In this article you’ll learn how to accept payments online to enjoy a faster, smoother payment experience for both you and your clients.

You’ll learn about your different processor options, as well as your clients’ payment options.

Overview of online payments

Once you enable and set up online payments, you can accept online payments in a variety of ways:

Get paid online directly upon booking
Get paid online using electronic invoices
Get paid online directly from your client portal and/or website

You can receive payments:

Directly to your bank account using Payments by vcita, Stripe or Square
Directly to your PayPal account

Clients can pay you:

Using a credit card if you connect to Payments by vcita, Stripe or Square
Using their PayPal account

Note: If PayPal is your only payment processor, you will not be able to charge credit cards in person (i.e, manually key in a payment). For in-person charges, connect to Payments by vcita, Stripe, or Square, as well.

Note: You can choose to connect to one of these payment processors or connect to PayPal any one of the three credit card processors: Payments by vcita, Stripe or Square.

Tip: To offer your clients more payment options, we recommend connecting to both a credit card processor and PayPal. This will allow your clients to choose their payment methods at checkout.

Overview of payment processors

You can connect your account to several popular online payment processors and/or gateways. Select the one that best meets your business needs, preferences, and business location.
You have two main types of payment processing options:

Receive payments directly to your bank account with Payments by vcita, Stripe or Square

Payments by vcita, Square and Stripe provide you with direct deposits into your bank account.
With Payments by vcita, Stripe or Square as your payment processor, you can also accept and charge credit cards.

Receive payments to your PayPal account

If you choose PayPal as your payment processor, funds will be deposited into your PayPal account.

Note: If PayPal is your only payment gateway, you cannot charge credit cards in person (i.e, manually key in a payment). For in-person charges, connect to either Payments by vcita, Stripe, or Square as well.

Processing fees and times

1. Processing fees:

Your account will not be charged with any additional transaction fees besides the fees determined by your payment processor and/or gateway. See below:

Get all the information you need regarding the different processing fees directly from your select providers’ website: Payments by vcita processing fees, Square processing fees, Stripe processing fees, PayPal processing fees.

2. Processing times:

Payments by vcita: Your first Payments by vcita transaction will typically take around 5-7 business days to show up in your bank account. Please note that the 5-7 business days do not start until you reach a $100 balance in your account. After the first payment is deposited in your account, you can expect payments to process as follows:

Transactions finalized before 9 pm EST will be added to your bank account on the morning of the 2nd business day.
Transactions processed after 9 pm EST will be added to your account on the 3rd business day.
Note: Deposits take place at the start of the business day EST (excluding weekends and holidays) and only occur if you have processed over $100 during that day.

PayPal: Payments are normally transferred to your PayPal account immediately. To transfer funds to your bank account, you will need to initiate a transfer from your PayPal account.

Square/Stripe: On newly created Square and Stripe accounts, payments normally take 5 - 7 business days to deposit directly into your bank account. This duration will likely shorten as your account becomes more established.

Currency for online payments

If you haven’t done so yet, make sure your currency is set up right for your payment and business location needs. To learn more about currency, go to the Setting Up Payments article.

Important: When using Square as your payment processor for online payments, make sure your multiple currency option is disabled. To learn more, go to the Setting Up Payments article.

Connecting your payment processor

Once you’ve decided on the payment processing options right for you, here’s how you connect your account to one or several processors:

Here visit the following articles for information on how to set up your payment gateway:

Note: For information on how your currency affects online payments, go to the Currency for online payments section above.

Enable online payments

Once you are connected to the payment processors that are right for you, follow these steps to enable online payments:

Step 1: Go to Settings > Payments.

Step 2: Go to the Payment Processing tab, and make sure your Currency options are set right for you.

Step 3: Choose from the following online payment activities:

Clients can pay you online
Clients can access their payment activity online
Allow both options for a complete online payment experience, as displayed here:

Important: Both options are checked by default. The second checkbox must remain checked for online payments to be turned on.

Step 4: Click Save to save your changes.

Note: To view their personal payment history, clients need to log into their personal account through the Client Portal. Otherwise, they can only pay custom amounts. For more, go to the Getting Paid Online article.

Tip: For an improved client checkout experience, encourage your clients to log in to their client portal when taking action with your business by sending them a direct login link. To learn more, go the Client Portal article.

If you would like to enable partial payments for invoices:

Step 1: Go to Settings > Payments.

Step 2: Switch to the Invoices & Estimates tab. Under the Partial Payments sections, check the Enable partial payments for invoices checkbox.

Step 3: If needed, you can even specify a minimum partial payment percentage. Clients will need to pay at least 25% of the invoice total each time in the example below:

Learn more: To learn all about the online payment experience from both the business and client-side, go to the Getting Paid Online article.

Note: only invoices may be paid with partial payments.

FAQs

How do Payment Payouts work with vcita?