Payment
What is a payment gateway service provider?
What is an internet merchant account?
What is a discount rate?
What is an eCheck?
What payment gateways work?
Why does my 2Checkout payment not update FreshBooks?
Why does my PayPal payment not update FreshBooks?
What is recurring billing?
What is the best way to deal with NSF payments?
A Payment Gateway Service Provider grants you access to the technology that permits online transactions. In partnership with an Internet Merchant Account Provider, a Payment Gateway conducts transactions with financial institutions. Your Payment Gateway Service Provider is responsible for the credit card information that your clients submit online and they are specialists in the storage and security of that information. In other words, neither your company, nor FreshBooks, stores or is responsible for sensitive credit card information - a task best left in the hands of these industry specialists.
An Internet Merchant Account Provider is a financial institution who acts on behalf of credit card companies. In most cases, an Internet Merchant Account Provider will have a primary relationship with one credit card company (for example with VISA or MasterCard), but be fully accredited to receive payments for other credit card companies.
Any merchant who accepts credit cards can tell you what a "discount rate" is, and many would suggest it's a misnomer. A discount rate is measured as a percentage of a transaction and it is actually a fee paid by merchants to merchant account providers. For example, say you are a merchant and you sell widgets and your merchant account provider charges you a "discount rate" of 2.5%. A customer comes to your website and buys a widget for $1,000.00 using her credit card. Your customer will be billed $1,000.00, but YOU WILL ALSO BE CHARGED $25.00 ($1,000.00 x 2.5 % = $25.00) for the privilege of being able to accept credit card payments. Discount Rates are very costly for many businesses and often this cost is passed onto consumers. Fortunately there is now an alternative to credit cards and discount rates online: the eCheck (see below).
eCheck stands for electronic check and they do not force merchants to incur "discount rate" charges. Typically eCheck transaction processing fees are higher (say $1.00 instead of $0.35 per transaction), but considering this is the only transaction fee charged (i.e. no discount rate), it makes eChecks an ideal solution for any transaction over roughly $50.00 and an ideal means of collecting online payment for service providers and suppliers.
You can use the following gateways with FreshBooks: Authorize.Net,
Landmark,
PayPal Payflow Pro,
Payment Processing,
iTransact,
LinkPoint,
PSiGate,
PayPal Pro,
PayPal,
2Checkout, and
Amazon Payments.
You need to have direct return within your 2Checkout account set to no and update your 2Checkout approved URL to:
https://www.secondsite.biz/2checkoutTransaction.php
For more information on how to do this in your 2Checkout account, see their website.
A common cause for this problem is that you have the auto-return option within your PayPal account turned on. This option needs to be set to off.
Recurring billing is a means by which your clients can automatically pay recurring invoices. For example, if you are invoicing a client every month for a service provided, that client can enter credit card information into your system so that every month when the invoice comes due, their card will be charged automatically. For more information about setting up recurring profiles, see the New Recurring Profile section. For more information about setting up recurring billing, see the
Auto-Billing section.
If you received payment from a client, entered it manually, then had it return as NSF, you may do the following to re-invoice your client with an optional fee:
- Click your "Invoices" tab.
- Click your white "Payment history" link at the top of your page.
- Click your blue "edit" link for the appropriate payment.
- Make the appropriate changes to your payment and save them.
- Edit the invoice in question and add a fee if you need to.
- Click your Save & Notify Client button at the bottom of your page.
Are we missing anything in our help manual? If so, please let us know by contacting us here.
You may also find additional help by visiting our support forum.
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