Payments & payouts

Overview

A merchant is who the money belongs to. It is not something callers ever reach: it is the payee record that your payment extensions charge on behalf of, and it decides where the money goes once a card has been charged.

Most accounts need exactly one merchant. Set up more than one when you collect for separate funds that have to be kept apart, such as a building fund and a kiddush fund.

In the sidebar it lives under Advanced → Merchants.

How It Works

1. You create a merchant and choose how its money is settled.
2. You create one or more payment extensions and point each at a merchant.
3. Callers pay. Every attempt is written to the charges log with the merchant's name on it.
4. Depending on the payout mode, the money either lands in your own Stripe account or is held for you on the platform until you ask for it.

Creating a merchant

Merchant

• Name (required) — What this payee is called, e.g. "My Donations". It appears on the charges log and in the Merchant picker on every payment extension.

Where the money goes

• Payout mode (required) — Choose one:
  • Hold in platform balance (default) — "we collect on your behalf, you request a payout when you want". Money accumulates as a held balance you can see on the merchants list, and you ask us for a payout.
  • Send directly to my Stripe — "funds settle in your own Stripe account". Nothing is held; each payment lands in your Stripe balance.
• Your Stripe Connector name — Only shown, and then required, when the mode is direct Stripe. This is the Stripe Connector name registered at the voice API that points at your Stripe account. Left blank it falls back to the platform default. If you do not know what to put here, ask support before switching to direct mode.

A merchant has no audio, no keypad settings and no routing. Nothing about it is played to a caller.

One thing your callers hear

If a merchant is not settling directly to its own Stripe account, callers are told before the card prompt: "Please note, this charge will appear on your card statement as CALLMAGIC." That line is there so nobody disputes a charge they do not recognize, and it disappears once you move to direct Stripe.

The merchants list

Drag the rows to reorder them. Deleted merchants can be restored from the Trashed filter.

Held balance is the sum of everything collected for this merchant in hold mode, minus anything refunded. In direct Stripe mode it stays at $0.00, because the money never passes through the platform. To request a payout of a held balance, contact support.

The Merchant Charges log

Every card attempt from every payment extension is recorded. Find it at Reports → Logs → Merchant charges (see Statistics, Logs & call traces), or see just one extension's charges on the Charges tab of that payment extension.

Switch hidden columns on from the column picker.

Filters:

• Status — Success, Failed, Pending, Refunded
• Merchant — searchable
• Payout mode — Held in platform, Direct Stripe
• Charged at — a From and Until date range

Refunds are handled by support, and a refund shows up here as a Refunded status and, in hold mode, as a deduction from the held balance.

Tips

• Name the merchant the way you want it on your own books, not the way callers think of it. Callers never hear it.
• One merchant is usually enough. Use separate payment extensions, all pointing at the same merchant, when you want separate amounts or separate greetings for the same fund.
• Check the charges log after your first live payment. A failed charge with a "Failure" reason tells you far more than a caller can.
• Filter by date before a report. The From / Until filter plus the Merchant filter gives you exactly one fund's takings for a month.