Connect your Stripe account
For card payments through cartonium, connect your own Stripe account. Money from your sales goes directly to you, and you are the merchant of record — you own your payouts, refunds, disputes, and tax. You connect once, from the admin.
This applies whether you use hosted cartonium checkout or your own checkout connected to cartonium. You do not need to connect Stripe just to manage a catalog or let customers sign in to hosted accounts. See Choose checkout & customer accounts to decide which hosted services to use.
Connect in a few clicks
- Go to Settings → Checkout (or the Payments step in your onboarding checklist).
- Click Connect Stripe account.
- You'll be sent to Stripe to sign in (or create an account) and authorize the connection. Stripe collects your business and bank details — this is Stripe's standard onboarding, and cartonium never sees your bank credentials.
- When you finish, Stripe returns you to cartonium and your payment status updates automatically.
Only Owners and Admins can connect or change the payment account.
Payment status
After connecting, your admin shows one of:
| Status | What it means | Can you take payments? |
|---|---|---|
| Not connected | No Stripe account linked yet | No |
| Setup incomplete | Linked, but Stripe still needs more details | Not yet — use Continue Stripe setup |
| Verified | Stripe enabled charges; tax readiness is checked separately | When checkout and tax setup are ready |
| Action required | Stripe needs more information before enabling charges | No — use Continue Stripe setup |
You can only take real payments once your status is Verified. Until then, live checkout stays closed — this protects you and your customers from a half-finished setup. For Setup incomplete or Action required, select Continue Stripe setup, complete the outstanding steps in Stripe, then select Refresh status in cartonium.
What you own as merchant of record
Because the money flows through your Stripe account:
- Payouts go from Stripe to your bank on your schedule.
- Refunds you issue in cartonium settle from your account.
- Disputes and chargebacks are handled in your Stripe dashboard.
- Tax uses your connected account’s settings and registrations when Stripe Tax is selected and available. You remain responsible for registration, collection, filing, and remittance.
Configure taxes for checkout
In Settings → Checkout, Tax mode → Stripe Tax is your store’s policy choice. Stripe Tax is the form default when no tax mode has been saved. Saving Checkout settings for any reason also saves the displayed tax mode, even if you only changed an unrelated setting. The setup panel distinguishes the saved policy from an unsaved Stripe Tax choice. Saving does not configure Stripe or enable the platform’s tax service. Verified payment status alone does not mean tax is ready.
Owners, Admins, and Staff with the Settings permission group can check tax readiness. Only an Owner or Admin can connect or change the Stripe account.
- Open Stripe Tax settings and select the Stripe account connected to this store. If you manage several businesses, confirm the selected business before editing.
- For real orders, select that account’s live mode. A successful test or sandbox setup does not configure live tax. For test orders, select the exact sandbox connected to your test store; a different sandbox or the live account’s default Test mode is not interchangeable.
- Review and confirm your head office address. For physical goods, check the address you ship from. Choose the appropriate preset product tax classification and review the preset shipping tax classification for shipping charges. Ordinary cartonium checkout adds tax on top of its prices; changing a Stripe price default does not make those prices inclusive.
- Open Tax registrations / Locations. Determine where you have an obligation to collect tax, complete any required registration with the relevant authority, then record the applicable registrations and effective dates in Stripe. Do not add a live registration merely to make a readiness indicator green.
- Complete the outstanding Stripe Tax setup until Stripe reports active Tax settings. Return to Settings → Checkout, review Tax mode → Stripe Tax, select Save checkout settings if needed, and click Refresh tax readiness. Read the displayed test/sandbox or live-mode result before treating setup as ready for that mode.
- Verify checkout in the same mode with representative products, shipping charges, and customer destinations. Review the tax amount before payment. For a completed order, verify the order/receipt and the Tax transaction in the same connected Stripe account. Use test payments for sandbox verification; a live checkout is a real transaction.
One preset across the catalog: ordinary checkout currently uses the connected account’s preset product tax code for all merchandise. cartonium has no per-product tax-code management, and editing individual Stripe Products does not assign tax codes to cartonium catalog items. If your catalog needs multiple classifications, discuss suitability with your tax adviser and cartonium support before relying on this setup.
| Tax readiness | What to do |
|---|---|
| Ready | Stripe reports active Tax settings and the connected payment account is verified in the displayed mode. Verify your registrations and checkout results; this is not a legal or filing assessment. |
| Finish setup in Stripe | Complete the payment-account connection/verification and Tax settings in that connected account, then refresh. Orders with a remaining merchandise or shipping amount require completed connected-account setup. |
| Platform tax service unavailable | Contact cartonium support. The platform cannot currently use the connected tax service. Checkout with a saved Stripe Tax policy is blocked, including fully discounted orders. If Stripe Tax is an unsaved choice, saving it will activate that block; it does not silently create a zero-tax order. |
| Couldn't check tax readiness | The read failed and readiness is unknown. Refresh or contact support if it persists. |
| Tax readiness is restricted | Ask an Owner, Admin, or staff member with settings management permission to check. |
Ready is a point-in-time setup check. It does not count registrations or promise a positive tax amount. A calculation can legitimately return zero, including for a destination where you are not registered or an exempt sale. You and your tax adviser remain responsible for nexus, classifications, registrations, collection, filing, and remittance; cartonium does not choose these for you. See Stripe’s connected-account setup guide, Tax setup guide, and sandbox testing guide.
Manual / no tax calculated remains a separate, deliberate choice. It requires accepting responsibility in Admin, records that acknowledgement, and preserves the disclosure that cartonium did not calculate tax on checkout and receipt views. Do not use it as an automatic workaround for an unavailable tax service.
A new manual/no-tax responsibility acknowledgement requires an Owner or Admin. Staff with Settings permission cannot make that acknowledgement; ask an Owner or Admin to complete it.
Test before taking live payments
Use test mode to place test orders without real cards. Connected-account payments are available only while the account status is Verified; checkout fails closed if Stripe later restricts or disconnects the account.
Troubleshooting
- "Connect Stripe account" is unavailable — confirm you are an Owner or Admin; contact support if the control remains unavailable.
- Stuck on Setup incomplete or Action required — select Continue Stripe setup, finish the outstanding steps, then select Refresh status.
- Status didn't update after finishing on Stripe — select Refresh status; it re-checks Stripe right away.