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Managing Customer Payment Methods

Corey Syrnyk
  • Updated

You can use this section to add one or more payment methods to the Customer record. Stax Bill supports many different types of payment methods, including credit cards, bank accounts, and PayPal accounts. You can also leave this section blank if the customer does not have a direct payment method and only processes payments by cash or cheque.

Sections on this page:

  1. From the Stax Bill Menu, choose Customers. Locate your customer and click on Details under the Actions column.

  2. Choose Payment Methods.
    Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_1.png

    The buttons on this screen depend on the gateways you have configured in your account.

    • You will see the Import Stripe Bank Account button if you have the Stripe ACH payment gateway.
    • If PayPal is enabled on your account, you will see the Add PayPal button. (Note, this is an add-on feature; have your Administrator contact sales@staxbill.com for more information).
    • If ACH is enabled on your account, you will see the Add Bank Account button.
    • If Credit Cards are enabled on your account, you will see the Add Credit Card button.

    If the customer already has one or more payment methods, they will be displayed.

    Note: If your account supports Hierarchy, and the customer is a child of a parent company, the parent's payment methods will also be shown on this page.

    Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_2.png

     

    The current default payment method is indicated by the checkmark (2016_08_22_16_27_382.png). To change the default payment method, click the Make Default button. If your account uses Stax Bill Hierarchy, you can choose one of the parent's payment methods as the default for the child.

    Important Notes about Using Parent Payment Methods (Stax Bill Hierarchy Feature)

    If your Stax Bill environment has hierarchy enabled, you can choose a parent's payment method as the default payment method for any of its children. In this case, for each child invoice collection, there will be a transaction on the parent's credit card or bank account. Here are some important things to consider when using parent payment methods for child accounts:

    • Each child invoice results in a separate transaction. If the parent has large number of children billing on the same day, it could increase the fraud alert risk on the parent's payment method, especially if they look like multiple duplicate transactions. Consider staggering the payment dates to reduce this risk.
    • If a parent's payment method expires or is invalid, the child invoices cannot be collected on, and the child accounts will go into the Suspended state. You will need to fix the parent payment method and wait for the next billing run (usually at the top of every hour) to resolve this billing issue.
    • You cannot remove a parent payment method if any children are using it as the default payment method. You must first visit each child account and remove it as the default before the payment method can be removed.
    • When you add a new default payment method to a parent, any child account which does not currently have a payment method will automatically receive the new parent payment method as its default.

Adding a Credit Card as the Payment Method

  1. Click on Add Credit Card option
  2. The Credit Card detail page will open. Enter the required information. The following are mandatory fields:
    • Card Number
    • First name
    • Last Name
    • Expiry Month
    • Expiry Year
    • CVV
      Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_3.jpg
  3. If you are using the Stripe gateway, you will also have the option to input a Stripe Token directly. This option will appear below the Credit Card option on the page:
    Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_4.png
    Enter the Stripe Customer ID and Card ID. These fields can be retrieved from your Stripe portal (for more information, please consult your Stripe documentation).
  4. The address information is optional unless you are configured via your Payment processor for Address Verification, which is required.
  5. Click Create. If successful, you will receive the green Success message. If there are errors, you will see the red Error message.

Stax Bill will attempt to validate credit cards via your Payment Gateway. If successful, the card is stored for later use. You can see the Authorization request in the Payments History. If the card cannot be successfully authorized, you must correct the required information and click on Create again.

Adding ACH/EFT as the Payment Method

  1. Click on Add Bank Account option.
  2. The Credit Card detail page will open. Enter the required information. The following are mandatory fields:
    • Bank account type
    • Account number
    • Transit number
    • First name
    • Last name

    Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_5.png

     

  3. Identifying Transit Numbers for ACH (US): An ABA number (also known as routing number or routing transfer number) is a sequence of nine numeric characters used by banks to identify specific financial institutions within the United States.
    payMet.png
    Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_6.png

  4. Identifying Transit Number for Direct Debit (Canada - VersaPay):

    payMet2.png

  5. For the Canadian Forte gateway, use BBBBBAAA  or 0AAABBBBB, where BBBBB is the Transit number, and AAA is the Financial Institution number. A zero must proceed if using AAABBBBB coding. 

    Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_7.png

  6. The address information is optional. If the customer has a billing address on file, these fields will be pre-populated with that information when you open the screen. You can edit the address if you wish; however, be aware that the address information for the Payment Method and the address information for the Customer are not synchronized or linked; they are updated separately.
  7. Click Create. If successful, you will receive the green Success message. If there are errors, you will see the red Error message.

Importing a Stripe Bank Account

Stripe requires first validating the customer's bank account using their "micro-deposits" feature for ACH accounts. To use the bank account, import "tokenized" values into Stax Bill. See the Stripe documentation for more information on completing the validation and getting the values required for the Stax Bill data entry, as shown below.

Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_8.png

When a customer has a valid Stripe account, it will be displayed as follows:
Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_9.png

You can click the edit button to see the customer's address information, but you cannot directly edit the token information used to create the payment method. If the bank information changes, you must delete it and re-add a new account.

Adding PayPal as a Payment Method

PayPal Express Checkout is an add-on feature in Stax Bill. Contact sales@staxbill.com for more information.
Customer_Properties_Payment_Methods_10.png

  1. Click the Add PayPal button.
  2. Enter the customer's Billing Agreement ID (BAID) in the box.
  3. Click Create. If successful, you will receive the green Success message. If there are errors, you will see the red Error message.

Note: A customer's existing BAID may or may not be suitable for re-use within Stax Bill. Consult the PayPal documentation at PayPal Docs for more information.

You cannot add a Payment Method unless a payment gateway has been configured.

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