Letting Customers Get Paid Directly With Connected Accounts
Organizations on VoVo sell things: memberships, event tickets, products, courses and donations. When their customers pay, the money belongs to the organization. The question for us as a platform is how to make that true in practice, not just on paper.
Our answer for organizations using connected payment accounts is that each sale goes directly into the organization's own account with the payment processor. Here is how that works, including the less glamorous parts like refunds and disputes.
A connected account for each organization
An organization connects its own payment account to our platform. That account is theirs: it has their business details, their bank account for payouts and their own dashboard with the processor. Our platform is connected to it with permission to create charges on their behalf.
When a customer buys something on the organization's site, the charge is created as a destination charge. The money is routed to the organization's account, and payouts reach their bank on the processor's normal schedule. It never sits in a Jag Journey account.
The platform fee, disclosed and recorded
Our platform takes a fee on each sale processed this way. The fee is collected as part of the same charge rather than invoiced separately later, so there is no surprise bill at the end of the month.
We go one step further: each sale also records our fee in the organization's own books, as an expense from the platform in a clear platform fees category. When the organization reconciles its processor deposits, the numbers line up, because the fee that was deducted is already in its accounting.
Refunds unwind the whole charge
When an organization refunds a sale, the refund reverses the money that went to their account and returns the corresponding part of the platform fee. A refunded customer gets their money back, the organization's books show the refund and the fee that was returned is recorded too. Nobody pays a platform fee on a sale that did not stand.
Disputes are the organization's responsibility
A chargeback, where a customer disputes a charge with their bank, is part of selling online. Because the sale belonged to the organization, the disputed amount and the processor's dispute fee are the organization's responsibility, just as they would be if the organization used the processor without our platform.
Our system handles the mechanics: it recovers the disputed amount from the organization's account, records each step on the dispute with the processor, notifies the organization's owner and our administrators and returns funds if the dispute is won. Clear rules, applied the same way every time, are fairer than case-by-case surprises.
Their rails, their choice
Each organization chooses how it accepts payments in its payment settings, and every module reads those settings. A shop, an event and a donation form on the same site all use the same choice. No module quietly sends an organization's sales through a different route, and none of them falls back to our company account if the organization's account has a problem. We explain why in no silent fallbacks in payment code.
Separate from what organizations pay us
Organizations also pay us, for their plan, add-ons and AI credits. Those charges go through our own shared payment hub. Keeping the two flows separate keeps responsibility clear: our revenue in our books, theirs in theirs.
What customers notice
Getting paid directly means organizations control their own money, see their own payouts and can move away from the platform without untangling their finances. It also means our platform never holds funds it has no business holding. That clarity is good for trust, good for accounting and good for everyone's peace of mind.
Frequently asked questions
Where does the money from my VoVo sales go?
With a connected payment account, each sale goes directly to your own account with the payment processor, and payouts reach your bank on the processor's schedule.
Who pays for chargebacks on my sales?
Disputes on your sales are your organization's responsibility, as they would be with the processor directly. The platform handles the steps and notifies you.
Does a refund return the platform fee?
Yes. When a sale is refunded, the corresponding part of the platform fee is returned and the change is recorded in your books.
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