How do I enter and process Virtual Terminal transactions in my PayPal account?
To process a transaction from within your account, launch Virtual Terminal. Choose the appropriate tab for the type of transaction: Quick order, Standard order or Recurring payment.
Quick order.
This option allows you to process a payment with minimum data entry. You only need to provide the transaction type, amount, currency, card details and billing zip code.
- Transaction type – Select the transaction type from the drop-down menu: Sale or Authorization.
- Sale – Instantly charges the specified amount and marks the transaction for immediate funds transfer during the next settlement period. Choose Sale to process transactions in a single step.
- Authorization – Check your cardholder's funds or credit availability and hold the amount. This is the first part of a two-step process used mostly by merchants who need greater flexibility when processing payments.
The first step, authorization, checks that the card has enough funds and reserves the requested amount. If enough funds are available, the second step of the process manually captures the funds.
You can capture an amount that differs slightly from what was initially authorized. This enables you to adjust the transaction amount to reflect changes (such as taxes, shipping, or item availability) that occurred after the initial authorization.
Each authorization performed has an honor period during which transaction approval is guaranteed. If you capture an authorization after the honor period, it may not be approved if available funds on the card have changed.
Optional fields for Quick orders:
- Invoice ID – A unique, alpha, numeric, or alphanumeric value to prevent accidental payments (by blocking duplicate invoice IDs).
- Order description – Provides details about the transaction for future reference. You can use this information later to search for the transaction.
- Email – If the customer’s email address is entered, you can use it to send PayPal-branded email receipts to customers when their transactions have completed successfully.
- If something will be shipped for this payment, choose the Shipping address option to expand the shipping address fields.
- Enter the order information in the appropriate fields.
- Review the information shown in the Order Preview section.
- Click Place Order. We process your transaction immediately.
- (Optional) Click Cancel if you need to clear all information from the page.
Standard order.
The Standard order option captures all the information required for payment processing and includes some optional additional fields not included with Quick orders.
· Order information.
o Optional fields (set to zero by default):
§ Tax rate - Enter the sales tax rate for the transaction. The tax amount is calculated as a percentage.
§ Shipping amount - Enter the shipping or postage charges.
§ Apply tax on shipping – Check this box if the shipping or postage charges should be subject to the entered tax rate.
§ Invoice ID – A unique, alpha, numeric, or alphanumeric value to prevent accidental payments (by blocking duplicate invoice IDs).
§ PO number - A purchase order number associated with the transaction.
§ Order description – Provides details about the transaction for future reference. You can use this information later to search for the transaction.
· Billing information:
o Enter your customer’s card details.
· Billing address:
o Optional fields:
§ Phone number.
§ Email address: If the customer’s email address is entered, you can use it to send PayPal-branded email receipts to customers when their transactions have completed successfully.
· Shipping information:
o No shipping – Default. Select if you're not shipping anything for this transaction.
o Billing address – Select if the billing and shipping addresses are identical.
o New address – Select if the billing and shipping addresses aren't the same. This option displays the shipping address fields where you enter the shipping address information.
- Enter the order information in the appropriate fields.
- Review the information shown in the Order Preview section.
- Click Place Order. We process your transaction immediately.
- (Optional) Click Cancel if you need to clear all information from the page.
Recurring payment.
The Virtual Terminal Recurring payment option allows you to set up a payment profile, billing your customers at regular intervals.
· Profile information:
o Product/service – enter the name of the Product/service.
o Profile reference – an optional field you can use for this profile. This information can be used to search for a profile.
· Regular recurring payments:
o In this section, you enter the amount, the number of recurring payments, and the payment cycle.
o Optional fields:
§ Shipping and tax amounts.
· Billing Information:
o Enter your customer’s card details.
· Billing terms:
o Enter the profile start date and choose the currency from the drop-down.
· Billing address:
o Enter your customer’s Billing address.
o Optional fields:
§ Phone number.
§ Email address: If the customer’s email address is entered, you can use it to send PayPal-branded email receipts to customers when their transactions have completed successfully.
· Shipping information:
o No shipping – Default. Select if you're not shipping anything for this transaction.
o Billing address – Select if the billing and shipping addresses are identical.
o New address – Select if the billing and shipping addresses aren't the same. This option displays the shipping address fields where you enter the shipping address information.
· Failed payment settings:
o Choose how many failed payments to allow and whether to add any failed payments to the next billing cycle.
· Trial period payments:
o Select this option if you want to set up a recurring charge for a trial offer to your customers.
· One-time transaction:
o You can optionally submit a one-time payment for a new profile, such as a setup fee. This will be added to the price of the first payment in the profile.
- Enter the profile information in the appropriate fields.
- Click Continue to review the profile.
- Click Submit if the information is correct.
- Clicking Update or Cancel will allow you to go back and amend the profile.