Paytia sits in the middle of a live phone call to securely capture card details — without your staff hearing or seeing sensitive data. To make that work, your phone system needs a way to send calls to Paytia and receive them back. There are seven ways to do this, depending on how your business handles calls today.
This guide walks through each pattern — four for inbound calls, three for outbound — so you can see which one matches your setup, what you'll need to check, and how the compliance pieces fit together.
7
Call-flow patterns
Level 1
PCI DSS certified
0
Card data in your business
Weeks
Typical go-live
Inbound calls — customers calling you
When a customer dials your number, you decide how early in the journey Paytia sits. The earlier it sits, the simpler the agent experience tends to be — but the later patterns give you more control over which calls go to Paytia and which don't.
Your telecom carrier sends calls directly to Paytia before they ever reach your phone system. The customer dials your number, the network forwards to Paytia, and Paytia answers and routes the call or takes payment. It can then pass the call to your team.
Once it's in place, agents don't need to do anything differently — the call arrives at their desk already having passed through Paytia. It suits businesses that want Paytia involved on every inbound call, including internal transfers and direct-dial numbers. You'll need your carrier to support call forwarding over PSTN or SIP, and to be comfortable with Paytia handling calls at the very entry point.
Your PBX or cloud phone system forwards the call to Paytia as soon as it arrives — before any menus play or agent queues kick in. The flow is: customer calls your number → your phone system → Paytia for payment → call returned to your system or agent.
This keeps your routing logic inside your own phone system rather than at carrier level, which many established contact centers prefer because they want to stay in control of call flows. You'll need your PBX or cloud system to support call forwarding or configurable routing rules at the entry point.
The customer reaches your IVR menu and actively chooses to go to Paytia — typically by pressing the key for payments. Your IVR routes that call to Paytia, which handles the full payment capture without involving an agent at all.
This is the standard pattern for self-service payments — customers who just need to pay a bill can do it without waiting for an agent, which reduces your team's workload. Your IVR needs to support routing to an external number, and the menu wording needs to be clear enough that callers know the option is there. You'll also want to confirm that callers who choose payment can't bypass the IVR to reach a payment agent directly.
The agent speaks to the customer as normal. When it's time to take payment, they either transfer the call to Paytia or add Paytia as a third party via conference. Paytia securely captures the card details, then the call can return to the agent. The agent stays involved throughout the conversation — they just never hear the card number. This is the Agent Capture Assist model.
This pattern suits contact centers where payment is only part of the call — the agent handles the enquiry and brings Paytia in only when needed. Your phone system needs to support blind transfer or three-way conferencing, and your agents need a straightforward process they can follow consistently. This service can run over PSTN call forwarding or SIP integration with Paytia — your account team will advise which suits your existing setup.
Outbound calls — your team calling customers
If your team calls customers to collect payment — follow-up calls, scheduled renewals, debt recovery — these three patterns cover everything from a quick PSTN dial-through to a fully integrated IP connection.
You call Paytia's assigned number (a DDI), enter your User ID, and Paytia automatically connects you to the customer. No system integration is required — just a phone and a Paytia account. It's the lowest-lift starting point for outbound teams, and no IT work is needed to get going.
Log into Paytia, click to call the customer, and speak via a headset connected to your browser. The whole call runs through the browser — no phone hardware, no changes to your phone system. It's particularly practical for remote or hybrid teams who can't use a desk phone.
Your phone system connects directly to Paytia over IP — via a SIP trunk or IP-to-IP connection. Calls flow between your system and Paytia automatically, without manual dialling or transfers. This is the fully integrated option for larger businesses with an established telephony estate they want to keep.
A quick rule of thumb: if you're a small team that just needs to call customers, Pattern 05 is the lowest lift. Working remotely with no desk phones? Pattern 06. Running a contact center with an established SIP estate? Pattern 07.
Whichever pattern you choose, these four checks decide whether your setup is genuinely PCI DSS compliant on day one — and whether the experience is smooth for agents and customers once you're live.
Consideration A · PCI DSS
When a customer keys their card number, those keypad presses produce DTMF tones. Paytia intercepts and securely captures those tones — but your phone system may still be recording the call independently. You need to confirm that recording is either paused during the payment window, or that your system uses DTMF suppression or channel separation to keep those tones out of the recording. This is the most important single check before you go live.
Consideration B · Policy
You'll need to decide how you handle recording around the payment moment. Some businesses pause and resume recording during the Paytia window; others rely on Paytia's secure capture method to keep card data out of the recording entirely. Either approach works — the goal is the same: no sensitive card data stored on your systems or in your recordings.
Consideration C · Routing
If Paytia needs to return the call to an agent after payment — which it typically does — your system needs to ensure someone is reachable. Your ACD, hunt groups, or queue routing needs to handle the returning call cleanly. Customers shouldn't be left waiting with no one to speak to after they've just handed over their card details.
Consideration D · UX
Think about where in the call payment happens — before the customer speaks to an agent, during the conversation, or at the end. Also think about who controls that moment: the IVR, the agent, or Paytia itself. A simple flow works best. The more handoffs there are, the more points there are for calls to drop or customers to hang up before payment completes.
Yes — that's exactly the point of the seven patterns. Whether you use a cloud phone system, an on-premise PBX, a carrier divert, or want to call customers from a browser without any phone hardware, there's a pattern that works without rebuilding what you already have.
Not necessarily. With the agent-triggered pattern (Pattern 04), the agent can stay involved throughout. They either transfer the customer to Paytia for payment capture and then receive the call back, or conference Paytia in as a third party so everyone's on the line. Which approach suits you depends on what your phone system supports — blind transfer, attended transfer, or three-way conferencing.
When the customer keys their card number, those keypad presses produce DTMF tones. Paytia intercepts and securely captures those tones. If your phone system also records the call independently, you'll need to either pause recording during the payment window or use DTMF suppression — we check this with you before you go live, because it's the single most important compliance step.
WebRTC (Pattern 06) lets your team make outbound calls directly from a browser — no phone hardware, no changes to your phone system. SIP integration (Pattern 07) connects your existing phone system to Paytia over IP so calls flow automatically between your system and ours without manual dialling. WebRTC is quicker to set up; SIP is the better fit for larger teams with an established telephony estate that they want to keep.
First, confirm your call recording won't capture card data during payment — via pause-and-resume or DTMF suppression (Consideration A). Second, decide your recording policy going forward (B). Third, make sure agents are reachable via your ACD, hunt group, or queue when Paytia returns a call after payment (C). Fourth, think through where in the call payment happens and who controls that moment — IVR, agent, or Paytia (D). We run through all four with you during set up.
Most setups take a few weeks. That covers the call-flow design, any changes needed on your carrier or phone system side, testing, and the recording checks. How long depends mainly on how quickly your telephony or IT team can make the routing change — the Paytia side is generally straightforward.
Want to talk through which pattern fits your setup? Get in touch, or see how Paytia works with specific phone systems and platforms.
Tell us how your phones work today and we'll map your setup to one of these seven patterns, walk through the call-flow design, and get you live within a few weeks.
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