Summary

Join It is built to provide a seamless membership experience through its direct integration with Stripe, automatically connecting payments to membership status, reporting, and automations.

That said, there are times when organizations accept payments outside of Join (e.g. cash, checks, bank transfers, or other third-party systems). To support these scenarios, Join It offers flexible ways to record those external payments directly within in your Join It account.

Ways to Record External Payments

You can add externally collected payments into Join It using two main methods:

1. API: Create Payments Programmatically

The Payments API endpoint allows you to programmatically send payment data into Join It for existing memberships.

This option is ideal if you:

Sync payments from external systems
Build custom integrations
Want to centralize all payment records automatically

By using the API, you can ensure all membership activity stays consistent and up to date without manual input.

Common use cases:

Importing payments from another platform
Recording offline payments (cash, check, bank transfer)
Syncing payments from a custom checkout flow

Here's where you can view Join It's API documentation: https://joinitapi.com/

2. Zapier: Automate Payment Creation

With the enhanced Zapier integration, you can automatically create payments in Join It based on activity in other tools.

This is a great option if you want to:

Automatically log payments from other tools
Connect Join It with thousands of apps
Keep your membership records up to date without manual work

Example workflows:

When a payment is recorded in another system → create a payment in Join It
When a form is submitted → log a payment for a member
When an invoice is marked as paid → sync it to Join It

Here's where you can learn more about the Zapier integration.

Benefits of Recording External Payments

By tracking all payments in Join It, even those collected elsewhere, you can:

Maintain a single, reliable source of truth
Keep membership statuses accurate
Improve reporting and visibility
Reduce manual errors and duplicate work
Stay flexible in how you accept payments

Important Considerations

Join It’s native Stripe integration remains the recommended approach for the most seamless experience.
Payments recorded via API or Zapier should reflect real, completed transactions from external systems.
These payments won't trigger a renewal or update the expiration date or status of the membership.