Set up payment connections

Check what your customers can pay with, set up card payments with Viva, and try a test payment.

A payment connection is one way your customers can pay you. Some are switched on for your business as a whole, each place then chooses which of them it takes, and card payments need your Viva account connected and your card terminal added. All of it happens in the Citizen Pay Dashboard.

Before you start

Your terminal should be switched on, online, and showing its normal screen. If it is not, see troubleshooting.
Taking card payments with Viva? Keep your viva.com login at hand, and the card terminal nearby: you may need to read its number in the Viva app.

Switch on payments

Check what your business accepts

In the Citizen Pay Dashboard, choose Payment methods in the sidebar. The Enabled methods card lists everything your business can take. You cannot change that list yourself: methods are switched on by Citizen Pay support, or appear when you accept a treasury's invitation. Euro payments (€) appear once your bank is connected and payment requests are activated on Banking. See What you accept today.

Set up card payments

On the same page, the Card terminals (Viva) card walks you through Take card payments in four steps: connect your Viva account, turn on notifications from Viva, add your card terminal, and take a first card payment. Each step turns green by itself once it really works. See Take card payments.

If a partner installed your card terminal, some of this may already be done — the steps show what is left.

Choose what each place takes

Open the place from Places and go to its Payment methods tab. Click a payment method to switch it on or off for that place; each click saves straight away. See Choose what each place takes.

Check your terminal

The place's Terminals tab lists its terminals. If a partner activated your terminal for you, it is there already. If it is not, it has most likely not been activated yet — contact the partner who supplied it.

Open the terminal to see how it takes payments: QR Code, NFC and, for a phone or tablet paired with a card terminal, Card (Viva). See Payment methods and modules.

Try a test payment

Ring up a small amount and pay it yourself, once for each way of paying you switched on. Check that the payment goes through on the terminal and that it shows up in the dashboard, then refund it so you are not out of pocket.

It takes a couple of minutes, and it is far better to find a problem now than with a queue in front of you on a Saturday.

Ways your customers can pay

Card. Card payments run through your Viva card terminal and settle in your own Viva account. Tapping a card, chip and PIN, and phone wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay all come in this one way — they are different ways of presenting a card, not separate connections to switch on. The dashboard sees a card payment once your Viva account is connected, Viva's notifications are on, and the card terminal is added to a place.

QR code. The customer scans the code with their phone camera and pays from there.

Tap a card. On a terminal with an NFC reader, the customer taps a Citizen Pay card to pay with member credit — a community currency they topped up beforehand.

Good to know

Can I switch a payment method off again? Yes, whenever you like, place by place on the place's Payment methods tab.

Do I set up each terminal separately? What a place accepts is set once, on the place. Each terminal then has its own QR Code and NFC switches, and a card terminal of its own if it is paired with one.

Where does the money end up? Card payments settle directly in your Viva account, as before — Citizen Pay never touches them. For the rest, see payouts.

Your terminal is now live. Get to know the Citizen Pay Dashboard, where you follow your payments and payouts day to day, and add your staff so they can use it too.

If a way of paying is not showing up on the terminal, or a test payment failed, see troubleshooting.