Payment integration: a technical guide
Learn how to integrate online payments efficiently with this technical guide. Discover what payment integration is, the key setup steps, and how to go live.
Payment integration is a way to increase efficiency, transparency, and the value of your financial transactions. This short guide will help you understand the importance and value of payments API integration, and how your business can get started.
TLDR:
- Payment integration connects your payment systems (point of sale (POS), websites, apps) with internal business applications to automate and synchronize payment data, improving efficiency and accuracy.
- A payments API acts as a secure bridge enabling software to process payments, receive transaction data, and ensure encrypted data transfer for insights and security.
- The integration process involves defining payment requirements, selecting a payment provider, setting up a merchant account, obtaining API credentials, testing in a sandbox environment, and going live while monitoring ongoing performance.
- Proper planning, testing, and securing API credentials are crucial steps to ensure a smooth and secure payment integration that enhances transparency and operational automation.
What is payment integration
Payments API integration allows you to ‘connect’ your payment systems to other in-house applications, such as finance, stock control, or ERP. Integrations should allow you to receive data from your POS terminals, website, mobile apps, and any other channels used to accept customer payments.
Integration eliminates manual processing, simplifies reconciliations, and ensures that payment data is accurately synced with other business workflows. Using these new integrations, payments become more transparent and accurate, allowing for better planning and forecasting.
What is a payments API?
A payment application programming interface (API) is a set of tools and connectors that allow software applications to process and manage payments. The API acts as a bridge, passing information from apps to the payment processing gateway to facilitate transactions, including payments, recurring billing, refunds, etc. The payment gateway uses the same API to return data to the app, such as receipts, transaction confirmations, and reconciliations.
More than simply sharing data, the payments API also secures data, using industry standard encryption to prevent interception. Data returned by the API is also essential for developing deeper insights into payments and finances.
How to integrate payments
Successful payment integration can be achieved with careful planning and testing. Here is a basic outline to help get your project started:
Define payment requirements
What type of payments does your business want to accept? There are several options available, including credit/debit cards, digital wallets, BNPL, bank transfers, and currencies.
This decision is vital because some providers or APIs may not be able to support your strategic choices.
Choose a payment service provider
With payment choices defined, the next step in your payment integration project is to consider which payment service providers can deliver. Currency support, integration options, security features, and regulatory compliance are all essential.
However, the decision goes beyond mere capabilities. You should also carefully examine each provider’s fee schedule and your own transaction volumes (actual and predicted). This will allow you to accurately calculate the cost of any new payment integration before committing to a contract.
Learn more about choosing a payment service provider.
Set up a merchant account
Payment provider selected; you must then complete the onboarding process. Central to set-up will be your merchant account, the bank account which will be used to accept and process electronic payments.
Depending on your provider, you can open either a full merchant account or a sub-merchant account. Although they work in much the same way, sub-merchant accounts tend to be a better choice for smaller, growing businesses with lower transaction volumes. You should also carefully consider eligibility before applying for a full merchant account.
Start your payment API integration
Once you have a merchant account in place, you can begin the payment integration process.
Next, you must contact your payments provider account manager to obtain your API credentials. These keys allow you to connect third-party applications to access and interact with data using the payments API. They will also be essential for developing your own web services and apps if required.
Just remember that every provider will have their own process for API onboarding.
Test payments
To ensure the API configuration is working correctly and that data can be successfully accessed from your own applications, your payment service provider should offer a ‘sandbox’. The sandbox is used to test communications and data mappings, ensuring credentials work correctly, webhooks are triggered, and that your queries return the correct data. This testing is crucial to prevent errors before going live with your payment integrations.
Go live
Satisfied that the payments API is returning the correct data? Completed the necessary data mappings and transformations? Then it’s time to go live, connecting the payments gateway to your other systems.
As always, closely monitor activities and logs to identify any unforeseen issues or errors.
Integrate payments today with the Paysafe API
Every aspect of your business can be improved with better access to data, including payments. Integrating your payments with the Paysafe API provides greater payment transparency and the ability to automate key financial and stock processes. Your operations become more innovative and efficient with Paysafe.
Learn more about the Paysafe Payments API and how to get started with your payments integration today.
FAQs
What are the different types of payment integration?
The most helpful form of payment integration for most businesses is API integration. Other types include hosted payment gateways and direct server-to-server integrations.
How long does an API integration take?
There is no “average” time for API integration projects. Often, the API integration can be completed in a matter of hours. However, pre-project planning and mid-project testing take far longer, and should not be rushed or overlooked.
How much does payment integration cost?
Payment integration varies depending on provider, service type, and any add-on costs like maintenance and licensing. Contact your payment service provider for information.