eRatex supports PayPal Checkout as an additional payment option for your customers. It uses what PayPal calls “Reference Transactions,” which is, essentially, an authorization at checkout with funds being claimed at shipment. This supports multiple shipments, changes to the amount of the transaction (useful for substitutions, for example), and refunds to the PayPal account used in the transaction.
While PayPal offers Venmo with PayPal Checkout, Venmo is not yet able to process Reference Transactions and therefore does not appear as a payment option for your customers.
Signing up for PayPal will not interfere with your current credit card processing.
A Note about Rentals: Currently, PayPal will not appear as an available payment type if there is a text rental in the shopping cart, due to the requirement to collect collateral against rental returns. We hope to enable the ability to collect a credit card as collateral if PayPal is chosen as the payment type in a subsequent release.
Visual Ratex (VR) & PayPal
Order Fulfillment (OF) treats PayPal transactions as though they were WC (web credit card).
PayPal Checkout works as expected for split shipment scenarios, returns, & voids.
Currently, there is no way to distinguish between true credit card orders and PayPal in OF.
Once you have a PayPal Business account, you may log in to your PayPal portal to view inbound payments, all other activity, reports, take actions like transfer funds to your bank, and much, much more.
You also have visibility to PayPal payments within the Orders section of eRatex.
Be aware that shopper payments are deposited into your PayPal account and are, by default, not automatically transferred into your institution’s bank account. The PayPal portal allows you to transfer funds from PayPal to your bank account
An enhancement to OF will ID PayPal transactions and provide reporting options. We will deliver these as a VR patch as soon as development and testing are completed.
PayPal Business Account and Configuration
In order to enable PayPal transactions, you must establish a PayPal Business Account. As you are aware, many thousands of merchants large and small have agreed to PayPal’s terms. The agreement is somewhat long but written in clear language and outlines both the merchant and individual account holder rights and responsibilities.
This section describes how to establish a PayPal account, along with some eRatex-specific considerations. Please read these notes before you attempt to establish an account - you may want to collect some internal information before you begin to establish your PayPal account.
To establish a new PayPal Business account, Click here. Follow the onscreen prompts to set up your new PayPal account. Here are some things to consider while completing the seven or so steps:
PayPal prompts you for an email address to associate with the account. This will become the Account Owner. Choose an email address that belongs to person who should have all access and permissions to your PayPal account. Once the account is established, the Account Owner may add secondary users and grant specific permissions to each. Also, be aware that the email address you specify can not be the same email address that you are using for any other PayPal account.
PayPal prompts you to tell them about your business. You'll need to specify a named business contact at your organization, the organization's legal business name, phone, and business address.
PayPal asks for your business type - e.g. Corporation, Non-Profit, and so on. 501(c)(3) organizations qualify for the lowest fee schedule and may well apply to your operation.
In addition to the business information you provide, you will also be prompted to enter information about you - the person establishing the account.
You will be required to enter a Social Security Number, due to federal banking regulations introduced with the Patriot Act. Your SSN is only used to validate the ID of the person creating the account. Your university or corporate EIN will be associated with the account for tax purposes - NOT your SSN.
As is common these days, dispute resolution with PayPal is handled through arbitration. However, there is an opt-out process for arbitration which is described in the merchant agreement.
Once you complete the application process and agree to terms, you must verify the Account Owner's email address. If PayPal does not prompt you to verify your email address after you have completed the online application, login to your PayPal account and follow the steps under Account Settings to verify the Account Owner's email address.
On your PayPal account, set Preferences for receiving payments, as follows. You must change this PayPal setting to accommodate split shipments within eRatex.
Click Profile > Profile and settings (upper-right corner).
Go to My Selling Tools.
Navigate to Getting Paid and Managing my Risk > Block payments, then click Update.
Under Selling Preferences, click Payment Receiving Preferences.
Under Block Accidental Payments, choose "No, allow multiple payments per invoice ID."
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save.
As mentioned earlier in this article, eRatex uses somewhat of a special PayPal feature called "reference transactions." The Reference Transactions feature must be enabled on your PayPal account, and only a PayPal representative is able to do so. We have worked closely with PayPal to help make your onboarding process as painless as possible. PayPal has set up two dedicated specialists, both familiar with eRatex customers. When you have established your PayPal account online, please reach out to either of these PayPal specialists and ask that they enable Reference Transactions on your account:
If you need additional help, please contact PrismRBS support.
Enabling PayPal Checkout in eRatex
Once you have properly established and configured a PayPal Business account, as described in the preceding section, follow these steps to configure eRatex to enable shoppers to use PayPal on your site:
Login to eRatex as an administrator and navigate to Configuration, Payment Methods.
Click the Configure link that appears to the right of the PayPal Checkout option.
In the Configure PayPal Express Checkout window that appears, click the button labeled Get Your API Credentials.
The PayPal window that appears shows three (3) API values: API Username, API Password, and API Signature.
Copy each API value from the PayPal window and paste into the corresponding field within the eRatex Configure PayPal Express Checkout window.
Click Save and Close in the Configure PayPal Express Checkout window to save your API values to eRatex Settings.
Next, check the box next to PayPal Checkout, then click the Save button at the top or bottom of the Site Setup Wizard page.
Finally, set the eRatex Setting named PayPal.UseBillingAgreementReferenceTransactions to TRUE.
Within Admin Console, choose Configuration, Settings.
Filter the list to entries that contain PayPal.
Set PayPal.UseBillingAgreementReferenceTransactions to TRUE. PayPal Checkout will not work within eRatex if this setting is not TRUE.
Click Save and Close.
When properly configured, shoppers should see a PayPal Checkout button at the top of the eRatex Checkout page.