It's so nice to have immediate access to my Stripe information in real time without having to clutter my email inbox with notifications.
2017 - Today
CashNotify
A menu bar application for macOS and Windows. Used since 2017 by many merchants to monitor their sales via Stripe and PayPal.
Client: CashNotify – project created and operated for ourselves
Platform: Desktop application
Our role: Design, development, support ... we handle everything!
Context
For another project, we needed to be notified of failed Stripe transactions: invalid payment method, expired card, suspicious transaction, fraud attempt, etc.
Stripe does not offer this type of notification natively, but provides access to these events through their API. We decided to create an app, and be its first users.
Challenges
We wanted to do everything ourselves for this project, including development. A few points that made the experience interesting:
- Product vision: Our decisions to add new features were all made in response to customer requests.
- Cross-platform application: We use Electron, which allows us to use our web development knowledge (HTML/CSS, JavaScript, React) and develop a single app for both macOS and Windows.
- Version management: A CI automatically compiles the app as soon as we update the code. A dedicated server handles automatic or manual updates, depending on user preferences. Customers can use beta versions if they wish.
- License management: A Ruby app manages license validity and type, trial periods, and expiration dates.
- Payments: We use Paddle, which makes it easy to manage VAT on foreign sales and automatically send out licence keys.
- Support: Via Helpscout, since 2017! We developed a custom widget that allows us to display the status of CashNotify licenses directly in the Helpscout interface.
Result
Many enthusiastic users of the app, who recommend it.
