If you want to accept electronic payments, you've got to learn the ABCs of Payment APIs.

Presenting a basic understanding of this vital component of commerce software integration.

API stands for Application Programming Interface. It is a software interface that connects computers or other pieces of software to each other. This contrasts with a user interface connecting a computer to a person.

An API represents a set of rules, protocols, and tools that allow different software applications to communicate and interact. In other words, it is how separate computer programs manage to talk to one another.

There are different APIs, including web, operating systems, and library-based APIs. However, the one API every merchant needs to understand is payment APIs.
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Thanks to Payment APIs, we DON'T have a failure to communicate here.

From e-commerce giants to small startups, every business today requires the ability to accept payments efficiently and securely. Payment APIs, designed to facilitate electronic transactions between merchants and customers, make this possible.

Essentially, they are the intermediaries between a business and the payments processor that handles its transactions. Put another way, they are the bridge between a merchant's website and the system that handles the payment processing.
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Allowing developers to integrate third-party payment features in their web and platform designs.

Businesses need to be able to accept payments in all the ways customers make electronic purchases, whether credit cards, digital wallets, or even bank transfers. Payment APIs let developers design comprehensive payment applications that ensure payment processing is consistent, smooth, and secure while working across all commerce and operations platforms.
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What can payment APIs do for you? Lots of stuff.

Verifying Payments:
‍Payment APIs will validate the card payment data, replacing historically used zero-dollar authorizations that performed the same purpose.  A verification will also indicate whether a bank account is valid for ACH payments. Neither option will let you know whether funds are available.

Performing a Sale, Authorization, and Capture Payments:
‍Payment APIs will support a sale, authorization, and capture to enable money to move from the cardholder to the merchant. The choice of which depends on the when the goods or services will be delivered. Typically, a sale holds funds immediately if the good or service is provided simultaneously with the transaction. An authorization is used when a good or service is delivered later, and for credit cards, it places a hold on the funds available to a consumer. A capture request is sent within 28 days to complete the transaction and move money to the merchant.

Issue Voids and Refunds:
‍The API can reverse transactions using the payment API if a customer needs a refund or to void a transaction before batch settlement. Batch settlement occurs at the end of the day to initiate a day’s worth of transactions to be funded to the merchant and, at the same time, move the money from the cardholder.

Storing Payment Details:
‍APIs allow storage and tokenization of payment details for future transactions. Sensitive data can be replaced with its non-sensitive equivalent called a token. Payment APIs allow for the addition of this crucial safety feature.

Enabling Recurring Payments:
‍Businesses can use payment APIs to set up and manage recurring payments for subscriptions and other services.

Reduce PCI Compliance:
‍Payment APIs , paired with either a hosted checkout or iframed payment fields, will reduce the hassle of PCI Compliance.

Board a New Customer:
‍The Merchant Boarding API enables a Qualpay partner to board new merchants into our platform. This allows us to build a hierarchy of accounts and enable the configuration with a third-party payment gateway or for Qualpay products. Through our webhooks, you can subscribe to receive notifications of events so that you can automate processes and updates to your system.

Manage Your Disputes
‍Our Dispute APIs let you automate the dispute-handling process so you can respond to disputes as soon as they are initiated. Our Dispute report offers a view of your merchant portfolio and the associated disputes.

Now that you know the basics, we want to tell you about our APIs.
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Qualpay offers various APIs that can be easily integrated into your software designs.

Whether you are creating a basic online checkout or a sophisticated e-commerce site that includes multiple vendors, Qualpay's omnichannel integrated payments platform gives you access to a comprehensive suite of API products that can support your specific needs.

Depending on your development requirements, these products are designed to be used together or separately. This flexibility lets you maximize your options to create the best branding and checkout experience possible.

All our products meet REST (Representational State Transfer) architectural standards. They are also designed to optimize your security configurations and achieve compliance with all PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) requirements.
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Check out what our APIs can do at checkout for you.

We have all the features you need to make a payments process as simple and robust as you demand. These APIs will seamlessly integrate with your current business operations to provide you with transaction capabilities that reflect the multitude of ways customers are now making payments.

‍One-time Payments:
‍We offer exactly what every modern business needs to handle one-time payments across e-commerce websites, mobile applications, physical point-of-sale devices, and invoices. We also support Level II and III transactions, surcharges, convenience, and service fees.

Repeat Customers:
‍We make it easy to handle payments made by returning customers who use your online store or a mobile application. We do this through our embedded fields technology and a tokenization process that replaces stored cardholder data. Our Customer Vault then safely protects the stored customer information for any and all future payment transactions.

‍Recurring Payments:
‍Our recurring billing API simplifies automatic payments like subscriptions. It allows for setting up various payment plans that can then be adjusted for upgrades, downgrades, and cancellations. Customers are automatically charged on billing dates, and the results are forwarded to you.

Invoicing:
‍Our Invoicing API allows you to automate the creation and sending of invoices and the updating of outstanding invoices. You can also use our webhooks API to receive automatic notifications of invoice activity. And there's more. You can customize the appearance of your invoice by adding your logo. Your customers will receive an invoice via an e-mail that includes a “pay now” button. Customers will be redirected to our secure hosted checkout page to complete their invoice payment when they click the button.

Accounts Receivable Automation and Tracking:
By combining our recurring billing and Invoice products, the Invoice product will track outstanding payments, initiate payment requests, and track successful and outstanding receivables.

Reporting:
‍We've got the best in the business. Our Manager portal and Reporting API lets you access a range of reports on-demand. These reports can include everything from transactions to disputed data. In addition, our Reporting API can be integrated with your own software or accounting platform.

‍Solving Complex Business Models Aggregated Payments:
‍Qualpay can support a variety of business models, from merchant of record to managed Payment Facilitator, to Marketplaces and Payouts.
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You have design ideas. We have the API payments products to make those ideas a reality.

Now is the time to take advantage of how Qualpay lets you streamline your payments processes and grow your business to new dimensions. Check out Developer Tools or speak with our sales department to get started.