As standard, Spektrix allows you to take payments using several standard methods of payment: cash, card, Chip & PIN (for UK/ROI users), Account Credit, and – as long as you have them enabled – Gift Vouchers.
Cash, card and Chip & PIN will show up where appropriate under the Payments tab in the Payment section of the basket in the Sales Interface:
Account Credit and Gift Vouchers, meanwhile, can be used via the Credit, deposit & vouchers tab:
With the exception of cash, all of these methods of payment are integrated into Spektrix, which means the processing is done within Spektrix.
Custom Payment Types
But what if you want to accept other methods of payment? Many organisations accept payment by cheque, invoice, or many other methods; these can be set up in Spektrix by creating Custom Payment Types.
NOTE: Custom Payment Types can only be used in the Sales Interface, and for payments processed via integrated Partner Products. They cannot be used by customers online.
You can create both payment and refund Custom Payment Types and, once set up, they will display in both the basket and your reports – including the Payments & Activities report. In terms of the basket, any payment types that you set up will be available under the Payments tab of the Payment section, while refund types will show up under the Refunds tab:
You can also add Attributes to Custom Payment Types to record additional information when making payments or refunds with them, e.g. a cheque number for a cheque payment.
Why would I need to use a Custom Payment Type?
The obvious reasons why you might need to set up Custom Payment Types are if you want to accept other methods of payment, the most common of which are probably cheques, BACS payments, and invoices. These methods of payment aren't processed within Spektrix – you process them elsewhere, so you just need a way of letting Spektrix know that you've taken the payment.
NOTE: UK users wanting to accept Theatre Tokens via Spektrix can do so by setting up two Custom Payment Types – a payment type for Theatre Tokens and a refund type for Theatre Tokens Refund (see below for why you need both).
That's not the only reason you might need a Custom Payment Type, however. One common use is for internal charge codes; for example, if your Marketing or Development teams need to put tickets through the system for events they're running, without actually paying for them. Using a Custom Payment Type called Internal Charge Payment, for example, would allow these transactions to be processed and accounted for in Spektrix.
Custom Payment Types can also be used in the API by authenticated users. This is something that we’d recommend when working with a partner that integrates with Spektrix and processes any type of sale (such as EPOS or quick donations) outside of Spektrix. Using a Custom Payment Type, the partner’s platform can create a record of the transaction in Spektrix. The partner you're working with would supply information about the specific setup required for the integration, but we recommend that you set up a unique Custom Payment Type (and corresponding Refund Type, see below) for each partner and name it accordingly making it easy to identify, view, and report on these transactions.
For more information about how Custom Payments impact your Spektrix invoice, please click here.
Why do I need different types for payments and refunds?
Payments and refunds in Spektrix are processed using different parts of the basket, regardless of which method of payment you're using. When you create a Custom Payment Type as a payment type, that only allows you to accept payments – you can't automatically make refunds unless you create a matching refund type.
If you ever need to refund a payment made using a Custom Payment Type and don't have a matching refund type, you'll have to refund to a method of payment that doesn't match what you originally used. From a financial reconciliation perspective, this is going to leave things looking very confusing.
Any time you create a new Custom Payment Type, we would strongly suggest you create a matching refund type as well.
Setting up a Custom Payment Type
To add a custom payment type, head to the Admin Interface and go to Other > Custom Payments. You'll see all of the currently active Custom Payment Types listed here:
If you want to see inactive Custom Payment Types just tick the View inactive? Box and those will display as well.
To add a new Custom Payment Type just click the Add button at the bottom of the list. You'll see the following popup, which contains two sections. The first Basic Details section looks like this:
- Name: this is the name as it will appear in both the basket and reports.
- Is refund?: tick this box if you want to create a refund type rather than a payment.
- Commission: if your payment type requires a commission, set it here like how you would for normal Payment Commissions.
- Note you can only set commissions for Counter and Phone channels, as Custom Payment Types can't be used online.
- You have to set a Tax Code to be able to make your payment type, in the same way as when you create an Event.
- Can be cancelled?: tick this box if you want your sales staff to be able to cancel the payment type in the basket. See the section on Cancelling Custom Payment Type payments below for more information on this.
- Active?: this defaults to being ticked, meaning that the Custom Payment Type can be used. Both payment and refund types can be made inactive when they are no longer in use.
- If it's a Custom Payment Type that you only expect to use rarely, it's worth making sure it's only active when it needs to be used, and is deactivated afterwards.
- Authorisation required?: by default this is set to unlocked, meaning any sales user can use this Custom Payment Type. If you want to only allow Sales Administrator users to use it, just tick the padlock to lock it.
The second section is called Attribute Templates - this is optional, and allows you to add Attributes to the Custom Payment Type. These are separate to the Attributes you may have already created in the Settings Interface, and are specific to each Custom Payment Type.
You can create the same types of Attribute as you would in the Settings Interface - see this article for more information on Attributes.
A common example of an Attribute you might want to create here is for Cheque Number, so that you can record the specific cheque number against each Cheque payment. In this example you would create a Text type Attribute so that the full number can be entered.
Cancelling Custom Payment Type payments
In the process of making a transaction in Spektrix, some methods of payment (like cash) can be cancelled once the payment has been made, but before the order has been confirmed. In the example of cash, this is because you can simply open the cash drawer and hand the money back to the customer, if they decide that they want to pay using a different method after all.
In the Sales Interface, this is represented by a small red cross icon against the payment, like this:
Other methods of payment (like card or Chip & PIN) can't be cancelled, once payment has been made - even if the order hasn't been confirmed in Spektrix. This is because, in the case of any card payment, the payment has already been approved by the bank. If a customer changes their mind after making a card payment, you need to refund the payment.
When you're creating a Custom Payment Type you have the choice of whether to allow payments to be cancelled or not. If you don't tick this box then your Custom Payment Type will behave in the same way as card payments, and you'll need to make a refund rather than cancelling the payment.
Generally speaking we would recommend that you do tick this box, as on most occasions you probably will want to allow your sales staff to cancel payments that have been made using Custom Payment Types.
Editing Custom Payment Types
If you ever need to edit a Custom Payment Type, whether to make a change to the setup or to activate/deactivate it, you just need to click on the blue pencil icon next to the relevant one in the list.
From there you can make any necessary changes – if you want to change anything on the Basic Details screen you just need to click the following Edit button as well.
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You should now have everything you need to be able to set up and edit Custom Payment Types in Spektrix. If you have any further questions, however, please don't hesitate to get in touch with the Spektrix Support team.