What this page is for
A payment method is one way a till can take money: Cash, an M-Pesa prompt to the customer's phone, an M-Pesa paybill or till number, Card, Bank transfer, or House account (credit). This page lists every method your business has set up, with how it settles and which branches offer it.
Only people whose role can manage payments see this page.
The columns:
- Name: what the till shows, such as
CashorM-Pesa. - Type: the kind of method. Once a method has taken any money, even a reversed payment, its type can never change.
- Settles: In hand at once for cash, Paid over later by the provider for M-Pesa, card and bank transfer, or Owed by the customer for a house account.
- Connection: for an M-Pesa method, a link to connect its Daraja keys where none are set, or to the connection it already uses. Only shown to those who may see Provider connections.
- Branches: which branches may use it, or Every branch if none are ticked.
- Ledger key: an optional override of which account it posts to.
- Position: its order on the till's list of ways to pay.
- Status: Active, or Deactivated once it has been switched off or kept for its history.
How to…
How to add a payment method
Press New payment method. See New payment method.
How to change a method
Press the row to open it.
How to delete a method
Open the row menu and choose Delete, on an active or a deactivated method. A method with no history is deleted outright; one with any payment history is kept as deactivated, so it stays on its past records and can be reactivated later. The page tells you which happened. A method that still has a provider connection cannot be deleted: delete the connection first on Provider connections.
How to bring a deactivated method back
Open the row menu and choose Reactivate. A card method takes real money, so it comes back only when its default connection is Live; the page tells you if it has none, or if its default is a Test connection.
Worked examples
Supermarket
Tumaini Supermarket in Nakuru offers Cash, M-Pesa paybill or till number and House account (credit) at its main branch, but only Cash and M-Pesa at a smaller kiosk. The kiosk's two methods tick only that branch under Branches; the main branch's methods are left at Every branch.
Restaurant and bar
The Acacia Grill & Bar wants card takings kept apart from M-Pesa in its accounts. It gives the Card method a Ledger key of card_takings, so its accountant can see the two apart on the chart of accounts, rather than both landing in the same clearing account.