Import PADs/ACSS Data
Mandate requirements
Payments Canada Rules for pre-authorized debits (PADs) require businesses to present a mandate agreement with clear and specific terms for one-time or recurring debits prior to debiting a customer’s bank account. After you collect customer agreement, this mandate gives your business authorization to debit the customer’s bank account on a specified schedule. The mandate includes the customer’s institution number, transit number, account number, name and email.
Stripe can only import the PADs that you confirm you hold the mandates for. After determining mandate status for all, some, or none of the bank accounts, inform us so we can instruct you which steps to take next.
Migration Notification
You must notify your customers that you’re migrating payment processing to Stripe.
Debiting PADs/ACSS
In our intake form, choose how you’ll debit the PADs:
- Only for automatic use with invoices, subscriptions, or recurring payment schedules.
- Only for on-demand customer-initiated payments.
Note
You can’t debit these PADs for automatic use with invoices, subscriptions, or recurring payment schedules.
- For both on-demand customer-initiated payments and automatic use with invoices, subscriptions, or recurring payment schedules.
PADs/ACSS file guidance
- A processor can provide a number of different fields.
- We advise your processor to provide a full export of all customer and payment method data to Stripe.
- Stripe can filter out any unnecessary fields from the previous processor’s data as needed.
- Stripe can merge multiple received files if either the old customer ID or the old source ID is present in both files.
- Stripe can only import PADs that are pre-authorized because verification is a requirement of ACSS scheme rules.
File formatting requirements
Export data files must meet the following data standards for us to proceed with an import:
- The file must be in CSV format.
- The file must be UTF-8 encoded.
- Delimit rows by a single newline character
\n(not\r\n). - Delimit columns by
, - You must wrap all fields containing commas in double quotes
". We recommend wrapping all fields in double quotes. - Leave empty fields entirely empty (no character in between delimiters). You must not denote a missing field with
NULL,N/A, or any other value. - Escape any double quotes that are part of the content with another double quote per the CSV RFC. For example:
"``William""``Bard of Avon``""Shakespeare``" - Fields can’t contain newline characters (
\ror\n) within a field. Example of what to avoid:101 1st Ave\nApt 1 - All rows must have the same number of columns.
- Columns support any order.
- You must encrypt sensitive data files with our PGP key before submitting through SFTP.
PADs/ACSS data fields
| Field | Required | Additional info |
|---|---|---|
| Old customer ID | Required | We create a customer ID for each unique old customer ID provided. |
| Institution Number | Required | The 3-digit institution number identifies your bank. |
| Transit Number | Required | The transit number (5 digits) identifies the branch where you opened your account. |
| Account Number | Required | The account number (11 digits) identifies your individual account. |
| Account holder name | Required | First and last name of account holder or company name. |
| Required/Optional1 | Additional metadata (Optional if full address is provided instead). | |
| Address line 1 | Required/Optional1 | Additional metadata (Optional if email is provided instead). |
| Address line 2 | Required/Optional1 | Additional metadata (Optional if email is provided instead). |
| City | Required/Optional1 | Additional metadata (Optional if email is provided instead). |
| State | Required/Optional1 | Additional metadata (Optional if email is provided instead). |
| Postal | Required/Optional1 | Additional metadata (Optional if email is provided instead). |
| Country | Required/Optional1 | Additional metadata (Optional if email is provided instead). |
| Transaction Type | Required | Specifies whether the account is personal or business. |
| Payment Schedule | Required | Specifies whether the schedule is interval, sporadic, or combined. |
| Interval Description | Required only if payment_ is specified as interval or combined | Text description of the payment schedule interval. |
| Phone | Optional | Additional metadata |
| Stripe customer ID | Optional | Additional metadata |
| Old source ID | Optional | Additional metadata |
| Description | Optional | Additional metadata |
| Customer metadata | Optional | Any additional metadata |
1 Either the customer email address or their full address must be present within the data file to import PADs/ACSS. If you provide neither an email address nor a full address, the PAD fails to import.
PADs/ACSS Data Migration Certification and Disclaimer Language
By submitting the PADs/ACSS Data Migration intake form, you certify that all of the following statements are true and that you have authority to make these statements.
You agree to comply with Rule H1 of Payments Canada and the other Rules of Payments Canada that supplement Rule H1 (“PAD Rules”) when using Stripe services to process Pre-Authorized Debits (“PADs”).
You understand that you, as the Payee (as defined in the PAD Rules), are solely responsible for collecting and retaining PAD authorizations from your customers that comply with the PAD Rules, as described in Stripe’s ACSS Payment Method Terms and mandate agreement requirements.
If you don’t meet the PAD rules requirements for previously-collected authorizations, you understand that you must collect new authorizations before processing PADs on Stripe.
For authorizations collected prior to migration to Stripe, you must provide Stripe with evidence of any relevant authorization for PAD transactions upon request. When contesting a dispute, you are solely responsible for providing a copy of the authorization.