Setting Up & Using Payment Providers
How to install and manage payment providers in Helm WMS, how the payment link that reaches your customer is created, and what happens on the order once the money arrives. Covers the Payment Providers list, sending a link from an order, editing or replacing credentials, and deactivating or deleting an account.
What Payment Providers Do in Helm
Payment providers let you collect money for an order through Helm instead of chasing it separately. You install a provider account once under Settings > System Settings > Payment Methods, and from then on anyone taking a payment on an order can email the customer a link without opening the provider's own dashboard. The screen itself is headed Payment Providers, and each row is one account rather than one card type.
Installing an account stores the credentials against your company in encrypted form and makes the account selectable on orders. Helm handles the provider-side webhook that reports a successful payment, so there is nothing for you to create in Stripe's or PayPal's own dashboard. That webhook is what closes the loop: it is how a payment the customer makes turns into a cleared balance in Helm.
Manual is the third option you will meet on an order, but it is not installed here and needs no credentials. It records money already taken somewhere else, over the phone or by bank transfer, so the order balance reflects reality. Only the two providers above are installable.
Example scenario: a customer owes the balance on an order that has already been invoiced, and you would rather not wait for a bank transfer. You open the order, choose Take Payment from the Payment Due alert, and email a link from your Stripe account. The order settles itself when the customer pays, without anyone reconciling it by hand.
Before You Start
Collect the credentials from the provider first. Helm asks for whatever that provider needs, and the installation dialog will not let you finish without them. They come from the provider's own dashboard, not from Helm.
You need the right permissions. Installing an account needs Payment Method Create. Editing one needs Payment Method Update, and replacing credentials needs both, because a credential change forces a fresh connection test. Removing an account needs Payment Method Delete, and sending a payment link from an order is a separate permission again, Order Payment Create.
Each account needs its own name. Account name has to be unique within your company, so a bare provider name will only work once.
Match the credentials to the environment you are installing on. Anywhere other than your live production system, Helm talks to PayPal's sandbox, so live PayPal credentials will fail the connection test on a demo or staging tenant; use sandbox credentials there instead. Stripe has no such split: whichever key you paste in is the one Helm uses, so a live Stripe key on a test system will create links that really take money.
Check the provider handles the currencies you sell in. The link is created in the currency of the order. PayPal refuses and names the currency as the reason; Stripe fails a step earlier and reports only that it could not create the payment link price. Either way nothing is created and nothing is sent.
A request can never be for more than is outstanding. Helm rejects an amount above the order's remaining balance and tells you so. Asking for less is fine and leaves the rest outstanding.
How to Install a Payment Provider in Helm
Go to Settings > System Settings > Payment Methods. Before anything is set up the screen reads No payment providers set up.
Choose Install New Provider.
Select the provider from the list, then choose Continue.
Give the account a name in Account name. This is what appears in the list and, where you run more than one account for the same provider, on the order itself.
Fill in the credential fields for that provider. They are masked as you type.
Choose Test Connection. Helm asks the provider to confirm the credentials before anything is saved, so a bad key costs you nothing.
On success Helm confirms that it connected to the account and that you are ready to start processing payments. Choose Add Provider to finish.
There is no way round the test. Until the provider answers, the button at the foot of the dialog stays Test Connection; only then does it become Add Provider. Use Go Back to change provider, or Close to abandon the installation.
If the test fails, Helm tells you the account failed testing and asks you to check your API key. That one message covers every reason the provider refused, so check for a copied space at the end of the key, a key from the wrong account, and a key that has since been revoked. On Stripe it can also mean a brand-new account with no balance activity yet, because the check reads the account balance and a valid key on an empty account can be turned away.
What the List Shows
None of these columns sort, so Type to search in the page header is your only way of narrowing a long list. The page header also carries a column selector if you would rather hide a column your team does not use.
Sending a Payment Link From an Order
A provider account does nothing on its own. It gets used on the order, where Helm already knows what is outstanding.
Open an order with money outstanding. Helm shows a Payment Due alert with a Take Payment action.
Choose Take Payment, then pick the account under Payment Method. Where you have more than one active account for the same provider, the option shows the provider followed by the account name so nobody picks the wrong one.
Check the Paid Amount. It arrives prefilled with the whole outstanding balance, so lower it if you are only asking for part of it.
Add one or more addresses under Recipient, then choose Confirm.
Helm creates the link at the provider and queues the email, so it leaves with the rest of your notifications rather than the instant you confirm. The subject line names your company and the order number, and the email carries the amount, a Pay Now button and a note about the link expiring.
Choosing Manual changes the form instead: you record the Paid Amount and a Payment Reference, which is the only place that field appears, and no email goes anywhere.
While a request is still outstanding, Take Payment carries a warning icon; hover it and Helm names the Pending Payment Request and the amount already asked for, and the dialog repeats the warning when you open it. Nothing on the face of the order says so, so check the icon before you send a second link. Both links stay payable, which is the usual way a customer ends up paying twice.
What Happens When the Customer Pays
The provider calls a webhook address that belongs to that one account. Helm verifies the signature the provider sends with it and matches the payment to the request that created the link, so a call it cannot verify changes nothing.
Once verified, the order's outstanding balance comes down, the payment appears in the order's transactions, the account used is written to the order's Payment Method field, and an entry is added to the order timeline under Payment & Price Changes.
The customer pays the amount you asked for and cannot change it, because the link is created for a fixed sum. So a balance still showing after a payment means the request was raised for less than the full amount, not that the customer paid short.
Editing, Deactivating & Deleting an Account
Deleting an account is not how you deal with a leaked key. The key itself stays valid until you revoke it in the provider's own dashboard.
Example: Collecting a Balance With Stripe
A customer owes 240.00 on order 100482, and your Stripe account is installed as Stripe Trade Sales.
You open the order and choose Take Payment from the Payment Due alert, then select Stripe Trade Sales under Payment Method.
Paid Amount already reads 240.00, so you leave it, add the buyer's address under Recipient and choose Confirm.
The buyer pays with Pay Now in the email. Stripe calls Helm, the balance on the order clears, and the payment is recorded on the order timeline under Payment & Price Changes. Back on the providers screen, Last Use shows the date the link went out.
Best Practices & Notes
Name the Account After the Money, Not the Provider
Account name is the only thing distinguishing two accounts on the same provider when someone is choosing under Payment Method on a live order. Name it after the entity or brand being paid rather than the provider, which the list already tells you.
Treat a Key Change as a Two-Step Job
Rotating a key at the provider does not tell Helm. Until the new one is pasted in and has passed Test Connection, every attempt to send a payment link from that account fails. Plan both steps together rather than discovering the second from a support ticket.
Deactivate Before You Delete
Setting an account Inactive takes it off the Payment Method list on orders without disturbing anything already in flight, and Last Use tells you how much is likely to be: it is the date a link last went out rather than the date money last arrived, so a recent date means requests may still be sitting in inboxes.
Deleting is the harder line. Once the account is gone, a request that was already sent against it can no longer be reconciled to the order, by hand or otherwise, and reinstalling the same account under the same name does not bring it back. Leave a retiring account Inactive until the links sent from it have been paid or written off.
FAQ
Does the Payment Link Expire?
The email tells the customer the link expires in 48 hours. That sentence is fixed wording in the email rather than a limit Helm applies, so the link's real lifetime is whatever the provider gives it. If a customer comes back later and the link no longer works, send a fresh one from the order.
If a payment link will not send, start with the provider account: check that it is Active and that its credentials still pass Test Connection. If the money has reached the provider but not the order, contact support with the order number and the provider's own transaction reference to hand.
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