Use your own Paystack or Stripe account for card and transfer payments

By default, card and bank-transfer payments taken in Business Sensor go through the shared Business Sensor Paystack account and are paid out to you from there. If you already have your own Paystack business, you can connect it instead. Customers then pay your business directly, the money settles into your own bank account on Paystack's normal schedule, and the Business Sensor platform fee no longer applies to those payments.

Stripe works the same way, with one difference: there is no shared Stripe account, so Stripe is only available once you connect your own. Stripe payments always use a hosted payment page (QR code or link), there is no bank-transfer option, and the webhook is registered for you automatically.

Connecting is safe to do during business hours: nothing changes for your cashiers until you click Activate at the very end, and you cannot click it until every check has passed.

Before you start

• A Paystack business that is approved for live payments, and its dashboard login.
• You must have the Account Master permission to open this page, and be in the Administrator group to activate or switch back.
• A card or bank app of your own to pay a small verification payment (100 NGN). It is refunded automatically.
• After you activate, choose which payment methods use Paystack (Setup → Payment Methods). You can't attach your own Paystack account to a bank account before it is active, so the checklist's "A payment method routes here" line stays amber until then — it does not block Activate.

Steps

1. Go to Setup → Gateway Credentials and find the Paystack card. It says Using Business Sensor shared account.
2. Click Connect your own Paystack. A guide opens that shows exactly where the keys are on the Paystack dashboard (Settings → API Keys & Webhooks, in Live mode).
3. Paste your Secret key (starts with sk_live_) and your Public key (starts with pk_live_), then click Save.
4. The card now shows a checklist. The first three lines run straight away: Key is valid, Live key, and Not the shared Business Sensor key. Fix anything red before continuing.
5. Copy the Webhook URL shown on the card. On the Paystack dashboard, open Settings → API Keys & Webhooks, paste it into Live Webhook URL, and save. This is how Paystack tells Business Sensor that a customer has paid.
6. Back on the card, click Make a verification payment. The normal payment window opens for 100 NGN. Pay it yourself, by bank transfer or by card.
7. Watch the checklist: Webhook reaches us, Verification sale confirmed by webhook and Refund works turn green one after another. The 100 NGN is refunded to you automatically.
8. When every blocking line is green the status changes to Verified and the Activate button lights up. Click it. From this moment, every payment method routed to Paystack charges your own account.

Connecting Stripe instead

1. On the Stripe card click Connect your own Stripe. The guide shows where the keys are (Developers → API keys, with Test mode switched off).
2. Paste your Secret key (sk_live_…) and optionally the Publishable key, then Save. Business Sensor registers its webhook on your Stripe account at the same time. If the key check says charges are not enabled, finish Stripe's own activation first.
3. Skip the webhook step. The Webhook reaches us line turns green on its own when the first event arrives.
4. Click Make a verification payment and pay the hosted page with your own card (1 USD, or the equivalent minimum in your currency). The refund is automatic.
5. Activate when the checklist is green. From then on, payment methods routed to Stripe open the hosted Stripe page for the customer.

Tips

• Printable guide. The Going live guide (PDF) link under the page title has every step on a few pages, with a first-day checklist. Handy to print or share with whoever has the Paystack or Stripe login.
• Dry run first. You can paste your sk_test_ key, run the whole checklist with a Paystack test card, and see how it works without spending anything. The card shows a Test mode badge and will not let you activate; paste the live key when you are ready and the checklist starts again.
• Bank transfer may be off at first. The line Bank transfer channel available goes amber if Paystack has not yet enabled "Pay with Transfer" on your business. Your cashiers still get the QR / card option. Ask Paystack to enable it, then click Re-run on that line.
• Re-run any line with its Re-run link, or Run all checks to refresh everything.
• To go back to the shared account, click Switch back to shared account. Payments already taken on your own account can still be refunded for 24 hours afterwards.
• After switching back, Paystack payments are paused on every bank account you attached Paystack to for your own account. Those attachments have no subaccount, and on the shared account the subaccount is how the money reaches you. The cashier sees "payments are paused" instead of a charge. To take Paystack payments again, add a subaccount to each of those bank accounts (Chart of Accounts → Payment Gateways → Edit), or activate your own account again.
• Stripe has no shared account, so its card says Disconnect instead. Disconnecting turns Stripe payments off until you reconnect.
• Once an account is live its card shrinks to one line. Click Show last checks (or Run a health check) to see the checklist again.
• The secret key is encrypted before it is stored and is never shown again. To rotate it, paste the new key over the field. The checklist starts from the beginning for the new key.

Common problems

• "This is the Business Sensor shared key" → you pasted the key from a Business Sensor document, not from your own Paystack dashboard. Sign in to Paystack and copy the key under Settings → API Keys & Webhooks.
• Key is valid is red → usually a key copied with a space at the end, or a key from a different Paystack business. Re-copy it.
• Live key is amber → you are using a test key. Fine for a dry run, but switch the Paystack dashboard to Live mode and paste the live key before activating.
• Webhook reaches us stays grey after the verification payment → the Webhook URL is not saved on the Paystack dashboard, or was pasted into the Test box instead of the Live box. Fix it on the dashboard and make another verification payment.
• Verification sale confirmed by webhook is amber → the payment went through, but Business Sensor found out by asking Paystack rather than by being told. Same fix as above: check the webhook URL, then make another verification payment.
• Refund works does not go green → very new Paystack businesses sometimes cannot refund until their first settlement. Wait a day and click Re-run on that line, or refund the 100 NGN from the Paystack dashboard and contact support.
• Activate is greyed out → hover it: the tooltip names the first check that is not green.
• "Only a member of the Administrator group…" → ask an administrator to click Activate; the rest of the setup can be done by anyone with Account Master.