How to set up automated payment processing for a small business
Setting up professional payment automation is blocked by poor vendor responsiveness and a lack of compatible Shopify gateway solutions for international stores. These roadblocks prevent businesses from moving away from manual cash and peer-to-peer apps like Venmo to a structured system.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
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- 1Manually calculating taxes and splitting funds, using cash and Venmo, or manually transferring funds into different bank accounts.Did this help you?
- 2Searching for independent gateway and processor solutionsDid this help you?
- 3Trying to contact payment gateway providers directly through contact forms or scraped phone numbers and emailsDid this help you?
- 4Using QuickBooks Online (QBO) for payment processing and recurring ACHDid this help you?
- 5Passing a 3% surcharge fee to clients who choose to pay by credit cardDid this help you?
- 6Setting up ACH directly through the bank and collecting signed ACH enrollment forms via DocuSignDid this help you?
- 7Reverting to older legacy pages and methods such as the EFT Bill Payment File Generation and Payment File Administration pages.Did this help you?
- 8Guessing which name or number to input on the setup formDid this help you?
- 9Searching online for independent reviews, case studies, or company backgroundDid this help you?
- 10Asking community forums for real user experiences and insightsDid this help you?
- 11Building a custom integration using AIDid this help you?
- 12Searching documentation for available add-ons and native integrationsDid this help you?
- 13Staying with Stripe despite higher cumulative stack costsDid this help you?
- 14Comparing line-item fees across different processors like Whop, Stripe, and interchange-plus alternatives like HelcimDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I've been using Stripe for payments, but I’m looking more seriously at Whop recently and I'm trying to understand if there's a reason to stay with Stripe at this point”source ↗
“We’re spinning up a new non-US store and I’m struggling to find a gateway solution that has a Shopify app.”source ↗
“I’ve tried Cybersource repeatedly via their contact form, phone numbers I found (I was told to leave a message), email addresses I scraped up and have zero response.”source ↗
“Mostly physical products, so margins are definitely part of why I’m looking at the fees more closely now”source ↗
“I keep looking for the Stripe feature I’d miss and so far there isn’t much for my setup”source ↗
“Our finance team tried it this morning, but there's no way to generate the necessary file to upload to the bank to make the payments.”source ↗
“I am confused when I went to set up Shopify payments.”source ↗
“for the Registered name,do I input my name or the trade name?”source ↗
“Also for the Registration number,do I use the 9 digit CRA Business number or the trade name registration number?”source ↗
“Hey all, I came across a payment method provider called Openpath as the only option to pay at checkout, and I can't find much real information about them outside of their own website.”source ↗
“Trying to figure out if this is a legit up-and-coming processor or something to steer clear of before I give them any business or account details.”source ↗
“I’m trying to stop manually chasing invoices every month. It’s a huge time sink, and I want to get an automated recurring payment flow going that won't chew through my margins.”source ↗
“Ideally, I want to keep everyone on ACH, but I always have 2 or 3 clients who push back hard if they can't use a card.”source ↗
“How do you deal with processors freezing cash on bigger payments? I’ve seen horror stories about larger invoices randomly triggering fraud flags or account holds.”source ↗
“Right now I take cash and venmo but I want something more professional and organized where it's done automatically.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3Why is business invoicing and deposit billing so messy?
- 2Why can't I set up electronic invoicing in the sandbox?
- 4How to set up customer payment plans without risking non-payment
- 3Why does paying vendor invoices take so much manual work?
- 3How do you set up a manual journal layout for budgeting and net worth?
- 4Why do invoice automation tools fail on minor text mismatches?