Acquire Terminals
Once you’ve set up the Card Present SDK, you’re ready to begin integrating Terminals and their associated API extensions into your user flow.
The Terminals API resource represents the physical terminal hardware and allows your merchants to securely process in-person payments via credit or debit.
To get started with testing and development, you’ll need a stage environment terminal, test cards, and an iOS device. A stage environment terminal and the test cards will be provisioned by WePay.
As a note, this guide refers to Card Present SDK functions generically. You can find the function itself in the Card Present SDK package.
Contact WePay to request terminal quantity and environment (i.e. STG, PRD). WePay currently supports VeriFone V400m and P400 models as our pre-certified terminals. Once you physically receive terminals, collect the model and serial numbers for later use.
VeriFone P400
Features:
- Contactless card reader (NFC)
- Mag stripe card reader
- Chip card reader
- External power supply
- WiFi and LAN connectivity
VeriFone V400m
Features:
- Contactless card reader (NFC)
- Mag stripe card reader
- Chip card reader
- External power supply
- WiFi and LAN connectivity
- Receipt printer
Ensure Merchant Readiness
A minimum set of onboarding data must be provided to WePay before a merchant can use a terminal. A simple way to see if a merchant is ready to use a terminal is to check that their Terminals Account capability is enabled. To do so, make a GET /accounts/{id}/capabilities API request for the merchant in question, and examine the boolean value for the terminals.enabled parameter.
Link Integrations
Partners leveraging WePay’s Link solution for merchant onboarding should remind merchants to visit their merchant dashboard and provide complete verification information along with bank account information for payouts. WePay will not allow merchants to order terminals before their onboarding information has been provided.
Clear Integrations
Partners leveraging WePay’s Clear solution for merchant onboarding must ensure that the merchant’s Terminal Capability is enabled. To determine the status of a merchant’s Terminal Capability, send a GET /accounts/{id}/capabilities request and examine the terminals.enabled parameter in the response.
If a merchant is not enabled for Terminals, the current_issues structure will outline why. Reasons will typically include incomplete onboarding.
For further details and Clear onboarding requirements, see Fulfill Capabilities and Verifications.
Due to the above prerequisite, it is recommended to block merchants from ordering terminals from you until they have fulfilled these requirements. If a POST /terminals request is sent before the merchant has provided the necessary information, the API will respond with an ACCOUNT CANNOT CREATE TERMINALS error.
Fulfill Merchant Orders
Once you physically have terminals, you can begin testing and development, and designing your user flow.
Link Integrations
Partners integrating WePay’s Link solution will not need to implement fulfillment. Merchants will order terminals directly through their Chase dashboard.
Clear Integrations
Partners integrating WePay’s Clear solution must design and implement the fulfillment user flow. This flow solves for merchants ordering and receiving their terminals. Only provide access to this flow once the merchant has met the above minimum requirements for using terminals.
You have a few options with regards to fulfilling merchant Terminal orders:
End User Referral
POS Portal will setup a custom-branded microsite where you direct merchants to place orders. POS Portal will then fulfill orders.
Contract Deployment
Merchants order terminals from you, the platform, and you in turn submit the order to POS Portal. POS Portal then manages fulfillment and logistics on your behalf.
Wholesale
You, the partner, completely manages fulfillment by obtaining terminals wholesale from POS Portal, and managing shipment and stock logistics for your merchants.
Regardless of the fulfillment process your platform implements, it’s important to record the merchant’s WePay Account ID along with the terminal’s model and serial numbers. These will be used for terminal onboarding.
Note
If a merchant receives a terminal which has not been onboarded and turns it on, they will receive an error on the Terminal stating “Downloading error; missing merchant data.”
Your platform can either:
- Standardize terminal options and disclose how the Terminal will work to merchants prior to ordering, OR
- Allow merchants to customize terminal options in your UI
The latter option should provide guidance for merchants regarding the customizable options. Read more about terminal configurations here. Additionally, if the configuration is ever updated, the terminal itself will also need to be updated before those changes are applied.
Supporting Hardware
All technical & device support is managed by POS Portal.
Link Integrations
You, the platform, are expected to provide support for all point of sale related questions.
WePay/Chase will provide end-user support for all terminal and payment related questions via:
- Chat
Clear Integrations
You, the platform, are expected to provide end-user (Tier 1) support for merchants. This includes all point of sale questions in addition to terminal and payment related questions.
WePay/Chase will provide support to your platform (Tier 2) for terminal and payment related questions.
Next Up: Onboard Terminals
Integrate terminals into your platform offerings.
- Configure terminals
- Onboard terminals
- Use and manage terminals
Questions? Need help? Visit our support page!