Take payments online

The firm's own provider accounts

Money taken online goes through the firm's own merchant accounts, never Dangana's. Each is a connection, under Settings, Online payments, Connections. A connection names the provider, whether it takes office money or client money, the firm's bank account it pays into, whether it is live or a test, the ways of paying it offers, the currencies it takes and the fees in the firm's contract with the provider.

1. Choose Connect a provider.
2. Choose the provider and name the connection.
3. Say whether it takes office money or client money, and choose the bank account of that fund it pays into. A client money connection can only pay into a client account.
4. Enter the keys from the provider's dashboard. They are checked with the provider before they are kept, kept sealed, and never shown again; the last four characters of the secret tell keys apart.
5. Tick the ways of paying, the currencies and what it offers: payments by link, saved cards, scheduled charges.
6. Enter each fee line: the way of paying, the currency, the percentage, any fixed amount and any cap.
7. Choose Connect, then copy the webhook address from the connection's page into the provider's dashboard.

Keys are entered afresh on the firm's own cycle, set under Rules. Before the day, whoever may manage connections is told; past it the connection takes no new payments until the keys are entered again, while payments already under way finish. A provider that answers only listed addresses, such as Hubtel, shows the address to give it.

When more than one connection offers a way of paying, the cheapest takes it. A connection may be pinned to take a way of paying first whatever it costs. A connection that fails its checks rests before it is tried again.

A webhook that does not verify is refused, counted on its connection, and the people who manage connections are told at most once an hour: either someone is sending forged events, or the provider signs with keys the firm has not entered.

Asking a client to pay

Under Finance, Payments, choose Request payment, or Request payment from a bill or a matter. A request asks for bills on a matter, money on account, money for the client account (always for a matter), or a consultation fee. It may take part payments with a least amount at a time, carry a due day, and stays open until the day set or the firm's usual period.

The request's page sends the link by email or text message, or copies it to send another way; every delivery is kept. Unpaid requests are sent again on the firm's reminder days. Where the firm prints pay links on bills, a posted bill carries a link and QR code that open a payment page for what it still owes.

The payer chooses how to pay on their own page. Where the firm surcharges office money, the provider's fee is added and shown before they pay.

Confirming what a provider took

A provider never posts money by itself. What it took waits as a held receipt under Payments, To confirm, and in the approvals inbox. Confirming posts the receipt and applies it to the bills asked for. Where the firm chooses, office money posts without confirmation; client money always waits.

A payment the provider could not answer for after a day reads as Undecided. Decide it from what the firm saw, such as the bank statement.

Saved cards, wallets and schedules

A mandate is a payer's standing consent to be charged. Ask for one under Payments, Schedules, Mandates; the payer gives it on their own page by the link sent, accepting the firm's words of authority. A card is saved by a small payment; a mobile money wallet is pre-approved on the phone.

A schedule charges a mandate once, every period, on a payment plan's days, or to keep a matter's client money topped up. A failed charge is tried again on the firm's retry days; after the last, the payer is sent the link and the schedule needs a look before it charges again.

Payouts and the fees providers keep

When a provider pays out, record it under Payments, Payouts: choose the connection, tick the confirmed payments it was made of with the fee kept from each, and give the bank line's reference and day. The payout posts what reached the bank and the fees to bank and gateway charges.

A fee kept from client money is never taken from the client. It waits under Top-ups as office money owed to the client account, and the three way reconciliation names it against its matter until it is made.

Refunds and disputes

A refund is asked for from the payment and approved by someone else before it goes back through the provider that took it. A dispute a payer raises is recorded with the provider's deadline, which goes in the matter's diary; evidence is filed from the matter's documents; the outcome posts what it cost.

What waits on a person

Payments, Exceptions lists everything that needs a decision, one kind at a time with every kind counted: undecided payments, amounts different from what was asked, events that matched nothing, payouts whose fees differ, failed refunds, open disputes, schedules that need a look, top-ups not made and connections taking no payments.