Payment Providers: PayPal Checkout

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Plan Availability: ✓ Soho | ✓ Pro | ✓ Plus | ✓ Enterprise | X Flex |
Locate: Manage > Ecommerce Setup > Payment OR Manage > Integrations > Payments
Prerequisites: Admin permissions to manage Payment Providers.

 

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"When customers use PayPal, they can skip online forms and complete their checkout in just a few taps, helping boost your sales conversion and reduce shopping cart abandonment." ~ PayPal

PayPal Checkout facilitates processing transactions through the PayPal payment interface. This means that when it comes time to make a payment, your Customer is redirected from Checkfront to PayPal and then back again once the transaction is complete. 

 

PayPal Checkout does not include virtual terminal functionality and cannot be seamlessly integrated with the Checkfront payment page. As such, PayPal does not allow Staff to process credit cards on behalf of your Customers, in the Checkfront admin area. Payments can only be made via the Customer-facing booking portal.

 

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The following is a list of standard Payment Provider features. Those available with the PayPal Checkout and Checkfront integration are marked as supported (✓).

Feature	Supported	More Info
Live Payments	✓	The ability to process payments in real-time.
Rebilling	✓	The ability to re-charge using previously provided payment information (tokens). API permissions must be enabled.
Refunds	✓	The ability to return a paid amount directly to the original payment method. PayPal's default refund period is 180 days from the transaction date. Please check with PayPal for more information.
Integrated Checkout	X	Customers remain on the Checkfront domain to input details. These details are sent to the provider to process the transaction without redirecting the Customer.
Redirect Checkout	✓	Customers are redirected to the Payment Provider’s domain to input details and process the transaction.
Staff-side Payments	X	The ability for staff to take payment through the Booking Details page using new payment information.
Staff-side CVC	X	Require Card Verification Codes (CVC) for Staff-side payments. The name, acronym, and location of these security codes on the card varies depending on the credit card type (Visa, MasterCard...)
Virtual Terminal	X	Virtual terminal is not available to operators at this time.
Hold Payments	X	The provider holds the payment for a certain amount of time without charging the card. PayPal Checkout does not hold payments.
Test Mode	✓	The ability to process test payments using your Checkfront account and PayPal Checkout prior to going live. Referred to as Sandbox Mode in Checkfront.
Multiple Currencies	X	The ability to offer payments in more than one currency. Checkfront does not support accounts with more than one currency. While PayPal Checkout can handle multiple currencies on their end, we can only send invoices to them in one currency.
PSD2 Compliant / 3DSecure	X	Payment Services Directive 2 (PSD2) compliant including Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). Our PayPal Checkout integration is not PSD2 compliant and does not utilize 3DSecure security. However, PayPal should provide this function through their hosted redirect, learn more here. Learn more about PSD2 here!
Can be a secondary Provider?	✓	The ability to configure a primary provider for online payments and a secondary provider for Staff-side payments through the Booking Details page. PayPal Checkout can be a secondary provider for Customers, however, it does not support Staff-side payments. When configured as a secondary provider, Customers see a Check out with PayPal redirect button on the payment page.
Supported Countries	✓	The list of countries PayPal supports for businesses and can accept online payments from can be found here: PayPal Global
Supported Currencies	✓	While PayPal supports many global currencies, not every currency is available. In order to process transactions, you need to set your Checkfront account to a currency accepted by PayPal.  You can double-check if your currency is supported in the documentation below: PayPal Currency Documentation
Minimum Transaction Payment Amount	X	The minimum payment amount for PayPal (0.00) applies to test as well as live transactions. Please check with PayPal for more information.

 

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To enable Paypal Checkout in Checkfront, log in to your Checkfront account and navigate to PayPal Checkout (Manage > Ecommerce Setup > Payment or Manage > Integrations > Payments).

Select PayPal Checkout, from the Payments section or search for the payment provider using the Search Integrations option at the top right of the page.

 

In the pop-up window for PayPal Checkout, enter the email matching the one on your PayPal account, and click Activate.

And that's it! Your PayPal Checkout payment provider is now activated, and you're ready to take payments.

 

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Once PayPal Checkout is enabled, Customers are presented with the option to complete payment with PayPal.

 

If PayPal Checkout is set up as the only Payment Provider (primary), then a green Pay button displays on the payment page for the Customer to select.

Once selected, the Customer is redirected to PayPal to pay and then redirected back to Checkfront after the transaction is complete.

 

If PayPal Checkout is set up as a secondary Payment Provider, then a yellow Check out with PayPal button displays near the top of the payment page for the Customer to select.

Once selected, the Customer is redirected to PayPal to pay and then redirected back to Checkfront after the transaction is complete.

 

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PayPal Checkout sandbox mode allows you to test end-to-end transactions using the PayPal sandbox, without needing a live credit card to process.

During setup, check the Enabled sandbox (test) mode box after supplying your PayPal email address.

Remember to turn this off again when you want to start processing live transactions!  

 

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The rebilling feature gives Staff the ability to re-charge using previously provided payment information (tokens).

To enable rebilling for PayPal Checkout, make sure you check the box when configuring the Payment Provider in Checkfront.

In addition, you must ensure you have granted API permissions in PayPal, seen below.

Finally, when a Customer makes a payment for your services, they must also check a box during checkout to authorize rebilling.

 

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Next, you need to give Checkfront permission to access payment information from your PayPal account. The following steps show you how to do that.

 

The steps provided below are using a Canadian Business account. The PayPal interface and experience may differ depending on your account type or country of business. You may find that the following instructions more closely match your experience. Grant a third party permissions

 

1. Log in to your Paypal Business account. Click to select the Profile menu and then choose Account Settings from the dropdown menu. 

 

  2. From the Account Settings page, select Update in the API access section.

 

3. From the Your payment API credentials page, select Grant API permission.

 

4. From the next page, supply the Checkfront API Username and click the Lookup button. The username is acct_api1.checkfront.com and not your Checkfront username.

 

5. Next, you set the permissions for Checkfront. For normal operation, we require the following permissions to be checked: 

• Use Express Checkout to process payments.

• Issue a refund for a specific transaction.

• Process your Customer's credit or debit card payments

• Authorize and capture your PayPal transactions.

• Obtain information about a single transaction.

• Charge an existing Customer based on a prior transaction.

 

6. Once you check the relevant permissions, click the Add button underneath. You now receive a confirmation message, stating that the third-party application (Checkfront) is successfully added.

 

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Listed here are common errors or situations you may come across when using PayPal:

Things don’t appear to be working at the moment. Please try again later. This error may occur due to the following: You may need to disable Encrypted Website Payments within the Selling Tools area in your PayPal account. An incorrect email address credential may have been entered in the Checkfront PayPal integration. Your PayPal account may require verification to accept payments. You are connecting to a PayPal personal account, rather than a PayPal business account. For any errors that you cannot resolve, we suggest reaching out to PayPal support to see what the problem may be with your account so that it can be resolved and payments can be accepted. You do not have permission to make this API call. This error occurs if all of the required API permissions are not selected. Check here for the permissions that are needed.