Overview
PreStartGo's payments run on Stripe, and the day-to-day billing surface you use — payment method, invoices, billing details — is Stripe's secure, PreStartGo-branded billing portal, opened from the console's billing settings. This article covers how the pieces fit, and the security consequence that makes the arrangement worth having: your card details never touch PreStartGo.
Before you start
- Plan
- An account billed through Stripe (ask us if you're not sure yours is)
- Role
- Account Owner for billing changes
The billing portal
From the console's billing settings, opening the portal lets you manage:
- Payment method — add or update the card behind the subscription.
- Invoices — the full history, viewable and downloadable.
- Billing details — company name, billing email, ABN for invoicing.
It's a Stripe-hosted page tied to your organisation — changes land on your subscription immediately, and you're returned to the console when done.
Starting a paid plan
Paid plans — Contractor, Builder and Hire — are set up for you by the PreStartGo team after a quote, then bill through Stripe. Card details are always entered on Stripe's secure pages, never a PreStartGo form. See Moving to a Paid Plan.
What Stripe holds, and what PreStartGo holds
| Data | Lives with |
|---|---|
| Card numbers and payment credentials | Stripe only — PreStartGo never sees or stores them |
| Invoices and payment history | Stripe, surfaced through the portal and echoed to your billing email |
| Your subscription state and plan | Both — Stripe drives it; PreStartGo reflects it |
| Your compliance data | PreStartGo only — Stripe knows your billing, not your fleet |
Stripe appears in the subprocessor list like every other processor, and payment-card handling stays inside Stripe's PCI-DSS-audited environment — which is exactly why the portal pattern exists.
How billing events flow back
Stripe tells PreStartGo what happened — a payment succeeded, a payment failed, a subscription changed — and the platform reacts: a recovery restores a past-due organisation instantly, a failure notifies your owners, a cancellation resets the organisation to the free plan. The full consequences: What Happens If a Subscription Lapses.
Edge cases
- The billing email needn't be a PreStartGo user — accounts-payable inboxes are fine; set it in the portal.
- Every paid plan is set up by our team, and some are invoiced directly rather than through Stripe. If your billing settings show no portal, you're invoiced directly — contact us about any invoice.
- Receipts vs invoices — the portal carries the formal invoices; card statements show the charge under the Stripe descriptor.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Portal won't open | Not the Account Owner, or no subscription yet | Billing is Account Owner territory; free plans have no portal |
| Card update didn't fix past-due | The retry hasn't run since | Payment retries follow shortly; recovery is instant on success |
| Invoice email going to the wrong place | Billing email out of date | Update it in the portal |
| Worried about card security | Cards live only with Stripe | See the table above — that's the design |