Processing credit card payments in NetSuite is crucial for streamlining your customer payments. The NetSuite Credit Card Payments feature gives you access to the records, subtabs, fields, and features you need to get your account ready for processing credit cards. There’s a lot to consider with credit card payments, so in this article we’ll just focus on the highlights.
Overview of Credit Card Payments
How do credit card payments work in NetSuite? Here’s the general process that payments go through:
1) Initiate payment from NetSuite by billing a sales order.
2) An authorization request goes to your payment gateway.
3) The payment gateway checks with the issuing (customer’s) bank for authorization.
4) The payment request is sent with a batch of requests at the end of the day to the issuing bank.
5) The customer’s bank verifies and approves the transfer to the merchant account in the acquiring bank.
6) The payment is deposited in the merchant account in the acquiring bank.
Setting Up Credit Card Payments
Getting your account ready for credit card payments requires the following setup.
Enable the Credit Card Payments Feature
First, enable the Credit Card Payments feature. You can find this feature on the Payment Processing section of the Transactions tab in Enable Features.
Create a Merchant Account in NetSuite
Next, you need to create a merchant account. And not just any merchant account—you need an account you can use with a NetSuite-compatible payment gateway. Payment gateways and merchant accounts go hand-in-hand. If you choose your payment gateway first, you’ll have to choose a merchant account that works with that gateway. Or if you start with a merchant account, you’ll have particular payment gateways that are compatible with it. As long as your merchant account is compatible with your payment gateway and your payment gateway integrates with NetSuite, you’ll be all set. MerchantE (now Fortis) and CyberSource are two popular options that provide both the merchant account and the payment gateway.
Why do you need a merchant account? Merchant accounts are commercial accounts you set up with a bank that allow you to receive customer payments. When a merchant account is compatible with NetSuite, NetSuite can issue payment requests and record payments.
Connect Your Merchant Account with a Payment Gateway
Let’s take a look at the payment gateway. A payment gateway, or credit card gateway, allows you to receive payments from your customers via credit card. The gateway processes all the necessary information and funds as they move between NetSuite, the issuing bank, and the acquiring bank.
Once you have made an account with a payment gateway, you need to add that gateway as a payment profile in your NetSuite account. To do that, navigate to Setup > Accounting > Payment Processing Profiles > New. Here, you will see a list of compatible payment gateway integrations. Locate the gateway you are going to use and either install it (if it has not yet been installed) or select the “Add Profile” link next to the correct gateway. This will take you to a page where you can set up the gateway and connect it with your merchant account.
Using Credit Card Payments
Once you have everything set up with your merchant account and payment gateway, how do you actually process payments from different records in NetSuite?
Add Customer Payment Methods
First, you’ll need to add a customer’s payment method (i.e., credit card information) on the Customer record. On a Customer record, scroll down to the Financial subtab. Here, you’ll see any existing credit cards listed. To add a new card, select the New Payment Card button under Payment Instruments. This will take you to a page where you can fill out the necessary card information. Now, when this customer is selected on invoices, sales orders, and cash sales, the credit card you added will be available for selection.
Process Customer Payments
Let’s take a quick look at processing customer payments. You can enter a credit card payment in three places:
(1) the Billing subtab on a Sales Order
(2) the Payment Method subtab on the Payment page (select Accept Payment on the Invoice record to access the Payment page)
(3) the Billing subtab on a Cash Sale
Selecting a payment method on these records will trigger the system to send a capture request to your payment gateway. The gateway collects capture requests throughout each day, and then processes and settles the entire batch at the end of the day.
Conclusion
The NetSuite Credit Card Payments feature allows you to process customer payments through your NetSuite account. If this is a feature you would like to begin using in your account or if you have any other NetSuite needs, SuiteRep would love to come on board and help. Our diverse NetSuite experience enables us to provide NetSuite solutions tailored to your unique needs. Contact us to get the conversation started.