Description

Our WordPress plugin allows you to add a payment widget to your Wordpress / WooCommerce website that let's you take payments from your site instantly with a credit card or overnight with BPAY.

Please ensure you are using the latest version of the Pay Advantage WordPress plugin.

 

Connecting your account

Step 1. Install & Activate the Plugin

Install the plugin from your Wordpress admin page by searching and clicking the Install Now button.

 

Step 2. Install & Activate the Plugin

Before you start using the Pay Advantage Wordpress plugin on your site, it is a good idea to test and make sure everything is working the way you want it to. To do this you'll need to create and use a Sandbox account in Pay Advantage.

Login to your Pay Advantage account. On your Menu select Integrations > API > Sandbox. You can then create a sandbox account.

 

Note the username and password can be different to your normal Pay Advantage account credentials. These are used to access our Sandbox test environment (https://test.payadvantage.com.au/SignIn).

 

NOTE: Ensure your server php.ini file is configured with the parameter serialize_precision set to -1. This is often accessed through your cPanel server editor. 

serialize_precision = -1

 

Step 3. Connect to the Sandbox environment for testing

In your WordPress admin area go to Settings and then Pay Advantage. By default the selector for API Environment should be on Sandbox, if it isn't, change it.

 

Click the Connect button and login to Pay Advantage with your Sandbox account username and password. Using a sandbox account lets you test taking payments without having to use real card data.

Finish connecting the app to your Pay Advantage account and you can begin testing the widgets on your Wordpress website. The connection name is a reference you can set to distinguish if you have multiple Wordpress sites connected to one Pay Advantage account.

 

Step 4. Connect to your live account

When you are finished testing and ready to use your live environment for taking payments, follow the same steps above but ensure the Environment is set to Live.

 

Click the Connect button and login to Pay Advantage with your accounts username and password. This will let customers and visitors make payments on your Wordpress site and send payment information to Pay Advantage.

Finish connecting the app to your Pay Advantage account and start taking payments.

 

Widgets and WooCommerce integration

Register new customers and generate a BPAY reference

This is particularly useful if you want to add an easy way for your customer's to generate BPAY details for themselves, so that they can send you payments.

This option is enabled via the use of a WordPress widget. You can implement this widget on any widget area, post or page. You won't need much knowledge of widgets to get this working on your site, but if you want more information please see this article.

When added to the site, the customer will see a widget like this (styled according to your theme):

Once they fill the form and press "Register", they will be shown something similar to this:

From here they will be able to use the Biller Code and Ref numbers to make payments to you. They will also be sent an email with their BPAY details.

To add the widget to your WordPress website Click "Settings → Pay Advantage". Ensure that you are connected, and choose the widget you want to turn on.

You can customise the widget with additional options on this page. Press "Save Changes". Navigate to "Appearance" → Widgets. Add the widget "Pay Advantage - Generate BPAY Reference" anywhere you like (for example in your sidebar). For instructions on how to use Widgets please see this article. 

You can add an optional Title that will appear above the widget on your page if you would like. 

You can adjust your settings anytime in "Settings → Pay Advantage". You should now be able to see the widget on your page wherever the widget area is visible.

 

Let customers pay any amount from a credit card 

This option is very useful if you would like to take donations from your website. You can add a widget on your page which allows users to make payments on your website.

 

To add the widget to your WordPress website:

1. Click "Settings → Pay Advantage". Ensure that you have your API username and password entered in.
2. You can customise the widget with additional options on this page. The description is what will show up on the payment.
3. Press "Save Changes"
4. Navigate to "Appearance" → Widgets
5. Add the widget "Pay Advantage - Take Credit Card Payment" anywhere you like (for example in your sidebar). For instructions on how to use Widgets please see this article. You can add an optional Title that will appear above the widget on your page if you would like. 
6. You can adjust your settings anytime in "Settings → Pay Advantage"

You should now be able to see the widget on your page wherever the widget area is visible.

 

WooCommerce Integration

One of the most powerful features of the plugin is its integration with WooCommerce, which allows you to take credit card payments (through your Pay Advantage account). This means that your payment system and inventory management software will be synced from the get-go.

 

Also, it is incredibly easy to set up! Below are the instructions to get this working in your own site. Ensure you have downloaded and activated the WordPress Plugin, and connected it to your account (see steps at start of help article) and have WooCommerce installed:

1. Navigate to "WooCommerce" → "Settings"
2. Click on the "Payments" tab at the top
3. Switch the "Enabled" toggle for "Pay Advantage" to "on"
4. Press "Manage" next to the Pay Advantage row
5. Connect to your Pay Advantage account
6. That's it!

Now you can start taking payments straight away. We will manage your payments and you will receive all of your receipts in your Pay Advantage account. It's as simple as that!

 

Troubleshooting

I've installed the plugin, but the checkout says no plugins are available

This errors occurs when your WordPress is using the block editor to create pages. To fix this you will be required to use the short code to display the checkout screen.

Go to the pages section of WordPress and create a new page to host the checkout screen.

Add a block of type shortcode in the blockeditor.

Type the following into the shortcode text section. Then save and load the checkout page and you will see the ability to receive payment via the PayAdvantage plugin. 

 

This error arises when utilizing the block editor in WordPress to create pages. To resolve this issue, it is necessary to use a shortcode block to embed the checkout screen with PayAdvantage as the payment option.

1. Navigate to the WordPress pages section and generate a new page dedicated to hosting the checkout screen.
2. Insert a shortcode block in the block editor.
3. Input the following code into the shortcode text section, then save and load the checkout page. Now you have the capability to accept payments through the PayAdvantage plugin.

 

[WooCommerce_Checkout]

WordPress Failures

Any failures encountered by the plug in are logged to the lower section of the Pay Advantage config screen. Located "Settings → Pay Advantage". 

These errors will explain any issues that the plugin is experiencing. This is the a great place to begin troubleshooting.

 

Steps:

1. Verify the WordPress version and WooCommerce versions are supported by the Pay Advantage plug in. To find supported versions, view the change log on the WordPress plug-in https://wordpress.org/plugins/pay-advantage/#developers
2. Ensure you have the latest version of the plug-in installed https://wordpress.org/plugins/pay-advantage/
3. Verify you are connecting to the right environment. Sandbox is used for testing and Live is used to take customers credit card payments. Review step 3 above.
4. Ensure the php.ini file has the setting: serialize_precision = -1
5. Disable any other plug-ins installed to limit testing to WordPress, WooCommerce and Pay Advantage only. This ensures other 3rd Party plug-ins are not affecting the Pay Advantage plug-in.
6. If disabling the other plugins doesn't work, create a brand new WordPress installation with WooCommerce and Pay Advantage and test in a contained environment.