Handpoint terminal

What the Handpoint terminal is

The Handpoint terminal is a PAX A920 smart terminal: a touchscreen card reader with a built-in receipt printer that connects over Wi-Fi or cellular. It takes chip (insert), contactless (tap, including Apple Pay and Google Pay) and swiped cards. The card is read on the device, so card data never passes through your computer or through Merchant360.

It works two ways. Pushed: you ring up the sale in Merchant360, in the Handpoint terminal page, and the amount appears on the device for the customer to pay. Standalone: staff type the amount on the terminal itself and take the card, with no computer involved. Either way the sale lands in your Merchant360 transactions.

The pushed flow fits any counter where the back office does the ringing up: a medical or dental front desk collecting a copay or an open invoice, an auto repair shop closing out a work order, a law office taking a retainer, a showroom, a parts counter. The person at the desk enters the amount or picks the invoice on their screen, and the customer pays on the terminal in front of them.

Because the card is present, these sales process at card-present rates, and the customer confirms the amount on the device before paying.

Push a sale from Merchant360

Open Take Payments → Handpoint Terminal. The page lists the terminals connected to your account; the one marked default is preselected. Enter the amount, add an optional reference such as an order or ticket number, and press Send Sale to Terminal.

Merchant360 shows Waiting for the cardholder while the sale is on the device. The customer inserts, taps or swipes; if tipping is turned on for your reader the device asks for the tip first, and some cards ask for a signature on the screen. The result comes back to your screen in a few seconds: Sale approved with the card brand, last four digits and the amount, or the decline reason.

If the customer walks away or the amount was wrong, press Cancel on terminal. The sale is cancelled on the device and nothing is charged. A cancelled push is recorded as cancelled, not as a decline.

Sales pushed from Merchant360 wait about three minutes for the customer. If nobody presents a card in that time the page times out; the terminal returns to its ready screen and you can send the sale again.

1. 1Go to Take Payments → Handpoint Terminal.
2. 2Pick the terminal if your account has more than one. Press Refresh if a terminal you expect is not listed; it has to be switched on and online.
3. 3Enter the amount. Add a reference if you want it on the transaction.
4. 4Press Send Sale to Terminal and hand the customer the device or turn it to face them.
5. 5The customer taps, inserts or swipes. The approval or decline shows on your screen and on the terminal.

Pay an open invoice on the terminal

When a customer is at the counter to pay an invoice, you do not retype the balance. Pick the customer in the Customer field on the Handpoint terminal page; the Apply to open invoice list fills with their unpaid invoices and the balance due on each. Choose the invoice and the amount is prefilled with its balance and the reference reads Invoice followed by the number.

On approval the invoice is marked paid, the payment is recorded against it, and a receipt is emailed to the customer on file. The sale shows up on Money → Transactions and on the invoice itself. If the customer is paying part of the balance, change the amount before sending; the invoice keeps the remaining balance open.

Picking a customer without an invoice still helps: the receipt goes to that customer's email automatically, and the sale is tied to their record.

1. 1On the Handpoint terminal page choose the customer in Customer (optional).
2. 2Choose the invoice in Apply to open invoice. The amount and reference fill in.
3. 3Adjust the amount for a partial payment if needed.
4. 4Press Send Sale to Terminal. The customer pays on the device.
5. 5On approval the invoice is marked paid and the customer's receipt is sent.

Dual pricing and tips on the terminal

If your account runs dual pricing, the amount you type on the Handpoint terminal page is the cash price. The page shows the card price beside it, and the card price is what goes to the device. Every card that pays on the terminal pays the card price, including debit cards: the device cannot tell card type before the tap, so the debit-as-cash option that applies to keyed and online payments does not apply here.

A surcharge program cannot apply on the terminal for the same reason, so the terminal shows one price and no surcharge line.

Tipping is a setting on the reader itself. When it is on, the device asks the customer for a tip before reading the card, with suggested amounts and a custom option. The tip shows on the transaction as a separate line and on the receipt.

Receipts

The terminal has a built-in printer. For a sale taken on the device itself, the approval screen offers Print customer receipt, Print merchant receipt and Send digital receipt, and a paper receipt is ready in a second or two.

Merchant360 keeps its own copy. The Last terminal transaction panel under the sale form shows the most recent sale of the day with Email receipt, Text receipt and Print receipt. Email and Text prefill the customer's address or mobile number when the sale was tied to a customer; Print opens a printable receipt in a new window for your office printer.

When you picked a customer before sending the sale, the receipt is emailed to them automatically on approval. Older sales are on Money → Transactions; open one to resend its receipt.

Void or refund a terminal sale

The Last terminal transaction panel has one button, Void / Refund. Merchant360 chooses the right action: a full amount reversed within 24 hours and before the batch closes is a void, so the charge never settles and never appears on the customer's statement. Anything else, a partial amount or a later reversal, is a refund back to the same card. If a void is refused or declined, the refund runs in its place. Large reversals may ask for a texted security code.

The prompt shows how much is left to reverse. Leave it as is for the full remaining amount or type a smaller amount for a partial refund. A sale that was already fully reversed shows Already reversed.

The same Void / Refund control is on Money → Transactions on the sale's row and on its detail page. The detail page shows the amount charged, the tip, what has been refunded, the net after refunds, and lists each refund with its date.

The customer does not need to be present and the card does not need to be tapped again for a void or a refund started from Merchant360.

1. 1On the Handpoint terminal page find the sale under Last terminal transaction, or open it on Money → Transactions.
2. 2Press Void / Refund.
3. 3Confirm the full amount or type a partial amount.
4. 4Read the result: Voided. The charge will not settle, or Refunded to the card.

Standalone: take a sale on the device

The terminal does not need Merchant360 open to take a payment. On the device, type the amount on the keypad and press Charge; the customer taps, inserts or swipes, and the terminal prints or sends the receipt. This is the mode for a counter with no computer, a mobile cart, a delivery, or a busy line where staff take the card first and reconcile later.

Every standalone sale is reported into Merchant360. Merchant360 reads the terminal's activity from Handpoint and lists each sale on Money → Transactions with the source Handpoint, the amount, tip, card brand and last four, the terminal serial number and the approval code. Sales taken on the device appear within a few minutes; press Refresh on the Transactions page if you are waiting on one. Refunds and reversals done on the device are reported the same way.

The transaction detail page for a terminal sale shows the amounts, the card, the terminal serial, the batch, and the customer and invoice when the sale was pushed from Merchant360. Standalone sales have no customer attached; you can still resend a receipt from the detail page.

The device also has its own reports: end-of-day totals and transaction history on the terminal, under the reports icon on its home screen.

Custom payment fields on the reader

If you record something with every sale, a patient ID, a work order number, a technician, add it as a custom payment field and turn on its Card reader surface under Billing Tools → Settings → Custom payment fields. The field then shows below the amount on the Handpoint terminal page. Required fields must be filled before the sale can be sent.

The values are kept on the transaction record in Merchant360; nothing is sent to the terminal. They show on the transaction detail page and on the Transactions board, and export with your reports.

Name your card readers

Handpoint knows your readers by serial number. The Card readers card under Billing Tools → Settings lists every reader on your account and lets you give each one a name and a location, so a front desk with three terminals picks Front desk, Exam room 2 or Parts counter instead of a ten-digit serial. The name shows wherever a reader is chosen: the Handpoint Terminal page, the register, the payment extension, the embedded terminal, Team device access and the reader's line on a transaction.

The card also holds the default. The default reader is preselected on the Handpoint Terminal page and is the one an integration charges when it does not name a reader. Each row shows the serial, the model and when Handpoint last listed the reader; a reader Handpoint is not listing right now stays on the card with its name so nothing is lost while it is powered off.

Names are yours; they are never sent to Handpoint or printed on receipts. Clearing both fields and saving puts the reader back to its serial.

1. 1Go to Billing Tools → Settings and find the Card readers card in the Payments group.
2. 2Type a name and, if it helps, a location for each reader, then press Save on that row.
3. 3Press Make default on the reader most sales should go to.
4. 4If a reader is missing, power it on and connect it, then press Refresh from Handpoint.

Who can use the terminal

Access to the Handpoint terminal page is a tool on each team member's row under Team: Handpoint terminal (card present). Clerks and above can have it. Register-only staff cannot reach the back office through it.

For a business with several terminals, each person with terminal access either chooses any terminal at charge time or is locked to one specific reader, picked by the name you gave it on the Card readers card. A locked person only ever sees their device in the terminal picker, so a front-desk login always charges on the front-desk reader.

Getting a terminal

If your account does not have a terminal yet, the Handpoint Terminal page reads Add a card reader. When your sales office allows it, you order the reader on that page: pick the device, confirm the shipping address, and place the order. After the device ships, EPI activates it on your account and the sale form unlocks on this page. When orders go through your sales office, the page shows the office's phone and email instead.

The terminal arrives ready to use: power it on, connect it to Wi-Fi or let it use its cellular connection, and it shows Ready to process payments. Merchant360 lists it in the terminal picker as soon as it is online.

EPI Support is at (800) 966-5520 for an order, an activation, or a terminal that is not connecting.

The terminal in other tools

The reader is available wherever Merchant360 takes a payment. The payment extension for Chrome and Edge shows Send to card terminal when your account has a reader, so a sale started in another program goes to the device. The embedded terminal offers a device mode for the same reason. Mindbody sales show Charge on terminal.