Stripe Connect for franchises: a payment account per location

What does the capability do?

It turns “how does each franchise take payments” from a per-location integration project into a governed, one-platform setup.

• An account per franchise. Each franchise is provisioned its own Stripe connected account through Stripe’s v2 Accounts API, controlled by the platform rather than a shared login. The account id and its onboarding status are stored against the franchise, so the network can see at a glance who is ready to take payments.
• Hosted onboarding, no bank details on our side. A franchise completes identity checks and adds its payout bank inside Stripe’s own hosted onboarding, reached through a generated onboarding link, with a management link that reopens the same flow later. The platform never captures raw bank or card details.
• Charges settle to the franchise. Card payments and recurring subscriptions are created as direct charges on the franchise’s connected account. The money settles to the franchise that earned it, not into a central pool that then has to be split and paid out again.
• Recurring billing on the same account. Subscriptions are created on the franchise’s connected account, so recurring collection settles to the franchise like everything else. Stripe owns the collection schedule, and the platform keeps its own record in step through those verified webhooks.
• Credentials in Azure Key Vault. Each franchise’s gateway credentials live in Azure Key Vault under a namespaced secret name. The platform database holds only a reference and a masked hint, never the secret value itself.
• Webhooks verified, not trusted. Every callback from Stripe is checked with a constant-time signature comparison and de-duplicated before it is acted on. Payment and subscription status is then mirrored back into the platform automatically.

Why an account per franchise is the load-bearing decision

The alternative is one central payment account for the whole network. It looks simpler until the money moves. Head office then receives every customer’s payment and has to pay each franchise its share, which turns the franchisor into a de facto payment intermediary, with the liability and reconciliation that implies.

A connected account per franchise avoids that entirely. Each franchise holds its own Stripe relationship and its own funds, while the network keeps oversight of setup and status from one place. Reporting still rolls up, because every charge, payment, and refund records its franchisee and territory at the point it happens, the same attribution the franchise hierarchy is built on.

Why it matters

Payments are where franchise platforms quietly fail. Route everything through head office and the network inherits a money-services problem. Leave each franchise to wire up its own processor and the network loses visibility and consistency.

Provisioning a Stripe account per franchise from inside the platform gives both sides what they need. Franchises own their revenue and their payout schedule, set up through a flow Stripe maintains. The network gets a single view of who is onboarded, credentials it never has to email around, and a payment record that ties back to the same scoped permissions and attribution that govern the rest of the platform.