Processors, Payment Methods and Connectors
For a payment method to appear on the payment page or to be configured on a physical terminal, three entities have to be configured properly: the processor, the payment method and the connector. It is important to understand what each entity does and how they relate to each other before you start configuring payments.
| Entity | What it represents | Without it |
|---|---|---|
| Processor | The third party that technically processes the payment. | No processing route exists. |
| Payment method | The means by which your customer pays (e.g. Visa, TWINT). | The method cannot be offered or configured. |
| Connector | The link between one payment method and one processor. | Nothing executes the payment — no transaction happens. |
Processor
A processor represents a single integration to a third party which is capable of processing payments. For each processor, a configuration has to be created in order to accept payments through it.
Settings such as the payment contract or Merchant ID within the processor are only relevant for e-commerce. The same applies to test mode: it is only applicable in e-commerce — for physical terminals the mode is not relevant.
See Processors for how to set one up.
Payment method
A payment method represents a single means by which a customer can pay (e.g. credit card, TWINT). To accept payments with a particular payment method, a configuration for it has to be created. The configuration also controls specific properties of the payment method.
See Payment Methods for the methods available in Wallee.
Connector
A connector links a payment method together with a processor — it is a single connection to the processor. Each processor has a fixed set of connectors. The connector is the entity that actually executes the payment, so a connector configuration is required in order to accept payments.
See Connector Configuration for how to add and configure connectors.
Multiple configurations
For each of these entities you can have multiple configurations, including multiple configurations of the same type. You can separate them by conditions or link them to a specific space view.
This is what makes routing possible: if several connectors exist for the same payment method, conditions — such as the transaction amount or the customer's country — decide which one is used, and the connector priority determines the order in which they are tried.
In short: a connector must link a payment method to a processor for transactions to occur. Processor settings such as the payment contract or Merchant ID are crucial in e-commerce, and test mode is relevant for online transactions but not for physical terminals.