Create a transaction (Portal)
Use the Payabli Portal to collect payment from a customer directly — useful for phone payments, walk-ins, or other one-off billing occurrences. You can also take card-present payments with a registered card reader — see Make a card-present payment.
Some payment options are available only at the paypoint level or the organization level. Each section’s audience badge shows who can use it:
Partner means that the feature is available to organization-level users, and Paypoint means that the feature is available to paypoint-level users (merchant users).
Virtual Terminal
The Virtual Terminal lets you find or add a customer and collect payment in one flow — useful when you don’t want to start from a customer record.
Virtual Terminal opens on the One-time tab by default. The following steps cover that flow. Switch to the Recurring tab instead to set up a scheduled charge — see Create an autopay.
Choose an operation
- Sale — processes the payment immediately
- Authorize — reserves the funds. You must capture them separately before they settle. See Capture an authorized transaction.
Enter payment details
Enter the amount and a description, or click Search or add an item to build an itemized charge. You can save new line items to your catalog.
Optionally, enter an invoice number.
Select a payment method
Select a payment method. Optionally, check Save payment details for future use to store the method.
For a card-present payment, see Make a card-present payment instead.
To rerun an existing transaction — for example, to recover a declined payment — see Retry a transaction.
Use the Customers report
Use the Customers report to create a transaction for a customer already in the system.
Open the transaction panel
Navigate to Pay In > Customers, find the customer, and click the three-dot icon in the Action column. Select Create Transaction.
Choose an operation
- Sale — processes the payment immediately
- Authorize — reserves the funds. You must capture them separately before they settle. See Capture an authorized transaction.
Enter payment details
Enter the amount and a description, or click Search or add an item to build an itemized charge. Select existing items from your catalog or save new ones.
Optionally, enter an invoice number.
Select a payment method
Select a payment method. Available methods depend on the services enabled at this customer’s paypoint.
For a card-present payment, see Make a card-present payment instead.
Optionally, check Save payment details for future use to store the method for later.
Make a card-present payment
To start from Virtual Terminal, follow Open the Virtual Terminal through Find or add a customer. To start from the Customers report, follow Open the transaction panel through Enter payment details. Then continue here to select the device and send the payment.
This requires a card reader registered at the paypoint. To learn about supported devices and how to set them up, see Devices overview.
Device / Terminal appears as a payment method when you select Recurring, but card-present payments don’t support recurring payments. Choose a different payment method.
Select Device / Terminal
Select Device / Terminal, then choose a device from the dropdown. The dropdown lists the active devices registered at this paypoint. A device that’s already processing a transaction shows as Busy, and you can’t select it. If the dropdown shows No devices associated with this paypoint, check that the paypoint has an active, registered device.
To save the card for future use, select Save payment details for future use, the same option other payment methods have.
Send the transaction to the terminal
A Device / Terminal payment skips the Review step used for other payment methods. Click Get Paid to send the transaction to the terminal.
For a one-time payment on an AXIUM device, a payment dialog opens with the amount and the device name. It tracks the payment’s progress: Sent to device, Customer pays, and Result. If the payment can’t reach the terminal, the dialog shows the error. Click Try again to return to the form, or Close.
Complete the payment on the terminal
The terminal prompts the cardholder to review the amount and present their card. While the dialog shows Waiting for the customer, the cardholder completes the payment on the terminal. Closing the dialog doesn’t cancel the payment. To find the result later, check the Transactions report.
When the payment finishes, the dialog shows the result:
- Approved: the dialog shows the card, reference ID, and auth code. Click View transaction to open the transaction, or New transaction to start another payment.
- Declined or Transaction cancelled: click Try again to return to the form with your entries, or New transaction to start over. To find out what a decline reason means and how to resolve it, see Pay In unified response codes reference.
- We couldn’t confirm the result: the payment might still complete on the terminal. Click View transaction and check its status before you charge the card again.
For other devices, such as PAX devices, a Transaction Initiated summary opens instead. It doesn’t update when the payment completes, so find the transaction in the Transactions report to see whether it was approved or declined. To learn more, see Manage Pay In transactions (Portal).
To cancel, press cancel on the terminal. You can’t cancel a card-present transaction from the portal. If the cardholder doesn’t complete the payment in time, the transaction fails with the reason Device Timeout. Before you retry, check the transaction’s status in the Transactions report, and retry only if the payment didn’t complete.
Capture an authorized transaction
When a transaction is authorized, the funds are reserved on the customer’s account but not yet moved. Capturing completes the payment: it puts the transaction in a batch for settlement and starts moving funds to the merchant account. See Transaction lifecycle.
Authorized transactions that aren’t captured within 10 days are voided automatically. The customer’s hold is released and the payment doesn’t go through.
Find authorized transactions
Navigate to Pay In > Reports > Transactions. To show only transactions pending capture, click Filters and set Transaction Status to Authorized. To find authorizations nearing the void window first, sort by Date Created ascending — the oldest appear first.
For filter options and saved views, see Manage Pay In transactions.
Capture the transaction
The portal captures the full authorized amount. For partial or adjusted captures, use the API — see Authorize and capture transactions.
If a transaction fails
Errors fall into two categories: pre-submission errors caught before the charge is sent, and post-submission declines returned by the processor.
Pre-submission errors
Payment method not available: No payment credentials are configured for the selected method at this paypoint. Try a different payment method, or contact your admin to enable the method.
Amount outside allowed range: The amount falls outside the tier limits configured for this paypoint. Contact Customer Service to adjust your tier settings.
Post-submission declines
Processor or issuer decline: The card-issuing bank rejected the transaction. Ask the customer to contact their bank or try a different payment method.
System error: A system-side error unrelated to the issuer. Retry the transaction. If the error persists, escalate to Payabli support.
Related resources
See these related resources to help you get the most out of Payabli.