Virtual terminal

Take a card payment

The virtual terminal turns any browser into a card terminal. It's live once your card processing is active.

1. 1Go to Accept Payments → Virtual Terminal.
2. 2Enter the amount. A running total on the right shows any surcharge or tip that applies.
3. 3Type the card number (the brand is detected as you type), the expiration month and year, and the security code. When you move to the next field the middle card digits and the security code display masked, so no one glancing at your screen sees a full card – click back into the field to edit it. Every card form on the platform behaves this way.
4. 4Enter the billing ZIP. This is checked against the card for fraud protection and helps the charge approve.
5. 5Optionally add a description, and a buyer email to send the receipt automatically.
6. 6Click Charge. You see an approval with a transaction and authorization number, or a clear decline reason, in a second or two.

Save a card to the vault

1. 1Tick Save this card to vault before charging to keep it on file for future recurring or one-click charges.
2. 2The card is stored as a secure token; the full number never touches your systems, which keeps you PCI-compliant. If a customer record doesn't exist yet, saving the card can create one.
3. 3Saving the card is a safe add-on: if it ever fails, the sale still goes through, and you just won't have the card on file.

Surcharge & tips in the terminal

If your account runs a surcharge program, a banner reminds you it's active, and as you key the card the terminal shows a live Surcharge line and the new total. Debit cards are never surcharged, and the terminal detects that and drops the fee automatically. See the Surcharge & dual pricing chapter for the full picture.

If your business takes tips, a Tip field appears on eligible sales (it's hidden when a surcharge applies to that card). The tip is added before you charge.

Gift cards & loyalty in the terminal

When your account has gift cards or bank payments enabled, the terminal gains a mode bar at the top: Card/Check, Gift Card, and Loyalty.

Card/Check is the default. Gift Card gives you the full set of gift operations (redeem, check balance, add value, activate, and more), and Loyalty handles points.

Take a bank payment (eCheck)

If your account has bank payments enabled, switch the terminal to the Bank (eCheck) rail to move money straight from a bank account instead of a card. eCheck turns on once ACH is enabled for your account.

1. 1Choose the direction. Debit (collect) pulls money from the customer's account into yours; Credit (pay out) sends money from you to them.
2. 2Enter the amount and the bank details: the account holder's name, the routing number (the terminal shows which bank it belongs to), the account number, and the account type (business or personal, checking or savings).
3. 3Add an optional description, then submit. Bank payments settle on the ACH schedule, not instantly, so you'll follow them on the ACH Transactions page (see the Bank payments chapter).

Authorizing a bank debit

Before you can pull money from a customer's account, federal rules require their authorization. Credits (paying someone out) need no authorization, so they run without this step. For a debit, the terminal gives you two ways to authorize it.

1. 1Authorization on file: choose this when the customer has already signed an authorization. Selecting it is your attestation that you hold it, and you can attach the signed copy. Attaching is optional under $1,000 and required at or above it.
2. 2Email the customer to authorize: enter the customer's email and they receive a secure, no-login approval page. Nothing is debited until they approve, and the moment they do, the debit runs automatically. You don't have to come back and run it yourself.

Saved cards & charging a card on file

You can keep cards on file and charge them later without re-keying. Saving a card takes no charge – the card is securely tokenized (only a protected reference is stored, never the full number), so you can add one any time.

Manage them at Billing Accept Payments → Saved Cards: add a card, give it a nickname (handy when one customer has more than one card), mark a default, or remove one. Cards you save also show up wherever you pick a card to charge.

Cards your customers save through LeadConnector checkouts appear on the same page in their own LeadConnector wallet section: each row shows the card, a link to the LeadConnector contact it belongs to, and whether a subscription is billing it. You can remove one anytime – a card with an active subscription asks you to cancel the subscription in LeadConnector first, so a renewal never lands on a missing card.

1. 1Add a card: on the Saved Cards page click Add a card, enter the number, expiry, ZIP, an optional name and nickname, and save. No charge is made – the card is just stored for later.
2. 2Charge a card on file from the Virtual Terminal: open the Charge a saved card panel, then search. The list narrows as you type – find the card by the customer's name or email, or by the card's nickname or last 4. Pick it, and the card-entry fields disappear (no re-keying).
3. 3Enter the amount and press Charge Card. The saved card is charged; the customer gets the same receipt as any sale.
4. 4The same card picker appears on invoices (auto-charge), recurring plans and subscriptions, so a card saved once is reusable everywhere.

Void or refund a sale

Voids and refunds are not done in the terminal itself. You run them from the sale's transaction, so there's one clear record of what happened.

1. 1Go to Money → Transactions and open the sale.
2. 2If the batch hasn't settled yet, you'll see Void: it reverses the whole sale before any money moves, so the customer is never actually charged.
3. 3If the sale has already settled, you'll see Refund instead: refund the full amount or a partial amount, and the money goes back to the same card. The original card is retrieved securely, so you never re-key a number.
4. 4The same transaction page also lets you re-send or print the receipt, email it to a different address, add a tip, or adjust the captured total while the batch is still open. Large refunds and voids may ask for a texted security code.