Boost recurring donations this giving season with the upsell prompt!A Stripe Terminal reader lets your team take a card payment by having the payer tap, insert, or use a mobile wallet at a physical reader, rather than handing them a QR code. Soapbox Engage Onsite works with readers registered to the same Stripe account as your site.
Before your event
- Register your readers in Stripe. Readers are set up in your Stripe dashboard, not in Soapbox. A reader registered to a different Stripe account never appears in the app.
- Charge the readers and connect them to the venue's network. Only readers that are powered on and online are offered to your team.
- Test one transaction on each reader before the doors open.
Important: A reader must be online at the moment your team opens the reader list. A reader that has gone to sleep, dropped off the network, or run out of battery is simply absent from the list — the app does not report it as offline.
How your team chooses a reader
The first time a staff member collects a payment on a reader in a session, the app asks them to choose one. If only one reader is online, it is selected for them.
That choice then stays in place for the rest of their session, so they are not asked again on every transaction. To move to a different reader, they tap Change reader on the payment screen.
Note: Reader choice is per staff member, per session. Two people working two readers each keep their own selection.
Where readers are used
A reader can be used to:
- Charge a donation, a Shop order, or an auction payment.
- Save a card to a guest's record at check-in without charging it.
- Save a card to a bidder's record at an auction.
If you do not have readers
Readers are optional. Your team can collect every payment by handing the payer a QR code to pay on their own phone, or by entering card details on the staff device.
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