How a PayID address gets built

When a customer pays you by PayID, we give them an address to pay to, a bit like an email address. This shows how that address is made, so you know what your customers will see.

The parts of a PayID

Here's an example PayID: p-smith01-hx42tq@pad.live

• smith01 is your reference, usually your customer's reference number.

• -hx42tq is the customer code. It's added so no two customers ever share a PayID.

• @pad.live is the domain. It's the same on all your PayIDs and is shown in your PayID settings.

• p- appears only on persistent PayIDs, which a customer keeps and can pay into again.

Your PayID Format

Your PayID Format decides what goes in the reference part of the address. There are three options.

To change your format, go to Payment settings → Payment methods, open PayID and pick a PayID Format. If your format is Unique, contact us to change it.

If a customer doesn't have a reference

On Customer reference or External ID, if the customer doesn't have that value saved, we use the next thing on this list instead:

1. The payment request code, when they pay a payment request. For example k3m9qa@pad.live.

2. The Xero invoice number, when they pay from a Xero invoice. For example inv-0042@pad.live.

3. A new random code, when neither applies. For example r8vw2n@pad.live.

Saving a reference on every customer means each customer always pays to the same PayID, which they can save in their banking app.

Examples

For a customer with customer code HX42TQ, on the Customer reference format:

One-off and persistent PayIDs

Persistent PayIDs are created through our API and need to be turned on for your account. Contact us if you'd like to use them.

Common questions

Why does my customer get the same PayID every time?

On Customer reference or External ID, the PayID is built from the customer's details, so it stays the same for every payment. That makes it easy for your customer to recognise and save. If they have multiple payment requests outstanding, only the latest payment request that has been opened will be available to pay into.

Some characters disappeared from the PayID. Why?

A PayID can only contain letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores, and it's always lower case. Anything else, like spaces, slashes or #, is removed. A reference of Smith & Co #7 becomes smithco7.

Why is the reference cut short?

A PayID can be at most 50 characters. If yours would be longer, we shorten the reference part and keep the customer code and domain.

If I change my PayID Format, do existing PayIDs change?

No. The new format applies to PayIDs created after the change. PayIDs your customers already have keep working as they are.

Can I use my own domain instead of pad.live?

Your PayIDs use pad.live unless you've arranged a custom domain, which is shown in your PayID settings. Custom domains are available at an additional cost. Contact support for details.