Connecting to Xero's Payment Services

uCollect's Pay Now service is how you get your customers involved in managing their payments. Our Pay Now page (subject to the settings you choose) allows your users to make one-time payments and sign up for automatic collection. You can also send an invitation that requests your customers to sign up for automatic collection using the gateway option of your choice. For full details on configuring the uCollect Pay Now service please click here.

This page deals with configuring Xero's Payment Services module to connect to uCollect. You need to have configured the uCollect Payment Gateway(s) first.

There are a few steps that you need to do to get the PayNow option working:

1. Setup Payment Services in Xero.

Log into your Xero ledger.
Go to Settings, Payment Services
Click "Add new payment service" (in the top part of the screen)
At the bottom of the screen click "add another online payment option"
choose “Custom Payment URL”

For “Account name” enter “uCollect”
For “Your custom URL” enter “https://app.ucollect.biz/paynow/index/?org=[SHORTCODE]&invoiceNo=[INVOICENUMBER]” (without the quotes – just copy and paste this exactly – it is the same for everybody)
Enter something into the "Pay now button text" field - this is what will appear at the top of your Xero Pay Now page (the first page a user will land on). The most generic is "Pay Now" but you could choose "Pay with Credit Card" or "Set up Automatic Collection" depending on your available options in Xero.
Click Save
Back in the "Manage payment methods" tab In the "Connected payment apps" section you will now see your uCollect entry
From the “Manage connected services” tab select “Manage Themes
We recommend setting the "Credit card" setting (even if you are not using credit cards - this is a generic option and Xero doesn't let you change the title here, but your customers won't see it) of your Standard Branding Theme to your uCollect payment service and the PayPal and Pre-Authorized Debit options (if visible) to None. If you leave these on your customers can bypass uCollect and will be unable to set up automatic collection through uCollect. If you want to continue offering Paypal as a one-time payment method then you can set this up as well, but it will be offered prior to the uCollect option.
Click Save.

Next time you send out invoices with the online payment link or the PDF attached, your customers will have the option to click through and pay using the uCollect payment gateway(s) you have chosen. Remember, we don’t store their bank account data anywhere – it is all tokenized through your payment gateway (that’s mumbo jumbo for “not storing the credit card number directly) or stored in Xero (bank accounts for Upload gateways only), so it is completely safe.

2. Set up Xero “Pre-Authorized” content (optional)

We recommend that you create an Invoice Branding Theme that drives people to sign up. And a second theme that reminds them that they will be charged automatically (Xero doesn’t let us change the theme remotely so you will have to do this manually).

You can also setup Invoice Email templates to direct people accordingly. For more information on this please see our support page on this topic.

3. Sending Invoices with the Pay Now link

You send invoices direct from Xero, not from uCollect.

If you have multiple branding themes then you need to ensure that you have assigned an enabled theme to the invoice. If you are using docx branding themes you should ensure that the Pay Now link has been included in your docx template.

You should also ensure that the email message you send includes the Pay Now link as well. You can pre-set these in your Settings, Email Settings templates area.