Settings: Payment Methods

Overview

You can use one or many payment methods in your store. Hotcakes lets you enable and disable methods as you need them.  You'll find the management of how payment methods work discussed here.  If you need to learn how a specific third party payment method or gateway works, please see the respective documentation for that method/gateway.

Requirements

The following prerequisites will be necessary to accomplish the goals of this article:

• Have access to your Hotcakes store administration
• Understand how payments work at a high-level
• Know which method(s) of payment you would like to accept

Getting Started

There are no prerequisites to follow along with this article.

Payment Method Management

You can configure your payment methods from the Settings menu item. Click Payment Methods to access the main page.

You'll see a listing of payment methods available for you to choose from.  Check the checkbox next to each method you'd like to have displayed to your customers during checkout.

Once you've selected the payment methods you want to support, click the "Save Changes" button to apply these updates to your site.  Successfully saving your payment preferences will look like this.

If you're selected payment method(s) require additional configuration, you'll see an edit icon next to it.  Click that edit icon, and it will bring you to the respective edit view.  Credit Cards are described below.  The other payment methods are also described below, and some are also described in their respective payment method documentation pages.

Payment Method	Description
Credit Card	If you need to accept credit cards, you can use a credit card gateway using this payment method. You can choose from several, including Authorize.Net and Stripe.  Gateways are discussed more below, and in their respective documentation articles.
PayPal Express	This is the offsite version of PayPal, where your customers will be taken to the PayPal website to complete their payment process.  Once they're done, they get returned to your site, where the order process continues as usual.
Moneris	This is a popular payment gateway in Canada, and it works in a similar way as PayPal Express above.
Ogone	Ogone is very popular in Europe and it works in a similar way as PayPal Express above.
Purchase Order	This is also known as "PO," where customers can select this and enter their PO number.  Your team will end up taking the PO number and processing it the same way that you would if this order was placed in a similar manner over phone or e-mail.
Company Account	Company accounts aren't all that different from PO's above.  Your customer will be given the opportunity to enter their company number.  From there, your team will need to process that order accordingly using whatever processes you normally would follow by other means.
Check	This option signifies that the customer intends to send you a check in some way.  The check is not processed virtually.
Telephone	Like with checks, this option will indicate that either you or your customer will be contacting the other to resolve payment.
Cash on Delivery	If you have a physical storefront or your own delivery service, this option is great to give your customers more options when checking out.

When you've enabled one or many payment methods, it begins to populate in the checkout for your customers to use, like you see below.

Creative Uses of Payment Methods (or Create Your Own)

Many store owners have opted to use these payment methods in creative ways to suit the needs of your unique online store.  For example, their labels are easily changed to reflect another purpose to your customers.  

For example, if you wanted to support something like "Trade In," you could of course create your own payment method since it's an extension point, but you could also rename the "Cash on Delivery" payment method and just use that in your checkout.

We invite you to get creative with this and any other feature in Hotcakes.  Contact us and let us know what you did.  We love surprises!

Credit Card Gateways

You'll see the view below if you choose to edit the configuration options when accepting credit cards.

Accepted Cards

This is a listing of the most common card options today.  By default, all but Diner's Club and JCB will be selected.  The selected cards will be displayed as supported cards to your customers during checkout.

Capture Mode

There are two options with the available capture modes.  Ultimately, you should consult with your legal and/or accounting team to determine which mode you should choose.

Authorize at Checkout, Capture Funds Later - When you select this option, your customer will only have a hold placed on their card.  The credit gateway will essentially check their account to ensure that the order grand total is available and place a hold on it.  Later, you'll capture the held funds when you're ready to fulfill the order.  This is usually the choice you should select when you sell physical products.

Charge Full Amount at Checkout - This option will not place any holds of any kind.  If the funds are available, their card will be charged immediately.  The fund transfer process will initiate that the moment that the order is placed.  This is usually used when a store doesn't have any fulfillment process, or the fulfillment is automated.  Examples of this include memberships and software sales.

Gateway

You'll see a listing of the available payment gateways that you can choose from.  You'll only be able to enable and use one at any given time.  This list will include any built-in payment gateways, as well as any that you might have added using the payment gateway extension point.  When you select a payment method, you'll also be able to edit the options for that gateway using the "Edit" button.

You'll find documentation for each built-in payment gateway in other areas of the documentation.

Require CVV Code During Checkout

When this setting is checked, the checkout will be validated to ensure that a value if entered for the CVV code in the checkout view.  Most customers are very well-conditioned to enter this value, but keeping it disabled may be necessary, depending on the credit cards you accept.

Show Full Card Numbers in Admin

This setting should be avoided at all costs and left unchecked.  Displaying the credit card number is a violation of nearly any existing security policy at any company, including PCI compliance certification guidelines.  You should expect for this setting to be removed at any time.