Merchant account
Merchant account gives a Startup its own connected payments account at its first sale, so it sells and settles as seller of record.
Merchant account gives a Startup its own Stripe connected account at its first paid Offer. The Startup sells as seller of record, and the platform verifies its owners and covers the account’s losses.
Contract
| Clause | Terms |
|---|---|
| Starts | The first Offer with a Price goes live through Offer.publish, or the first Card is issued through Card.issue. |
| Onboarding | The representative and owners complete Stripe’s onboarding, which Task.assign hands to them. Identity documents go to Stripe, never to the platform. |
| Seller of record | The Company that holds the Startup, on every Order, receipt and statement descriptor. Order.merchantOfRecord names it. |
| Liability | The platform verifies the owners and covers any negative balance. Order.screen scores every charge before it runs. |
| Views | No Startup gets Stripe’s own dashboard. Balances, payouts, Cards and Disputes are records, read through Transaction.list and the founder’s app. |
| Fees | One platform fee per charge, withheld before money reaches the balance. It covers card processing and the platform’s share, and Order.pay posts the two as separate Entries. |
| Requirements | Each new Stripe requirement becomes a Task for the owner of record, due by Stripe’s deadline and linked to Stripe’s form. Task.assign escalates it a week before the deadline. |
| Lapse | When a deadline passes and Stripe disables charges, Order.pay refuses with charges-disabled. Paid Offers take Waitlist sign-ups until Stripe re-enables the account. |
| While held | Own. Each Startup gets its own connected account under the Studio-held entity. |
| Records | Charges, refunds, Disputes and payouts land on the Startup’s own books in the Ledger through Transaction.reconcile. |
A self-serve founder’s existing Stripe account never becomes the Startup’s account. Its past charges import read-only, so history carries over without a second record.
Verbs
| Verb | Object | Event |
|---|---|---|
| Order.pay | Order | Order.paid |
| Task.assign | Task | Task.assigned |
Interfaces
Example
A resume-review service publishes a $79 Offer. Its connected account opens with that Offer, and the first Order settles two days later. Three months on, Stripe asks for an owner’s address; the Task reaches the founder with Stripe’s form and closes the same day.