terms, this doesn't totally solve the problem. With Connect, there are three people involved in the transaction. The Connect Application, right now, can only ensure that the end-customer gets a receipt. The user of the Stripe Connect app may or may not get an email depending on his or her Stripe settings, its possible that the Stripe Connect app would always want to send this user an email. The user would also get a pretty basic email, not as descriptive as the receipt is. Then the developer of the Stripe Connect application has the same issue, where he can get an email when he receives application fee's but the email doesn't describe the details of the charge that occurred.

Hm, would it help to just make the merchant email and connect email
more detailed? Additionally, if the user of the app doesn't have
emails enabled, it'd be a bit weird for them to get these--would it
help if Connect apps with the appropriate permissions can flip that
bit for the user?

> It would be really nice to be able to get a link to the receipt linked to the charge object, I could see a use case where a website will show a list of charges and instead of having to do all the annoying design work of a receipt page just link to the stripe receipt.

Yep, noted! It'd definitely be nice to get the receipt transaction
ID/a link back in the charge object. We're still trying to figure out
the best way to expose this.
- Michelle

[Matthew Arkin]

Chances are the stripe connect app has the email address for the stripe account and could manually send an email to the stripe user if the developer wanted to. The idea behind using Stripe's receipts is its less code for the developer and makes the experience a bit cleaner. If I was developing a Stripe connect app having to have a prompt along the lines of "To enable emails on orders, please visit http://dashboard.stripe.com, click Account Setting, click Emails, and check the box" doesn't lead to the best UI. But making the merchant and connect email more detailed would have the same effect. Right now the merchant email is "Payment of $100 Received from John Doe... Charge id ch_1244325", adding some context to that and making the email look a bit prettier would work.

[Michelle Bu]

Yeah, that make sense! We should definitely include more information
in the merchant and app's copy of the receipt as a first step :).

I guess to me it feels rather manual (but I could definitely be wrong)
for the app to have to specify both their email and the merchant's
email to send a receipt to on every charge (that is, on our end we
have all of that info, so we should be able to build for this use case
more elegantly). I'd love to hear what you think!
- Michelle

[Matthew Arkin]

Definitely better merchant and app copy of emails is a first step, if thats in place the need to programmatically send copies of receipts is greatly reduced.

Having the app specify two emails is pretty manual, but would only amount to a line of code that hard codes the app's email and looks up the merchant email.