Set up ChurchDesk Payments

Important: Have you previously filled out information or uploaded ID?

Our payment provider, Stripe, has made changes to accommodate new EU requirements (Anti-Money Laundering Directive). Therefore, you may be asked to provide more information and possibly upload more documentation so that they can verify your church. We apologize for any inconvenience.

First time setting up ChurchDesk Payments

To get started selling tickets, receiving payments and donations, you need to first register your church and a responsible representant in Stripe. Stripe is a reliable and secure online bank that handles billions of transactions worldwide.

There are many rules and directives associated with handling payments, including the EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive, which is why ChurchDesk has partnered with well-known online bank Stripe.

Who should provide this information?
The form should be completed by your treasurer, PCC chairman or someone with significant responsibility for the church.

Should you have a PCC chairman or treasurer who’s not comfortable filling out a digital form themselves, you’re of course welcome to complete the form jointly.

What is my information used for?
Like any physical bank, Stripe should be able to guarantee that you are who you say you are. You’ll, therefore, need to present a valid ID. The ID is ONLY used for verification purposes and is therefore NOT used for any third-party marketing, etc..

Does the form take a long time to fill out?
The form should not take more than 15 minutes to fill out. But if you need to, you can always come back to it later if you do not finish it in one go.

Most of the fields in the form should be self-explanatory. However, some of them may need some explaining as they can be difficult to relate to as a church.

Church/Parish name (Legal business name)
The church or parish name should be the official name that would allow Stripe to verify your church. Therefore, consider writing  “St Mary’s Church, Merton” and not just “St Mary’s Church”.

Alternative name (Doing business ass – optional)
This field is not required to fill out.

Parish office address (Registered business address)
As a church, you’re likely to have many addresses, but it is important that the address you provide to Stripe is the official address for the parish administration. If you have no parish office, please add the church address.

Charity number (Companies House Registration Number)
As most churches are not registered with a House Registration Number you should instead enter your charity number. If you don’t have a charity number please just enter “000000” (zeros) into the field.



The form should be completed by your treasurer, PCC chairman or someone with significant responsibility for the church.

Should you have PCC chairman or treasurer who’s not comfortable filling out a digital form themselves, you’re of course welcome to complete the form jointly.

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Confirm that you are a representative of the church
As Stripe is not primarily made with churches in mind, the checkboxes at the bottom of this step are not easy to figure out. Regular companies may need to register more representatives, but as a church, it is enough to register a single person. Therefore, checkboxes on ownership and responsibility should be checked according to what’s described below.

I own 25% of the company. (Yes)
Are you the only person who owns 25% or more of the company? (Yes)
I am a member of the governing board of the company (Yes)
Are you the only person on the governing board of the company? (Yes)



Verification can take Stripe from a few minutes to a couple of business days to complete, but will typically be done within a couple of hours. Once your church has been verified, you will be able to start receiving payments and donations.

In some cases, Stripe is not able to verify your church or representative with the basic information provided. They may, therefore, ask for additional documentation. Next, is a list of examples on what additional documentation they may require.

Upload verification document
Stripe needs more information to verify your church. Please upload a document showing your church's name, registered address and possibly charity number. This information must match the information already provided to Stripe.

Examples of documentation:

Church certificate from 'A Church near You'
Charity Commission Document
OSCR Scottish Charity Regulator
Companies House Document
Certificate of Incorporation
HM Revenue and Customs: VAT Certificate
HM Revenue and Customs: Account Statement

The document must be valid, representative of up-to-date registration, be clear, large enough to read and uploaded in .pdf format. If this information is spread across multiple pages of your document, please upload a PDF containing all the relevant pages.

Parishes have to submit a request to the CofE via A Church Near You, and then they issue you with the certificate.



Upload ID verification for church representative
To confirm the identity of the representative, Stripe needs the person to upload a government-issued photo ID, such as a driver's license or passport. For security reasons, Stripe has developed a secure verification process that can confirm the identity and at the same time protect the person from identity theft.

Proof of address for church representant
Stripe may need to confirm the home address of your representative. To do so, you need to upload an official document showing the full name and home address of your church representant. This information must match the information already provided in Stripe.

Accepted documents:

Utility bill (Must be dated within the last 6 months)
Bank statement (Must be dated within the last 6 months)

Incompleted or cropped documents are not accepted.



To enter your bank details scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Bank details". Add the IBAN number from your bank account and save the details.

If you want to change the bank account that Stripe transfers the funds to you would have to send the following information to [[email protected]](/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#c9babcb9b9a6bbbd89aaa1bcbbaaa1adacbaa2e7aaa6a4): sort code and account number. These details need to be verified by one more person from the church before ChurchDesk changes the bank details. This could be the PCC Chairman or Treasurer.

INFO: It is not possible to register more than one bank account in ChurchDesk to transfer funds to.

To access or update your payment settings, you must have either the "Organization Administrator" or "Payment Access" permission.

Updated on: 02/05/2023