Setting up your own payment gateway for invoices
What a business must set up before customers can pay its invoices online: its own merchant account, an administrator, a tested connection and pay links.
By Achekam · · 5 min read · For Running a business businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Customers pay faster when paying is easy. An invoice with a "pay now" link that opens a card or mobile-money page asks far less of the customer than one that sends them to their online banking to type in your account details. What they are less sure about is what has to be in place before the first link can go out.
The short answer is that the payment account is yours, not Achekam's. Achekam connects your invoices to a payment gateway you have signed up with, records what is paid and puts it in your books. This article walks through the set-up in order, with the differences for South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya.
Your own merchant account and keys
Achekam is not the merchant of record. Each business collects through a gateway it has set up with its own merchant account, and enters its own keys. Without a gateway, there is no pay link.
Which gateways you can use depends on your country:
| Country | How customers can pay |
|---|---|
| South Africa | PayFast, Ozow, Peach Payments, Stripe, Flutterwave, Paystack, and direct bank EFT |
| Nigeria | Paystack or Flutterwave, or bank transfer marked paid by a person |
| Kenya | M-Pesa, Pesapal, Paystack, Flutterwave or Peach, or bank transfer |
The currency of the invoice matters too. A naira invoice can be paid online through Paystack or Flutterwave or by bank transfer, and a shilling invoice through M-Pesa, Pesapal, Paystack, Flutterwave, Peach or bank transfer. A gateway that does not settle the invoice's currency is refused.
Start by opening a merchant account with the gateway that suits your customers, and complete its own verification. Once the gateway has approved you, it gives you the keys Achekam needs.
Who may save gateway settings
A workspace administrator enters the business's gateway credentials in Settings, under Payment Gateways & Checkout. Other users can view the settings but cannot save them. Saved secrets are shown only as set, or by their last four characters, so nobody can read a full key back off the screen.
If your accounting firm works in your books with bookkeeping access, it can do the accounting but cannot manage your payment gateways. That keeps control of where your customers' money goes with the business.
Testing the connection
After entering the keys, the administrator can test the connection with a real call to the gateway. Do it before the first invoice goes out. A failed test often means a key was copied incompletely, or that test keys and live keys have been mixed up, and it is far better to find that out than to have a customer find it for you.
Extra steps for M-Pesa in Kenya
To take M-Pesa in production, a Kenyan business must complete Safaricom's Go-Live for its short code and enter its own production short code, passkey and Daraja keys. Once that is done, a business can send an M-Pesa payment prompt to a customer's phone for a shilling invoice, to its paybill or Buy Goods till, and the payment is confirmed with Safaricom before it counts. Only whole shillings are requested, so any cents stay due on the invoice. Safaricom's Daraja page on M-Pesa Express explains how the payment prompt works, how to test it in the sandbox and the go-live steps for a paybill or till.
Pay links on issued invoices
With a gateway in place, a business can create a payment link for an issued customer invoice, copy it, or e-mail it with the invoice. The customer pays on a public page that shows your business's name and branding.
A few rules apply. There is no link for a draft or a voided invoice. A link lasts 14 days by default, and the business can set anything from 1 to 720 hours. If an open link already exists for the same amount, it is reused rather than duplicated.
How payments reach your books
A verified gateway payment is recorded as a receipt against the invoice, debiting that gateway's clearing account and crediting trade receivables, and the invoice shows as paid or part-paid. The amount is checked against what the link asked for, and a repeated notification never pays an invoice twice.
For M-Pesa, Paystack and Pesapal, a payment whose notification never arrived is still picked up, because the server asks the provider about open payments on a schedule and while the pay page is open.
When the gateway pays the money out to your bank, record the payout against that gateway's clearing account with its fees. This can be done by hand or, for Paystack and Flutterwave, from their own payout lists. The clearing account should come back to nothing once every payout and fee is recorded.
Bank transfer as the fallback
Not every customer will pay by card or mobile money. The pay page can also show your bank details and a payment reference. When the money shows on your bank statement, a staff member marks the payment received. Each bank account takes one currency, so set up a separate account record for each currency you collect in.
What a gateway will not do
Achekam never charges a customer automatically. There are no saved cards or debit orders, and the credit-control reminder e-mails carry no pay link. If you want a customer to pay online, send the invoice with its link.
A set-up checklist
- Choose a gateway that works in your country and settles your invoice currency.
- Open and verify a merchant account with it.
- Have your administrator enter the keys and run the connection test.
- In Kenya, complete Safaricom's Go-Live before relying on M-Pesa.
- Send one small real invoice with a pay link to yourself and pay it.
- Check the receipt and the clearing account, then record the payout when it arrives.
For how gateway clearing accounts work in a busy business, see online payments and clearing accounts. Deposits taken by pay link are covered in fee deposits by pay link, and collecting in naira in collecting naira payments.
Pick your gateway this week and get the merchant account application started; the verification is often the slowest part.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
