Billing for a multi-entity business
Integrate Stripe Billing for a business with more than one legal entity.
Stripe requires you to have a separate account for each legal entity. Businesses might need to create different legal entities to accommodate international operations, set up financial isolation for different business units, or handle acquisitions. Use this guide to learn how to set up multiple Stripe accounts for a business that has multiple legal entities.
Multiple entities architecture
To manage multiple legal entities in a scalable way, we recommend using Stripe Connect with a Standard account, where you have a platform account that serves as a single entry point, and multiple connected accounts for each line of business.
A platform account and multiple connected accounts, each representing different business lines.
With this account configuration, each account can maintain its own customers, subscriptions, and product catalogue. The platform account provides a single integration point and a single, shared API key that you can use to manage multiple connected Stripe accounts.
You create a service on your app to route customers to the right account when they check out. On the back end, your integration passes in the correct account ID to make a direct charge for the relevant Standard account, which settles funds to that entity’s bank account.
Metrics and analytics
To get a consolidated view of metrics for multiple Stripe accounts, use the Stripe Data Pipeline to sync your Stripe account with an external system. You can export the data for all your accounts to your data warehouse, where you can apply analytical tools to get business insights.
Accounting reports
Use Revenue Recognition to export and consolidate accounting reports. You can also import data into a single account and get a comprehensive view that way.
Product catalogue
Your product catalogue can be part of the platform account or each connected Standard account. Where you maintain your catalogue depends on your business needs. For example, a company that operates in the US and in the EU probably wants to keep the catalogue with the connected accounts to help them maintain local prices. A company with a global website that serves customers in multiple currencies likely wants to keep the catalogue with the platform account and use multi-currency prices.
Lookup keys
To efficiently manage product catalogues for connected accounts, use lookup keys. Product IDs and lookup key names only need to be unique for each account.
Entitlements
To correctly associate a customer with a Stripe account, store the customer ID and Stripe account ID in your database so that when you check the statuses of invoices and subscriptions for entitlements, you know you’re referencing the correct Stripe account.
Tax
If you want to report taxes as a single entity for two Stripe accounts, you can merge the tax reports of those accounts. Export the data then combine the reports in a spreadsheet or with a partner such as TaxJar or Avalara.
Revenue recovery
To enable revenue recovery, configure invoice templates, subscription lifecycles, and dunning emails for each individual Stripe account.
Payment methods
To correctly associate a customer with a Stripe account, store the customer ID and Stripe account ID in your database. Doing so means that when you check the statuses of invoices and subscriptions for entitlements, you know you’re referencing the correct Stripe account.
To transition to multiple Stripe accounts, we recommend setting up a platform account and a connected account when you first get started.
Limitations
Payment method cloning currently has the following limitations:
- You can only clone payment methods that have the type set to
cardorus_.bank_ account - You can’t clone payment methods from one connected account to another connected account.
- You can’t clone payment methods from a connected account to a platform account.