If you run a nonprofit, a church or a fundraising event, some of your donors will ask for their tax ID to be on record so they can claim the donation later. In Italy that's the Codice Fiscale, and in much of Europe businesses ask for their VAT number on the invoice. Payment for Stripe can now collect that number and save it directly on the customer in your Stripe account.
This one started with a nonprofit in Italy running donation events across dozens of locations. Their donors wanted the Codice Fiscale on file, and the only field the volunteers could find was the ZIP code, which (understandably) didn't accept it.
How do I turn it on?
Open Settings and turn on Collect donor ID. On iPhone you'll find it under Products & Customers, and on Android it sits right below Collect customer details. Like most settings in the app, it's per device.
If you're on an Enterprise plan, your organization can turn it on for every device at once from the Enterprise dashboard, so your volunteers don't have to remember to flip it themselves.
How do I add a tax ID to a customer?
When you add a customer at checkout, you'll see a new Add tax ID row. Tap it, pick the type of ID and type in the number. The app picks a sensible default for your country, for example the Codice Fiscale for Italian accounts or the EU VAT number for most of Europe, and you can change it to any of the 117 types Stripe supports.
You can also add, change or remove a tax ID later from the customer's details.
Imagine the following scenario: A donor at your charity dinner hands over €50 and mentions they'd like a receipt for their taxes. Your volunteer adds them as a customer, taps Add tax ID, enters their Codice Fiscale and charges the card. The number is saved on the donor's record in Stripe before the payment even finishes.
What happens if someone types it wrong?
The app checks the number before it saves. For the Italian Codice Fiscale it runs the official checksum, so a single mistyped letter gets caught right away instead of ending up on a receipt. For other types, Stripe checks the format, and for EU VAT, UK VAT and Australian ABN numbers Stripe also verifies them with the tax authority in the background.
Where does the tax ID show up?
The number is stored on the customer in your Stripe account, so it goes wherever the customer goes:
- On the customer's page in the Stripe Dashboard.
- On the invoice for any sale that includes products, printed right under the customer's name.
- In the Dashboard's customer export, in the Business Vat ID column.
In addition, because the number lives in Stripe, any accounting or donor management tool you've connected to Stripe can access it as well.
Is there anything to be aware of?
A few things are worth knowing:
- Stripe's standard receipt emails for card payments don't include customer tax IDs. The invoice does.
- The app keeps one tax ID per customer, which keeps your exports clean. If a customer already has several set up in the Dashboard, the app shows them but leaves editing to the Dashboard.
- A tax ID problem won't stop you from getting paid. If a number can't be saved, you can fix it or remove it and finish the sale.
Collecting donor IDs is available on both iPhone and Android in the latest version of Payment for Stripe.
See how Payment for Stripe works for nonprofits and donations
Learn more about how Stripe handles customer tax IDs: Customer tax IDs in Stripe
