Money flows directly. Books reconcile cleanly.
SocietyPress connects to your society's own Stripe and PayPal accounts — not ours. There is no middleman taking a cut, no third-party statement to reconcile against, and no delay between collection and deposit beyond what the processors themselves require.
How the money flows
- Your society sets up its own Stripe and/or PayPal account (free to open, standard rates apply).
- Paste your API keys into SocietyPress's settings.
- Members pay dues, event registrations, and donations through your society's site.
- Money lands in your society's own merchant account within the processor's standard settlement window (typically 2 business days for Stripe, 1 for PayPal).
- Processor deposits to your society's bank account on whatever schedule you've set with them.
What doesn't happen: no SaaS platform sits in the middle, collects the money first, takes a cut, and pays you out later. Every dollar a member pays goes directly to your merchant account.
What you can track
Dues & renewals
Every membership transaction with date, amount, member name, tier, and payment method. Filterable by date range, status, and tier.
Event registrations
Paid event tickets, attendee count, refunds. Reconcilable line-item against your Stripe/PayPal dashboard by transaction ID.
Donations
Dedicated donation ledger with campaign attribution, recurring-gift tracking, and donor acknowledgement reports for IRS letters.
Store orders
Society merchandise sales (polo shirts, lapel pins, printed publications) with inventory and fulfillment tracking.
Exports for reconciliation
Everything exports to CSV, formatted so your accounting software (QuickBooks, Wave, etc.) can import it cleanly:
- Dues transactions — member, date, amount, tier, payment method, Stripe/PayPal transaction ID
- Event registration revenue — event, attendee, amount, refund status
- Donation ledger — donor, date, amount, campaign, recurring vs one-time, gift-aid/receipt status
- Store orders — order number, items, total, shipping, fulfillment status
Every CSV row carries the processor's transaction ID so a line in your books maps to a line in your Stripe or PayPal dashboard.
Treasurer-specific role template
SocietyPress ships with a pre-built Treasurer role template that gives you exactly the access you need — financial reports, donation ledger, transaction history, member payment status — and nothing you don't. Other officers can manage their own areas without seeing financial detail.
What changes at tax / audit time
- Donor receipts: annual donor letters generate from the donation ledger with a click.
- 990 prep: export revenue by category (dues / events / donations / store) for lines 1–12 of Form 990-EZ in one CSV.
- Audit trail: every transaction preserves the processor's ID and timestamp. If your auditor asks “what is this $75?”, you can trace it to a specific member and a specific Stripe charge in 10 seconds.
- PCI scope: card numbers never touch your site. Stripe and PayPal handle the card data; SocietyPress only stores the transaction metadata. Your PCI responsibility is essentially zero.