Key concepts
Ten ideas. Once these make sense, every screen in the portal reads easily.
1. Access is separate from payment
FMS decides who can read what. Stripe only collects money. A member can have full access with no card on file at all.
2. There is more than one Stripe account
Thailand is the main account. Singapore exists because Thailand cannot charge American Express. FMS picks the right account per card brand, before the charge is attempted.
3. Three ways a membership gets paid for
| Source | What it means | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Stripe | A card is charged automatically, on a schedule. | Most members. |
| External | Paid outside Stripe, usually a bank transfer. Staff record it by hand. | Institutions, invoiced members. |
| Comp | Free. Nobody is charged, ever. | Board members, partners, staff. |
4. A grant is access you give by hand
Granting a subscription hands someone a membership without a checkout. It can be free (comp) or paid outside Stripe (external). It can start in the past and it can end on a date.
5. Teams buy seats
A team buys a block of seats and one person administers it. The price per seat drops as the team grows. Adding or removing seats changes what the team is billed.
6. Discount codes are ours, not Stripe's
Codes live inside FMS. A code applies once, on the first payment, or forever, on every renewal. That choice cannot be changed later, so pick it carefully.
7. Donations and gifts are one-off payments
A donation buys nothing. A gift buys a year of membership for someone else, who gets an emailed link to claim it. Neither renews.
8. Sandbox and production are different worlds
A sandbox is a complete practice copy with its own database. Test cards only work in a sandbox. The badge at the top left always tells you which one you are in.
9. Nothing is sent twice
Every message FMS sends to Mailchimp or Stripe is queued first, then delivered. If delivery fails it retries. If it keeps failing it lands in Dead letters, where someone can look at it and try again. That is why the Health screen matters.
10. Consolidation is the repair shop
Systems drift. Consolidation compares FMS, Stripe and Mailchimp, shows you the differences, and fixes them only after you have seen what it will change.
Next: getting around the portal.