Payments

Space Works separates two things that are easy to confuse:

• Charge tracking records that someone owes money: a booking fee, an event ticket, a machine job, membership dues, a loan deposit or a late fee. It needs no gateway and is on by default.
• Online payment lets the member pay that charge by card through Stripe. It is optional and needs the Payments module plus credentials.

A cash-only makerspace can therefore run its whole ledger, settle charges at the desk, issue receipts and run finance reports without ever setting up Stripe.

Charge tracking

Charge tracking is controlled per makerspace by features (see Modules):

Feature	Default	Records
charges.enabled	on	Master switch. Off means the makerspace charges for nothing.
charges.bookings	on	A charge when a paid booking is confirmed
charges.events	on	A charge when someone registers for a paid event
charges.machines	on	A charge when a priced machine service request completes
charges.membership	on	Dues and renewal charges
charges.loans	on	Loan deposits and late fees, when configured

Each domain feature also needs its own module (bookings, events and so on). Switching tracking off stops new charges; it never erases, settles or refunds existing ones.

A charge raised with no gateway is simply pending. Members see their own charges in the member area, and staff settle them by hand (below). If you add a gateway later, the first checkout claims the charge for that gateway exactly once.

Online payment with Stripe

Online payment for a domain needs all of these, and turning one on never makes an unconfigured makerspace start charging:

1. The Payments module (payments), which is opt-in.
2. The Payments master switch (payments.enabled, on by default once the module is installed).
3. The domain feature: payments.bookings, payments.events, payments.machines, payments.membership or payments.loans (loans is off by default).
4. Working credentials.

Enter your Stripe keys

In the staff console, open Admin → Settings → Stripe payments and enter:

Field	Where to find it in Stripe
Stripe publishable key	Developers → API keys (pk_live_… or pk_test_…)
Stripe secret key	Developers → API keys (sk_…, or a restricted key)
Stripe webhook secret	The signing secret of the webhook endpoint you create below (whsec_…)
Default payment currency	Three-letter ISO code, for example usd, eur, inr

Secrets are validated against Stripe, stored encrypted with API_CLIENT_ENC_KEY and never shown again. The badge next to the heading shows whether payments are available. The installer can also ask for these keys during setup.

Create the Stripe webhook

The webhook is how Space Works learns that a payment succeeded. Each makerspace has its own endpoint, keyed by its makerspace code (shown in the staff console header and under Admin → API access):

https://<your-api-host>/api/v1/webhooks/stripe/<makerspace-code>

In Stripe → Developers → Webhooks, add that URL and subscribe to:

• checkout.session.completed
• checkout.session.async_payment_succeeded
• checkout.session.async_payment_failed
• checkout.session.expired
• payment_intent.succeeded
• payment_intent.payment_failed
• charge.refunded, charge.refund.updated, refund.created, refund.updated, refund.failed

Copy the endpoint’s signing secret into Stripe webhook secret. Every event is checked against that secret and processed once, even if Stripe retries it.

Note

A webhook settles a real payment even if you have since switched online payments off, so money already taken is never stranded. A payment that arrives for a charge staff already settled or waived is recorded in the audit log for you to refund.

Test mode

Use Stripe test keys (pk_test_…, sk_test_…) and a test-mode webhook while you try things out, then replace all three values with live ones.

Hosting platforms

On a subdomain hosting platform, makerspaces can connect through Stripe Connect instead of pasting raw keys; the superadmin configures it under Platform settings → Platform Stripe Connect and sets STRIPE_CONNECT_REDIRECT_URI. Self-hosted installs use per-makerspace keys.

Razorpay

The payment engine also supports Razorpay, with a per-makerspace webhook at /api/v1/webhooks/razorpay/<makerspace-code> that settles on payment_link.paid, order.paid and payment.captured. In this release the staff console has fields for Stripe only.

Settling charges by hand

Staff with the record-payment permission open Operate → Payments to see every charge and its status: pending, paid online, paid offline, waived or cancelled.

• Mark paid offline records money taken at the desk. It always writes a settlement receipt in the same step, with the method (cash, UPI, bank transfer, card machine, cheque or other), an optional reference such as a UPI or cheque number (up to 64 characters), and the date the money was actually received.
• Waive forgives a charge.
• Both work one at a time or in bulk, and both cancel any open online checkout for that charge.
• Refund offline records money handed back on an offline-paid charge. Release deposit returns a loan deposit after the loan is closed. Card refunds go back through Stripe.

Settlement receipts and refunds are append-only. To fix a mistyped reference or date, use amend: Space Works keeps the original and adds a correction, so both stay visible. Amounts and currencies cannot be amended.

Payment problems never block the work itself: completing a machine job or confirming a booking succeeds even if creating the charge or the checkout fails. The one exception is opt-in: with loan deposit blocks issue on, a reviewed loan cannot be handed over until its deposit is paid.

Loan deposits and late fees

With the payments.loans feature on, Admin → Settings offers loan charges:

Setting	Meaning
Deposit mode	None, a fixed amount per loan, or the sum of the items’ deposits
Late fee per day	Charged once when an overdue loan is closed
Late fee cap	Maximum late fee; 0 means no cap
Grace days	Days late before a fee starts
Deposit blocks issue	Refuse the handover until the deposit is paid

Due dates and reminders

Each makerspace’s billing settings (/api/v1/admin/makerspace/<id>/billing-settings) hold the payment terms (due on the day a charge is raised, or a number of days later, up to 365) and the reminder schedule. Bookings and events fall due at their start. Reminders are off by default (billing.reminders) and need the Notifications and Email modules and the payments email cell in the notification matrix. The default ladder is three days before, on the due day and seven days after, capped at two steps; a reminder goes only to the person who owes the money.

Currencies

Each makerspace has one default currency, used for new charges. Changing it never changes existing charges. Amounts in different currencies are never added together in lists, reports or dashboards. Currencies with no minor unit (such as JPY) or three decimal places (such as KWD) are sent to providers correctly.

Receipts and reports

The Receipt documents feature (billing.documents, on by default) issues a numbered receipt whenever a charge is paid, online or offline, and a credit note for refunds and corrections. Receipts and credit notes share one gapless sequence per makerspace. Set the number prefix, issuer name, address, identifier, footer and accounting account codes under Admin → Settings → Receipts and accounting. They are PDF downloads, and the payer gets an email linking to their member page. They are simple acknowledgements of the gross amount, not tax invoices.

Staff with finance access and the Reports module can export:

Report	Contents
payments-ledger	Every charge, settlement, waiver and refund, with correction history
revenue-over-time	Collected, owed, refunded, waived and net amounts by day, week or month and currency
cash-book	Offline money in and out by period, method and currency
accounting-journal	A balanced, generic cash-basis CSV journal for your accounts package

See Reports.

Related

• Membership: dues and renewals
• Events and bookings: paid events and bookings
• Security: back up API_CLIENT_ENC_KEY