How to retrieve the Transactions from Stripe

I starting to check Stripe documentation to integrate the Stripe Billing Api in a Saas app. Things are not always the most straightforward, and it took a bit to understand that in the context of a Stripe subscription, the entity closest to a "transaction" is the Invoice, specifically the payment events associated with it—such as the Payment Intent and the resulting Charge. Here's why:

1. Subscription Lifecycle: A subscription in Stripe represents an ongoing agreement to charge a customer on a recurring basis. However, the subscription itself doesn't handle the actual financial transactions.

2. Invoice Generation: For each billing cycle of a subscription, Stripe generates an Invoice. The invoice details the amount owed, including subscription items, taxes, and discounts.

3. Payment Processing: When an invoice is finalized, Stripe creates a Payment Intent to process the payment. The Payment Intent encapsulates the payment flow and handles customer authentication if needed.

4. Charge Creation: Upon successful payment, a Charge object is created. This represents the actual transfer of funds from the customer account to application account.

In the JSON response provided in the stripe example, the latest_invoice field references the most recent invoice associated with the subscription:

"latest_invoice": "in_1MowQWLkdIwHu7ixuzkSPfKd"

To see the transaction details, we should retrieve this invoice and examine its payment_intent or charge:

• Payment Intent: Contains the payment flow information, including status, amount, and payment method.
• Charge: Represents the finalized payment transaction and includes details like the amount, currency, and receipt URL.

Summary: In Stripe's subscription workflow, the Invoice—along with its associated Payment Intent and Charge—is the entity that most closely represents a transaction.

Example Workflow:

1. Subscription (sub_...): Manages the recurring billing agreement.
2. Invoice (in_...): Generated for each billing cycle; itemizes charges.
3. Payment Intent (pi_...): Initiated to collect payment for the invoice.
4. Charge (ch_...): Created upon successful payment; represents the transaction.