Stripe customers in NetSuite

Learn about how the connector automatically represents Stripe customers in NetSuite.

The Stripe Connector for NetSuite automatically syncs your Stripe invoices and associated customers to NetSuite as invoices and customer records. This applies to Stripe invoices that you send and payments made by customers with saved details in Stripe. The connector creates or links the customer during the first transaction with that customer.

The connector can represent customers in NetSuite in the following ways:

If you don’t want customer data in NetSuite, use the single global customer.

Sync a new Stripe customer to a new NetSuite customer

The connector syncs each Stripe customer to NetSuite as a customer record. This allows you to capture and analyze customer data in NetSuite, create detailed reports on customer spending, and manage receipts in NetSuite.

In some cases, you might not want to create a customer record for every Stripe customer. For example:

If product signup in your business flow doesn’t require payment, the connector still creates a NetSuite customer record for the Stripe customer, without any accounting impact. This approach might cause additional impacts to your NetSuite customer database.
If you have a high volume of customer sign-ups (thousands per day) and customer data reporting isn’t necessary in NetSuite, we don’t recommend this approach—it can add more entries in your NetSuite customer database than your NetSuite environment can handle.
If you have a high volume of customers created daily in your NetSuite account, the amount of associated traffic can impact the connector’s sync time.

Customer sync timing

By default, the connector creates a NetSuite customer record when it syncs a Stripe customer’s first transaction.

Alternatively, you can do either of the following:

Configure the connector to create the NetSuite customer record immediately after Stripe customer creation. To do so, ask your implementation partner to disable the Disable customer events feature. Consult with your implementation partner to understand all accounting and technical implications.
Delay syncing customers by adding metadata that specifies when the connector creates the NetSuite customer record. Ask your implementation partner for more information.

Customer details to sync

The connector syncs the following customer details from Stripe to NetSuite. You can use Stripe metadata to map additional fields, override most of the fields below, or specify default values for NetSuite fields.

Stripe field	NetSuite field	Description
Stripe ID	Entity ID and external ID	NetSuite requires an entity ID. If you don’t specify a name in Stripe (either a company name or an individual’s first and last name), the connector uses the Stripe ID as the entity ID in NetSuite. The Stripe customer ID starts with a `cus_` and is unique across all NetSuite customer records.
Email	Email	If you don’t specify an email address in Stripe, the connector uses the Stripe customer ID.
Description	Company Name (or first and last name)	NetSuite requires a customer name. If you don’t specify a name in Stripe, the connector uses the customer’s email address.
Phone	Phone	The `Phone` field on the Stripe customer maps to the header-level `Phone` field on the NetSuite customer record.
Shipping Address	Default Shipping Address	If specified on the Stripe customer, the NetSuite customer record uses this as the default shipping address. The connector uses the following fields: `Name`, `Phone`, `Address1`, `Address2`, `City`, `State`, `Zip`, and `Country`. The country field is optional. If you don’t specify a country in Stripe, the connector uses the default country in your NetSuite account. Use two character codes (ISO2) or full names that conform to the ISO-3166 standard. If the values don’t conform, the connector sets it to empty.
Billing Address	Default Billing Address	If specified on the Stripe customer’s payment source, the NetSuite customer record uses this as the default billing address. The connector uses the following fields: `Address1`, `City` or `Zip`, and `State`. The country field is optional. If you don’t specify a country in Stripe, the connector uses the default country in your NetSuite account. Use two character codes (ISO2) or full names that conform to the ISO-3166 standard. If the values don’t conform, the connector sets it to empty.

Create a customer in NetSuite

NetSuite has two types of customers: company and individual. The connector creates customers as a company, by default.

If you want to create a customer as an individual, NetSuite requires a first and last name. You can pass the name to NetSuite in one of the following ways:

Method Description

Method	Description
Use the `name` field on the Stripe customer	If you pass the full name in the `name` field, the connector uses the first space in the `name` to split the full name into a first name and a last name. For example, “Jane Sally Doe” syncs as “Jane” for the first name and “Sally Doe” for the last name. If you collect name prefixes, such as “Sir” in “Sir Richard Branson,” use metadata so that “Sir” isn’t used as the first name.
Use the `description` field on the Stripe customer	If you pass the full name in the `description` field, the connector uses the first space in the `description` to split the full name into a first name and a last name.
Use metadata	Here’s an example of passing the first name and last name using metadata: `Stripe::Customer.create( description: "Sample Customer", email: "customer@example.com", metadata: { netsuite_first_name: 'First', netsuite_last_name: 'Last' } )`

Use the name field on the Stripe customer

If you pass the full name in the name field, the connector uses the first space in the name to split the full name into a first name and a last name.

For example, “Jane Sally Doe” syncs as “Jane” for the first name and “Sally Doe” for the last name. If you collect name prefixes, such as “Sir” in “Sir Richard Branson,” use metadata so that “Sir” isn’t used as the first name.

Use the description field on the Stripe customer If you pass the full name in the description field, the connector uses the first space in the description to split the full name into a first name and a last name.

Use metadata

Here’s an example of passing the first name and last name using metadata:

Stripe::Customer.create(
  description: "Sample Customer",
  email: "customer@example.com",
  metadata: {
    netsuite_first_name: 'First',
    netsuite_last_name: 'Last'
  }
)

Update customer data in NetSuite

The connector doesn’t automatically update NetSuite customer records after creating them. This prevents any updates made to the Stripe record from overriding the updates you make to the customer records in NetSuite.

If you create NetSuite customers in one system (for example, Salesforce to NetSuite) and want future updates to sync to the NetSuite customer, you can use your existing integration. Link the NetSuite customer to the Stripe customer by adding the NetSuite internal ID to the Stripe customer, or by using the customer matching system.

Multiple currencies

If you accept payments in multiple currencies, the connector adds all active NetSuite currencies to your Stripe-created NetSuite customers.

Link a new Stripe customer to an existing NetSuite customer

If you have customers in both Stripe and NetSuite, you can link customers between the two systems using either the customer matching system or metadata. Linking existing customers can prevent duplicate customers in Stripe or NetSuite.

Customer matching system

The customer matching system uses standard fields (such as the name or description) or custom fields (such as metadata in Stripe or custom fields in NetSuite).

You can automatically link Stripe customers to existing NetSuite customers by entering fields with matching data in the following: Customer matching NetSuite field and Customer matching Stripe field.

For example, you can use an email address or an internal customer ID that’s on both the Stripe customer and the NetSuite customer.

The customer matching system has the following requirements:

Only customer records are matched. The connector won’t match leads, contacts, and so on.
The full data contained in each field must match.
You can’t use partial data or strings that contain the data. For example, the connector can’t match a NetSuite field with ID 12345 to a Stripe description with company ID 12345.
Whitespace or capitalization don’t affect the matching process.

The connector uses the first match found, if it finds multiple matches. If it doesn’t find any matches, the connector creates a unique customer record in NetSuite for the Stripe customer, by default. Alternatively, the connector uses a generic Stripe customer, if you enabled the Global Stripe customer workflow setting.

NetSuite ID in Stripe metadata

Link existing NetSuite customer records to Stripe customers by specifying the internal ID for the NetSuite customer in the Stripe customer metadata. For example, netsuite_customer_id: 123.

The customer sync fails if the connector can’t find a NetSuite customer with the specified internal ID. To resolve this, you can manually link the NetSuite customer record and Stripe customer in the Stripe app records synced drawer.

Update matched customers

Before the customer matching system links a Stripe customer to an existing customer in NetSuite, the connector verifies if the externalId field on the customer record has a value. If it does, the connector doesn’t update the field, to prevent overriding an important identifier used by another system.

The connector always attempts to add the Stripe customer ID (starting with cus_) to the comments field on the NetSuite record. You can also configure NetSuite to exclude the comments field on the customer. If the external ID contains a value and the comments field is excluded, the connector might not update the NetSuite customer. You won’t see the customers linked in NetSuite, only in Stripe.

Merge duplicate customers

If the connector creates a duplicate customer, you can merge it with an existing customer while maintaining a link to the Stripe customer. When you merge customers in NetSuite, the source customer is deleted and the target customer remains.

You can merge a customer with a NetSuite customer that the connector created or linked. Make sure the customer that you created or linked is the target customer (entered, not merged). Doing so allows the same NetSuite customer to remain linked and the connector to use it for future transactions with that customer.

The merge might delete the NetSuite customer (source customer) that the connector created or linked. If so, the connector does either of the following, based on your setup:

If you use the customer matching system, the connector detects the deleted customer and searches for an existing customer in NetSuite to match instead. The connector uses the matching fields that you specify in your app settings.
If you don’t use the customer matching system, the customer link breaks. You can use the Stripe ID to search for the customer in the Stripe app records synced drawer. In the failed customer record, you can use the manual override tool to re-link the customers with the new NetSuite customer’s internal ID.

Associate all customers with a single global customer

If you don’t want customer data in NetSuite, you can associate all Stripe customers with a single global customer called Stripe Unallocated Charges. Use this method if you have a high volume of new customers, signup is self-serve, and reporting on customers in NetSuite isn’t required.

Stripe charges that were created without a customer appear as charges under Stripe Unallocated Charges.

NetSuite multi-subsidiary customer

This feature allows you to associate a single NetSuite customer with multiple subsidiaries. The connector doesn’t support this feature in all cases, and generally requires that customers in a subsidiary have a 1:1 relationship with customers in a Stripe account. To prevent issues–for example, with the Stripe Billing and Invoicing workflow–create unique NetSuite customers for each subsidiary.