Connecting Stripe
Qik takes card payments through Stripe. To accept payments on a form, or to sell products, you first connect your Stripe account to Qik by creating a Stripe Gateway integration that holds your Stripe API keys. This article covers setting up that integration, how test and live payments work, and where payment information ends up.
Before you start
- A Stripe account. You need access to the Stripe Dashboard so you can copy your API keys from the Developers → API keys page.
- Payments enabled for your organisation. The Payments area of the dashboard only appears when payments are switched on for your organisation. If you can't see it, contact support to have it enabled.
- Permission to create integrations. You need a role that lets you create Integrations in at least one scope. See Roles and Permissions.
Key concepts
- Integration — a record in Qik that stores the connection details for an outside service. A payment gateway is one kind of integration.
- Publishable keys (
pk_test_…,pk_live_…) — the public keys the payment form uses in the person's browser to collect card details securely. - Secret keys (
sk_test_…,sk_live_…) — the private keys Qik's servers use to create, capture and refund payments. Treat these like passwords. - Live and test (sandbox) mode — every payment is made either with your live keys (real money) or your test keys (Stripe test cards, no money moves). Qik records which mode each payment used.
Creating the Stripe integration
- In the dashboard sidebar, open Payments, then click Payment Gateways. (You can also find integrations under System → Integrations, which has a New Integration button.)
- Create a new integration. Qik asks you to pick the type of integration — choose Stripe Gateway.
- Choose the scopes the integration belongs to. Scopes decide who can see and manage the gateway, and payments taken through it are filed in the same scopes (see Permissions below).
- Give it a clear title, for example Acme Stripe. If you have more than one Stripe account (say, one per business unit), the title is how you will tell them apart when attaching a gateway to a form.
- Under Stripe Gateway Details, fill in both panels:
- Public Fields: Test Publishable Key and Live Publishable Key.
- Private Fields: Test Secret Key and Live Secret Key.
- Save the integration.
Tip: Enter both the test and live key pairs. You need the test keys to try a form in test mode, and the live keys to take real payments.
Using the gateway on a form
A form only charges people once it has payments switched on and at least one payment method that points at your gateway. In the form's Payment Configuration, turn on Enable Payments, choose the Currency and Base Amount, and add a Payment Method whose Integration is your Stripe gateway. The full walkthrough is in Payment Basics.
When someone submits a paid form, the payment happens in two steps:
- Authorise. When the person confirms their card, Stripe places a hold for the amount. A Pending transaction is created in Qik.
- Capture. Once the submission has been saved successfully, Qik captures the held amount and the transaction becomes Paid.
Because the money is only taken after the submission is saved, a submission that fails part-way does not leave a person charged without a record. A payment that is started but never finished is marked Failed after about 24 hours, and any hold on the person's card is released.
The smallest amount Qik will charge through Stripe is 1.00 in the form's currency.
Test mode vs live mode
Qik does not have a single "test mode" switch on the integration. Instead, each form submission is made in either live or test mode:
- Live is the default. Anyone filling in your published form pays with your live keys.
- Test is used when you open the form in test mode. In the dashboard, select the form and choose Test Form Link from the Actions menu. The form opens with a banner reading "You are viewing this form in debug/test mode". Payments use your test keys, and the submission is recorded as a test submission. Form editors also get a Fill with Sample Data button to speed up testing.
In test mode, pay with one of Stripe's test card numbers (for example 4242 4242 4242 4242 with any future expiry date and any CVC). Test payments show a Test payment badge on the transaction, and the gateway line reads Sandbox rather than Live.
What is stored where
| Information | Stored in Qik | Stored in Stripe |
|---|---|---|
| Card numbers and card details | No — card details go straight from the person's browser to Stripe | Yes |
| Your API keys | On the integration record (secret keys in the Private Fields) | — |
| Each payment | A transaction with the amount, currency, status, mode, payer, linked submission and Stripe reference numbers | A PaymentIntent and charge |
| Who paid | The payer's email and, once the submission is saved, the linked profile | A Stripe customer, found or created by the payer's email address |
| Context | — | Payment description (the submission title and payer name) and metadata: the form, payer name and email, and Qik's transaction, submission and profile IDs |
| Refunds | A separate refund transaction linked to the original | A refund on the original charge, including your note |
Qik passes the payer's email to Stripe as the receipt email. Whether Stripe actually sends a receipt depends on the email receipt settings in your Stripe account.
Keeping Qik and Stripe in step
Qik updates a payment when it is taken through Qik. If you change something directly in Stripe — for example, refunding a payment from the Stripe Dashboard — Qik won't know until you resync it. Open the transaction in Qik and click Resync from Stripe to pull in the latest status and record any refunds made outside Qik. See Transactions and Refunds.
Permissions
- Who can see, edit or delete a gateway is controlled by the Integration permissions in their role, within the gateway's scopes. Keep this to a small group: anyone who can edit the integration can change where your payments go.
- Transactions taken through a gateway are filed in the gateway's scopes. Staff need Transaction permissions in those scopes to see them. This is a simple way to keep, for example, one department's payments separate from another's: give each its own gateway in its own scope.
Tips and limits
- Stripe is the payment gateway available to forms today.
- Rotating keys: if you roll your keys in Stripe, paste the new values into the integration straight away. Payments fail until the keys match.
- Don't paste secret keys into chats, emails or AI assistants. Enter them only into the integration's Private Fields.
- Test with a low-cost form first, then check that the transaction appears in Payments → View all transactions and in your Stripe Dashboard.