Setting up payment methods

Where to find the payment methods

Menu Settings → Payment methods. You need administrator rights for this (permission "Settings").

The page has three sections:

1. Stripe Connect: the connection to your Stripe account. Credit card, Apple Pay, Google Pay, SEPA Direct Debit, Klarna, iDEAL, Bancontact, Alipay and bank transfer all run through Stripe.
2. Online payment methods: one switch per payment method plus the choice of whether it applies to all offers or only to specific ones.
3. Offline payment methods: pay on site.

Important: switches and fields only take effect with the Save button at the top right. The button stays grey as long as nothing has been changed. Only connecting and disconnecting Stripe and entering domains take effect immediately.

Connecting Stripe

Stripe is the basis for almost all online payment methods. Without a connected Stripe account, the shop only offers PayPal and pay on site.

1. Under "Fee instruction to Stripe", tick the box I give this instruction. Without the tick, the "Connect Stripe" button stays grey. This allows Stripe to deduct Unitlify's platform fee directly from your payments.
2. Click Connect Stripe. Unitlify creates a Stripe account for your business, prefilled with country, business name and contact email from your company profile, and redirects you to Stripe.
3. Complete the Stripe onboarding in full: company details, authorised representative, bank account for payouts. Stripe verifies the details, which can take a few minutes to several hours.
4. Back in Unitlify, the card shows Connected as soon as Stripe has enabled payments and payouts. If it says "Setup incomplete", something is still missing at Stripe: click Continue setup.

Unitlify fetches the Stripe status when the Payment methods page is opened. So open the page again after the onboarding. Only once it says "Connected" do credit card, wallets, Klarna and bank transfer appear in the shop.

The payment processing fee shown is the rate Unitlify retains per online payment. It is not set here but by Unitlify, and is described in your contract. You can find an overview of all fees under Platform → Modules.

Disconnecting Stripe

Disconnect only removes the connection in Unitlify; the Stripe account remains at Stripe. When you reconnect, Unitlify creates a new Stripe account. So only disconnect Stripe if you really want to start over, not to fix a problem.

Test and live mode

Whether Stripe and PayPal run in test or live mode is set by Unitlify. Contact support if you need test bookings without real money flow.

Payment methods via Stripe

Credit card, SEPA Direct Debit, Klarna, iDEAL, Bancontact and Alipay have no fields of their own. You switch the payment method on, choose "All offers" or "Specific offers" and save.

Two things must match:

• The payment method must be switched on in Unitlify.
• The payment method must be activated in your Stripe account (Stripe Dashboard → Settings → Payment methods). Klarna, SEPA and some wallets partly require additional activation by Stripe there.

If a payment method is only on in Unitlify but off at Stripe, it does not appear in the shop or the payment fails.

Apple Pay and Google Pay

Both run through Stripe and have just one switch. Unitlify warns directly below the switch if the wallet is disabled in your Stripe account. In that case, enable it at Stripe first.

Apple Pay only appears in Safari on Apple devices with a stored card, Google Pay only in Chrome with a saved card. On other devices the shop hides the wallet automatically.

Domains for Apple Pay

Apple requires that every domain on which Apple Pay is offered is registered with Stripe. The payment fields always run on unitlify.de; Unitlify registers this domain automatically. Under Registered domains you only enter the domains on which you have embedded a widget, for example my-company.com. Without https://.

Only enter domains after Stripe is connected. A domain entered beforehand is not registered with Stripe.

PayPal

PayPal does not need Stripe. Under "PayPal email address" you enter the address of your PayPal business account, switch PayPal on and save. The money then goes directly to this account.

The address must be the confirmed email address of an existing PayPal business account. This is the most common source of errors:

• If the address does not belong to any PayPal account, or is only entered there but not confirmed, PayPal accepts the guest's payment but holds it for up to 30 days. If the address is not confirmed in a PayPal account during this time, PayPal refunds the money to the guest.
• Unitlify recognises this case: the booking remains unpaid, the guest sees the notice "Payment under review at PayPal", and your team receives a push notification and an email. As soon as the address is confirmed at PayPal, PayPal credits the money and Unitlify confirms the booking automatically.

How to check the address: PayPal business account → Settings → Email addresses. The address must be listed there and marked as confirmed. If it has only been added, click the confirmation link that PayPal sent to this address.

Only the PayPal button appears in the shop. Card or direct debit via PayPal are not offered; Stripe is responsible for those.

Bank transfer via Stripe

The payment method "Bank transfer / invoice" runs through Stripe: the guest receives a virtual IBAN and a payment reference, Stripe automatically matches the incoming payment, and the booking is confirmed when the money arrives. You do not have to reconcile any transfers by hand.

Prerequisites:

• Stripe is connected.
• Bank transfer is activated as a payment method in your Stripe account.
• The cart contains at least one date. For pure voucher purchases, no bank transfer is offered.

Settings:

What happens after the booking:

• The guest immediately receives an invoice with the payment deadline and the bank details by email.
• After half of the deadline, a reminder is sent to the guest.
• If the deadline has passed and no money has arrived, Unitlify cancels the booking automatically with the reason "Payment deadline expired", releases the place, cancels the invoice and informs the guest. The run starts every hour.

The payment deadline is deliberately kept short: every open bank transfer blocks a place.

Pay on site

"Pay on site" is the only offline payment method. The guest receives the ticket immediately and pays at your entrance. The booking is confirmed from the start; there is no reservation period and no automatic cancellation.

Note for vouchers: if a guest buys a voucher in the shop with "Pay on site", the voucher is valid immediately even though it has not yet been paid for. If you offer vouchers in the shop, restrict "Pay on site" to specific offers or switch the payment method off.

Restricting payment methods to specific offers

For every payment method you can choose "Specific offers" instead of "All offers" and tick individual offers. The following applies:

• A payment method only appears in the checkout if it is enabled for every offer in the cart. With mixed carts it otherwise disappears.
• "Specific offers" without a single ticked offer means: the payment method is not offered anywhere.

Where which payment method applies

What the guest sees

Order in the checkout: credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay or Google Pay, more payment methods, bank transfer, pay on site. iDEAL, Bancontact and Alipay are collapsed under "More payment methods"; only with Dutch language are iDEAL and Bancontact at the top.

If no payment method is available, the guest sees "No payment methods available". In that case check the points in the checklist below.

With a total of 0 € (for example through a 100 percent discount code or a voucher), the payment step is skipped.

Reservation during payment

While the guest is paying, their place is reserved. You set the duration per offer in the "Reservation" field; the default is 15 minutes. If the time runs out before the payment is completed, Unitlify releases the place again. If the guest has already clicked "Pay", a grace period of 60 minutes applies so that a payment in progress is not aborted.

Troubleshooting checklist

• No credit card, no wallet, no Klarna in the shop: Stripe onboarding not completed, or the Payment methods page was not opened again after the onboarding. The card must say "Connected".
• "Connect Stripe" button grey: the fee instruction box is not ticked.
• Payment method switched on but does not appear: not saved, not activated at Stripe, or "Specific offers" without the offer concerned.
• Apple Pay or Google Pay missing: disabled in Stripe, device or browser does not support the wallet, or the widget domain is not registered.
• PayPal payment shows "under review": the stored address does not belong to a confirmed PayPal business account. Confirm the address in the PayPal account; Unitlify then confirms the booking automatically.
• Bank transfer missing in the checkout: bank transfer not active at Stripe, "Business customers only" active, minimum lead time not met, or only vouchers in the cart.
• Booking with bank transfer was cancelled: the payment deadline has expired. The guest has to book again.