Our Payments feature allows you to request and receive payments from your contacts via text message.
By default, Payments will be disabled on all dashboards for an account and must be enabled on a per-dashboard basis. To enable Payments:
1. Go to the Payments menu
2. Select Payment Settings in the top right corner
3. Toggle Dashboard Settings to Payments Enabled
Once Payments is enabled, you’ll be in Training Mode—which allows you to fully test the Payment Request process, before getting actual money involved. Any Payment Requests made during Training Mode will be delivered, but the money won’t be processed. Training mode will always be marked by a blue banner.
Note that once you leave Training Mode and enter Live Mode, you cannot go back. We recommend sending a few test payments before you complete the next steps.
Merchant Set Up
You do not need to complete Merchant Set Up to send test Payment Requests, but you must complete Merchant Set Up to enter Live Mode.
Part of completing Merchant Set Up includes creating a Merchant Account with our partner, Authvia. Authvia links your Text Request account to a payment processor that connects to your bank so your payments can be processed.
Note that you can only have one Merchant Account. If you manage multiple businesses under one Text Request account, you will need to split those off into additional accounts to use our Payments feature effectively.
To complete Merchant Set Up:
1. Select Merchant Set Up
2. A new window will open and take you to Authvia
From there you will create an account with them. Their default payment processor of choice is Payrix, but you can also bring your own payment processor. Authvia will walk you through both options, which typically take 24 hours to be approved.
3. Once Merchant Set Up is complete, you’ll see a checkmark and the option to Enter Live Mode back in your Payments menu
Once an administrator selects the Enter Live Mode button, any payment analytics you gathered during Training Mode will be reset. Once in Live Mode you can begin requesting payments from your contacts. All payments made by contacts will be processed, and any sent messages will remain in contact conversations.
Check out our guide on how to send your first Payment Request here.
Disabling Payments
Accounts can disable Payments on a per dashboard basis in the Settings section of the Payments menu option. Once this is done, users will not be able to send out Payment Requests from those dashboard, until Payments is enabled again.