03 Feb 10 Payment Gateway Transaction types and Access Levels for your Customers and Sub-Resellers

• Pay Invoices/Debit Notes: They can directly select a specific Invoice/Debit Note and pay for it using the Payment Gateway.
• Add Funds: This is where they Add Funds to their Account. These funds can then be utilised by them to pay Invoices/Debit Notes

Lets understand both these types in further detail -

Pay Invoices/Debit Notes
When a Customer of yours buys a product, an Invoice is created for the same. The Customer can now pay for this Invoice by clicking on the Pay button. This takes him to the Pay Invoice page. Here he will see a list of payment options, depending on the Payment Gateways you have integrated in your account. The Customer can choose to pay for this Invoice using the Payment Gateway of his choice. The same flow exists for a Sub-Reseller of yours.

When the Customer/Sub-Reseller completes the Payment Process for an Invoice/Debit Note, it creates a Receipt of that Amount and balances it against the Invoice that the Customer is paying. The Invoice payment may result in other actions such as execution of the Request associated with the Invoice. Reference: Invoices >>

Add Funds
When a Customer/Sub-Reseller simply want to Add Funds to their account, for future use, they can click on the Add Funds link in their interface. This allows them to specify the amount of Funds to add to their Account. They can then use these funds anytime to Pay any Invoice/Debit Note. In an Add Funds operation the system creates a Receipt for the amount added. The important part to note about an Add Funds transaction is that the Customer/Sub-Reseller has the freedom to decide the amount to Add to their account.

In both the above cases the system creates a Receipt. This Receipt amount is also added to the Total Receipts figure for that Customer/Sub-Reseller. Reference: Understanding Calculation of Total Receipts for your Customers/Sub-Resellers >>

The primary difference between the above two types of transactions is that in the first case the transaction is being performed with the purpose of paying for a particular Invoice/Debit Note. In the other case however the transaction is being performed to Add some Advance funds to the account which will be utilised later by the Customer/Sub-Reseller.

Payment Gateway Access Levels

The Payment Gateway module has built in security which allows you to choose the types of transactions that you wish to allow for a particular Payment Gateway to your Customers/Sub-Resellers. During the process of adding any Payment Gateway you have the following security options for the same

As you can see, you have the ability to specify separate Access levels for your Customers and Sub-Resellers. The first row specifies the access level to the Gateway for your Customers, and the second row specifies the access level to the Gateway for your Sub-Resellers. Both the rows contain the exact same options and are mutually exclusive. The settings of the first row do not affect the settings of the second row. You can specify completely different settings for your Customers using your Payment Gateway as opposed to your Resellers using your Payment Gateway.

The Access level specifier consists of two dropdowns.

The first dropdown refers to the Types of Transactions that you wish to allow through this Gateway. This has the following four options

Do not Allow ANY Transactions:
This option signifies exactly what it states. If you choose this option in the dropdown for your Customers the Payment Gateway is as good as disabled for your Customers. Your Customers will not be able to transact using this particular Payment Gateway. You may wish to do this incase you add a Payment Gateway that you only want your Sub-Resellers to use (or vice-versa). You can also do this temporarily incase your Payment Gateway is down, or you are performing some tests. Then during this time, while the dropdown is set to Do Not Allow ANY Transactions, the option to pay through this gateway will not appear for your Customers/Sub-Resellers.

Note: If in the first dropdown you have selected “Do not Allow ANY Transactions”, it does not then matter what you select in second dropdown of the row and therefore it is disabled.

Allow ALL Transactions:
This is the exact opposite of “Do not Allow ANY Transactions”. This tells the System that you wish to allow ALL types of transactions.

Allow only Add Funds:
This will display the Gateway as a payment option only for Add Funds transactions.

Allow only Invoice/Debit Note Payments:
This will display the Gateway as a payment option only for Invoice/Debit Note Payment transactions.

The second dropdown refers to the category of Customers/Sub-Resellers that you wish to allow the transactions to. The second dropdown is dependant on the first one. It further refines the security by allowing you to restrict access of the Gateway to a given set of Customers/Sub-Resellers. This dropdown has the following three options -

Allow All:
This setting would allow the types of transactions that you have chosen in the first dropdown, to ALL Customers/Sub-Resellers

Allow Explicitly Authorised Customers or Sub-Resellers:
This setting would allow you to specify a set of your Sub-Resellers or Customers. The System would then only allow these Customers/Sub-Resellers to use this Payment Gateway. This is explained in further detail a little ahead.

Allow Customers or Sub-Resellers of Explicitly Authorised Countries:
This setting would allow you to specify a set of countries, whose Customers and Sub-Resellers you want to restrict from seeing a Payment Gateway. This is explained in further detail a little ahead.

As you can see, creative combinations of the dropdown above can allow you to decide who gets to use your Payment Gateway v/s who does not. Lets take a few examples

Example 1

The above setting for a particular Payment Gateway means

• None of your Customers can use this Payment Gateway. Note that since the first dropdown says “Do not Allow ANY Transactions” it does not matter what you select in the second dropdown for Customers.
• All your Sub-Resellers will see this Payment Gateway as a payment option when they either choose to pay for an Invoice/Debit Note or choose to Add Funds.

Example 2

The above setting for a particular Payment Gateway means

• All of your Customers will see this Payment Gateway as a payment option when they choose to pay for an Invoice/Debit Note.
• Only those Sub-Resellers whom you have explicitly authorised will see this Payment Gateway as a payment option when they choose to Add Funds to their account.

Example 3

The above setting for a particular Payment Gateway means

• All of your Customers of the specified countries will see this Payment Gateway as a payment option when they choose to pay for both types of transactions – Add Funds and Invoice/Debit Note Payments.
• Only those Sub-Resellers whom you have explicitly authorised will see this Payment Gateway as a payment option when they choose to Add Funds to their account.

Explicitly Authorising Sub-Resellers/Customers
If you have set the access level for a Payment Gateway to “Explicitly Authorised Sub-Resellers” (or Customers), then in the toolbar of the detailed view of that Payment Gateway you will now see a new button “Manage PG Access for” as follows

You can use this button to specify the set of Sub-Resellers (or Customers) which you wish to authorise to use this Payment Gateway. The set of Sub-Resellers (or Customers) which you specify in this section will be the only ones which get to see this Payment Gateway on your Payment options page for the types of transactions which you have enabled.

Authorising all Sub-Resellers/Customers of Explicitly Authorised Countries
If you have set the access level for a Payment Gateway to “All Customers of Explicitly Authorised Countries” (or Sub-Resellers), then in the toolbar of the detailed view of that Payment Gateway you will now see a new button “Manage PG Access for” as follows

You can use this button to specify the set of Countries whose Customers (or Sub-Resellers) you want to display a particular Payment Gateway. Depending on the set of Countries you authorise, Customers (or Sub-Resellers) belonging to those Countries would be the only ones which get to see this Payment Gateway on your Payment options page for the types of transactions which you have enabled.