Troubleshooting

1. Check that other devices in the same room can reach the internet. If nothing can, the problem is your internet connection, not the terminal — restart your router and try again once it is back.
2. Move the terminal closer to the router. Thick walls, metal shelving and fridges all cut Wi-Fi range far more than people expect.
3. Restart the terminal so it reconnects from scratch.
4. If your Wi-Fi password has changed recently, the terminal is still trying the old one. It needs to be reconnected to the network — ask the partner who installed it, as network setup is part of hardware setup.

Intermittent drops are almost always a weak signal or an overloaded network.

• Check the signal strength on the terminal where it actually sits, not where it is convenient to test it.
• If guest Wi-Fi is busy during your peak hours, put the terminal on a separate network if you have one.
• Terminals on a mobile connection can struggle in basements and back rooms. Moving the terminal a few metres often fixes it.

If it keeps happening in a spot where the signal looks fine, contact your partner — they can check whether the device is faulty.

A payment that takes many seconds to confirm usually means a slow connection rather than a broken one. Try the same steps as for a dropping connection above. Do not cancel a payment mid-way while you wait — let it finish or time out on its own so there is no doubt whether the customer was charged.

Contact your partner. Have the serial number from the label on the back of the terminal ready, and tell them exactly what the screen says.

If the terminal is not listed under Settings → Payments, it has not been activated against your business.

Try adding it once with its serial number. If that fails, stop and contact your partner rather than trying again — the serial may be registered to a different account, which only they can move.

Do not take payments on it. The money would go to whoever the terminal is registered to. Contact your partner immediately with the serial number.

Verification normally finishes within one to two business days.

Longer than that usually means something is waiting on you:

1. Open Settings → Banking in the dashboard and look for a note asking for a correction or an extra document.
2. Check the inbox of the email address on your account, including spam. Requests for extra information are emailed as well as shown in the dashboard.
3. If there is genuinely nothing to act on, get in touch with Citizen Pay support — see still stuck below.

The common causes, in order:

• The photo is unusable. Retake it flat, in daylight, with all four corners of the document in frame and no flash glare across the text.
• The document has expired. Check the expiry date on the ID you uploaded.
• The names do not match. The account holder name, the registered business name and the name on the ID need to line up. A trading name that differs from your registered name is a frequent cause.
• The account cannot receive business payments. Some personal and savings accounts cannot. Your bank can tell you in a minute whether yours can.

Correct what is wrong and submit again. There is no penalty for resubmitting.

Yes, once your payment connections are on. Payments are collected into your Citizen Pay balance and paid out as soon as your bank account is verified. Nothing is lost by starting early.

Give it a few minutes and refresh. A terminal that was briefly offline sends its transactions once it reconnects.

If it still has not appeared after that, check transactions for the right date and terminal — with more than one device it is easy to look at the wrong one. If it is genuinely missing, contact support with the time, the amount and the last four digits of the card.

Work down this list:

1. Is your banking verified? Check Settings → Banking. Payouts only start once it is. See connect your banking.
2. Has a payout been sent? Payouts shows each payout and the transactions in it. If none has been sent yet, the money is still in your balance.
3. How long ago? A payout sent to your bank still takes a working day or so to land, and weekends and public holidays do not count.
4. Is it the first payout? The first one usually takes longer than the ones after it.
5. Are the bank details right? A wrong IBAN causes the payout to bounce back and show as failed. Correct the account details and the money is sent again.

1. Check it is switched on under Settings → Payments in the dashboard, and that you saved the change.
2. Check you are looking at the settings for the right terminal — methods are enabled per device.
3. Restart the terminal so it fetches the new settings.
4. If the switch itself will not turn on, the method needs something from you first; the dashboard shows what. See payment connections.

A decline is a message from the customer's bank, not a fault with your terminal, and you will not be told the reason. Ask the customer to try a different card or payment method.

If every card is declined, that is a different problem: check that your terminal is online, and that card payments are still switched on for that terminal.