Getting started with Secure Virtual Terminal

This article outlines Secure Virtual Terminal functions and how to configure them.

It covers the following:

• Initial configuration
• Administration console orientation
• Managing payments
• Administering users and departments
• Configuring telephony
• Configuring the user payment screen
• Downloading reports and setting up alerts
• Managing subscriptions and billing
• Editing your profile

If you would like to learn how to use Secure Virtual Terminal to take payments read this: How to use Secure Virtual Terminal to take payments.

Initial configuration

When you first sign up to use the Paytia Secure Virtual Terminal, you will have been set up with a default configuration. This can be changed or augmented via the admin console.

Admin console orientation

When you login to the Secure Virtual Terminal as an administrator you will see the following screen.

The left-hand menu enables you to add to or change your configuration of:

• The payment accounts and gateways that you use to receive payments from customers
• Users of the system
• The telephone numbers you use to enable the service, and how calls are presented to your staff and your customers
• Your user payment screens — the customer and transaction information you wish to capture, use of address-verification services, and the customization of user prompts
• Reports and alerts
• Review and manage your Paytia service subscriptions

The main window of the admin console tells you the package or version of Secure Virtual Terminal that you're using and a summary of user activity.

The rest of this article will dive into each of the sections listed in the menu.

Managing payments

During the set up wizard you will have been asked to connect to your account with your payment service provider or bank. Here you can:

• Add more accounts
• Rename the displayed name for your account(s) — for example: "Main business account"
• Add additional payment service providers and accounts
•  Change the operating currency that you will collect payments in
• Change the operating country that your business will collect payments from (Any countries added here will appear automatically in the country dropdown fields in the Secure Virtual Terminal)

Administering users

Click on Users in the left-hand menu to change, add or delete users.

If you have available user licenses you will see the following screen.

Adding or deleting user licenses

If you wish to purchase more user licenses, click on the Buy Now button on the right. If you wish to delete unwanted user licenses, click on the corresponding button above.

Adding users

In the main panel you can add new users. If you are unsure of a given setup field, click on the help icon. Here is an explanation of some of the application-specific fields:

• Telephone: If a user has a specific phone number they are using for making and receiving calls, log it here so that Paytia will recognise it as a 'trusted' number.
• Three-digit user-security ID: You assign a number to your user. This is used by Paytia to identify users making payments. This is an added security and audit measure, which takes into account situations where you may have some users taking payments that do not have an email address.
• Department: Users are grouped into departments. A single default department called All is created for you at setup. You can edit this department or add more, by selecting Departments on the left-hand menu.
• User prompts: Paytia enables you to provide a department-specific user prompt that appears on the payment screen — for example, describing things that your user should explain to your customer when taking a payment. When you have assigned a user to a department, this drop-down enables you to select a prompt to assign to the user. A default prompt is setup when you onboard.

• Editing the details of an existing user: click on the action buttons alongside the user's name

Creating departments

Click on Departments in the left-hand menu to change, add or delete departments.

A default department called All is set up during initial onboarding.

Departments are logical user groups. They allow you to configure the following at a department level:

• User prompts
• Receipt of transaction reports
• Department phone number (optional) — recognised as a trusted number by Paytia
• Department email address for distribution of transaction reports — this defaults to the administrator's email address

Configuring telephony

Changing your secure-payment phone number

Here you can change the number to which Paytia connects incoming customer calls, and your primary number from which you will be calling customers.

Configuring call presentation

Here you can define what number your customer sees on their phone when you call them, and what number will appear on your phone when a call is made to you via Paytia.

• When you call customers, you can choose whether their phone displays your existing business number or your new Paytia-supplied payment number. (Default: they see your Paytia-supplied number)
• When customers call you and the call comes via Paytia, you can choose whether your phone displays their number or your Paytia-supplied payment number. (Default: their number is shown)

You can also change the language and gender of the Paytia Voice Assistant that guides your users and customers through the card-submission process when making a payment.

Configuring your user payment screen

You can configure the following attributes of your user payment screen to suit your business needs:

• The data-capture fields that are displayed
• Inclusion of address verification — an added security check offered by your payment service provider
• Customisation of user prompts
• Configuring pre-populated account-number prefixes
  

Customizing data capture

Your payment screen is preconfigured to capture basic transaction and customer details, including transaction and account references.

You can add fields and edit their names by clicking on Data-capture on the menu.

The information captured is recorded on the Paytia platform, also your Payment history, which can be accessed under Reports and alerts

Initiate address-verification system (AVS) check

The Address-verification section enables you to capture your customer-address information and invoke AVS checks with your payment service provider.

User prompts

Your payment screen is preconfigured with default user prompts. You can edit or add to these by selecting User prompts on the admin menu.

You can set up multiple prompts pertain to steps in the payment-taking process. You can also set up different prompts to reflect changes in user routines for handling incoming and outgoing calls.

Configuring pre-populated account-number prefixes

Select Format Account No.  under Configure User Screen.

Here you can create up to two pre-populated account-number prefixes in order to remove human error and to speed up data entry time when taking payments.

For example, our account number always start ACC (Account No. Section 1) then they continue either 001, 002, 003 or CC1 (Account No. Section 2).

The account numbers are then completed with alphanumeric per customer.

You can create these variations and link account numbers directly to the payment gateway nickname selected. 

Once created the Account number appears as the Partial Account number field on the user payment form.

Reports and alerts

Download payment history

Select Payment history  under Reports and alerts on the admin menu.

Use the payment-type — all, success, failed, pending — and date-range filters to return corresponding transaction details.

Amend what fields are shown on your report using Column visibility.

Export results to Excel using the Export button.

Download call history

Call history can be searched and downloaded in a similar way to transactions.

Daily transaction reports

A report of all transactions over the last 24 hours, is emailed to the administrator daily, by default.

This can be stopped by going to Departments under Administer users can and unticking Overnight Report. 

Note that overnight reports are generated by department. As part of your default set up, a single account-wide department is created, with a departmental recipient that is set to the administrator's email.

Real-time transaction alerts

By default, real-time transaction alerts are sent to the administrator and all users. In order to remove these untick the Realtime Receipt checkbox under Departments and Users. (For existing users, click on Edit option against the relevant user in the Action section.

Managing subscriptions and billing

Under Subscriptions and billing  you can:

• Upgrade your purchased package to an alternative edition of Secure Virtual Terminal
• Download invoices for your subscriptions and any add-on licenses you have purchased — e.g. for additional users or call minutes
• Stop subscriptions
• Update your payment-card details
• Delete your Paytia account

Upgrade your package

Go to Upgrade package and select your preferred upgrade option

Download invoices, stop subscriptions and update payment-card details

Select either Manage subscription or Invoices under Subscriptions and billing and the following page will open.

Select the relevant action buttons on the page. Note that for invoices pertaining to add-on licenses, click on the table tab, Add-on Licenses.

Editing your profile

If you wish to edit your contact details or update your password, simply click on the bottom option, My Profile, at the foot of the admin menu.