GetPaid PayPal PayFlow Payments

A fraud filter can also stop good sales

You turn on a filter that holds orders above a certain amount. It may block what it should and also your best customer of the month, over a large purchase. If you do not watch it first, the first news may be a stalled order nobody is looking at.

A fraud filter is worth watching at work before you let it decide, and Payflow lets you set it to observe real payments without acting on them.

PayPal Payflow Payment Gateway is the addon that adds Payflow to GetPaid, the invoicing and payments plugin for WordPress. Its purpose is to take payment on your site without sending the customer to the gateway's website. It brings its own setting for that decision: Fraud Management Filters.

Settings it adds to GetPaid

The addon creates a section under GetPaid, Settings, Payment Gateways, PayPal Payflow Payments:

• Activate: turns the gateway on.
• Checkout Title and Checkout Description: the name of the option at checkout and optional text below it.
• Priority: where it ranks against your other gateways.
• Enable Sandbox: test mode to confirm everything works.
• Credentials: Partner, Vendor, Username and Password, duplicated for testing and for production.
• Fraud Management Filters: sets whether a flagged order proceeds as usual or is held for review.

Partner is the ID of the authorized PayPal reseller, and it stays blank if you bought directly from PayPal. Vendor is your merchant login ID. Username is only needed if you created additional users for Payflow.

Filters in observe mode before activating them

Filters are configured in PayPal Manager, not in WordPress, and they have three modes:

• Test: they run against test servers, with no per-transaction fee, and let you tune them calmly.
• Observe: they screen real transactions, mark what they would have done and let all of them process, with the per-transaction fee of the live servers.
• Active: they apply the configured action.

Filters include Total Purchase Price Ceiling, AVS Failure and Velocity. They are a PayPal subscription service, Basic or Advanced, and require a business based in the United States.

A store selling at high amounts can deploy its filters in Observe for a while, see which orders the price ceiling would have stopped and then adjust the figure. Flagged transactions appear under Reports, Fraud Protection, Fraud Transactions. In Active, those left in review are accepted or rejected. Test this path with your own account before moving to Active, because the order's behavior in GetPaid depends on the option you choose in the addon.

Conditions for taking payment with Payflow

• Required account: the addon needs a PayPal account with Payflow. PayPal Payments Pro runs on Payflow Gateway.
• Review: a held order needs someone to look at it. While in review, the transaction does not settle.
• Sandbox: while it is on, real payments do not come in, so it has to be turned off when you finish.
• Recurring charges: its features do not include subscriptions. If you sell plans, check this in the sandbox.

Connecting the account and making the first test charge

You need GetPaid active in WordPress and a Payflow account.

1. Install and activate the addon.
2. Open GetPaid, Settings, Payment Gateways, PayPal Payflow Payments.
3. Check Activate and write the title and description for checkout.
4. Fill in the test credentials and check Enable Sandbox.
5. Choose what to do with flagged orders under Fraud Management Filters and save.
6. Make a payment with a PayPal test card.
7. Enter the production credentials and uncheck Enable Sandbox.

GetPaid gateways with payment on your site

If you prefer another card provider, Braintree Payment Gateway also takes payment from your site and brings the Fraud Tool field to choose the level of review. In Australia and other Asia-Pacific markets, look at eWAY Payment Gateway.

You can also compare with Square and Mollie.

Answers about PayPal Payflow Payment Gateway

Does the customer leave my site to pay?

No. Payment happens on your site.

I bought Payflow from a reseller. Does anything change?

Yes. Enter their ID in the Partner field.

Is a transaction in review an error?

No. It is a notice that the transaction is waiting for your decision.

Can I process with another bank?

Payflow Gateway accepts the major payment processors, while PayPal Payments Pro processes with PayPal.