How Software Companies Can Add Payment Processing to Their Platforms

Payment Automation

How Software Companies Can Add Payment Processing to Their Platforms

Adding payment processing to a software platform means connecting your software to TIB Finance once, so each of your clients can collect from their customers into their own bank accounts. It is a workflow to connect, not a product to build. One payment moves through your software in five steps, and at each one your team does a defined part while TIB Finance handles the payment side.

Throughout this article, you means the software company, your clients are the businesses that use your software, their accounts are what your clients run or manage (a property, a loan portfolio, a location) with a bank account each, and their customers are the people who pay your clients.

It is written for the teams at software companies whose clients need to collect payments. If you would like to see the structure first, the multi-tenant section of our solutions page shows property management and loan management examples.

Payments Are a Workflow to Connect

When a software platform adds payments, the part that takes thought is not a payment product. It is the path one payment takes: whose it is, how it is created, how the person pays it, and how the result reaches your software. Each of those is a step to connect.

Your software stays your software. TIB Finance can connect to it through the API and webhooks, and the connection is set up around your system and your process. For the question of which system decides what should happen to money and which one carries it out, see our article on who actually moves the money behind your business software.

One Payment, Five Steps

Follow one payment, such as a month of rent or a loan repayment, through your platform. At each step, the section below shows what your team does and what TIB Finance takes care of.

Step 1: Your Client and Their Accounts

What your team does: You decide how your clients and their accounts appear in your product. In property management software, a management company is a client and each property is one of its accounts. In loan management software, a lender is a client and each loan portfolio is one of its accounts.

What TIB Finance takes care of: Each of your clients is set up underneath you on TIB Finance, with their accounts, and each account has its own bank account. You connect your software once, and you manage all of your clients from one place.

Worth knowing: Those two structures are examples. The structure follows how your platform and your clients are organized.

Step 2: Add Their Customers

What your team does: Your software already holds the list of people who pay each client, such as tenants or borrowers. Those are the people to add.

What TIB Finance takes care of: Each of their customers is recorded against the client they pay, in the language they prefer, English or French. One client's customers stay under that client.

Worth knowing: Once a person is recorded, the payments created for them refer to that record.

Step 3: Create the Payment From Your Software

What your team does: When a payment is due in your software, your software creates it through the API. It ties the payment to a reference from your system: an invoice number, a rent charge, a loan payment number. The amount is set by whoever creates the payment, which is your software or your client.

What TIB Finance takes care of: The payment is created under the right client and account, so it goes to the bank account of the account it belongs to. Rent for one property goes to that property's bank account, and a repayment on one loan portfolio goes to that portfolio's bank account.

Worth knowing: The reference is yours, and it stays with the payment. It is what lets the result be recorded against the right invoice, charge, or loan payment in your system. Matching applies to payments tied to a reference you provide.

Step 4: Their Customer Pays

What your team does: You decide where the way to pay appears in your product, for example a pay button next to an invoice or a rent charge. The payment link can be sent back to your software, or TIB Finance can email it to their customer.

What TIB Finance takes care of: Their customer opens the payment link or a prefilled payment page and pays online. Interac, ACH/EFT, and credit cards are available side by side on one platform, and they complement each other. Payment pages can carry your colors and logo.

Worth knowing: Each client has its own settings, such as which payment methods are allowed.

Step 5: The Result Flows Back to Your Software

What TIB Finance takes care of: Each payment has a status, such as pending, paid, failed, or returned. TIB Finance passes the status on through the API and by webhook, which is a notification when a payment's status changes.

What your team does: Your software receives the status and reflects it in your own screens and records: the invoice shows as paid, the rent charge as paid, the loan payment as returned. Your team decides what to show your clients and their customers.

Worth knowing: A failed or returned status is attached to the specific payment. What to do about it is a decision for you and your client. Our guide to automated payment reconciliation covers how payments tied to your references are matched.

Test It in the Sandbox First

Before any real payment, try the steps in the sandbox, a separate environment for safe testing, and check how your screens handle the statuses you receive.

The developer documentation is the place to begin. Our API use cases page walks through step-by-step examples, and our guide to testing payment integrations goes through the method. Developers can also start with the payment API integration guide.

What Stays With Your Team

Connecting payments moves work. It does not move ownership of your product. These stay with your team:

• Your product. What it does and how it looks, including the screens where payments appear.
• Your clients' relationships. The conversations with your clients and with their customers.
• What you show them. Which statuses appear in your screens, and how.
• What happens after a failed or returned payment. That is a decision for you and your client.
• Your commercial choices. A software company can also charge its own fee on payments.

Where to Start

Start small: one client, one account, and one kind of payment, such as rent charges or loan payments. Try that in the sandbox with a payment run through the five steps, then connect your software through the API and webhooks. From there, more clients and accounts follow the same structure.

For the platform view, see our page on payments for platforms. If your clients collect against invoices, read about automating accounts receivable. For loan platforms, there is payment automation for lenders. For the branding and revenue side of payments on a platform, see embedded finance, and for collections and payouts together, automating the full payment cycle.

Four parts of TIB Finance, a Canadian payment automation platform, sit behind these steps:

If you are weighing how payments fit your platform, contact our team to see how TIB Finance fits the way your software creates payments and receives results.

Common Questions

What does it mean to add payment processing to a software platform?

It means connecting your software to TIB Finance once, so each of your clients can collect from their customers into their own bank accounts. In practice it is a workflow of five steps: your client and their accounts, their customers, the payment created from your software, their customer paying, and the result coming back.

Do we have to build a payment product ourselves?

Adding payments is a workflow to connect, not a product to build. TIB Finance is not your payment product and does not build it for you. Your software connects through the API and webhooks, and the connection is set up around your system and your process.

How are our clients and their accounts set up?

Each of your clients is set up underneath you on TIB Finance, with their accounts. Each account has its own bank account, so a payment goes to the bank account of the account it belongs to. For a property management platform, a client might be a management company and an account a property. For a loan management platform, a client might be a lender and an account a loan portfolio.

How does our software create a payment?

Your software creates the payment through the API and ties it to a reference from your system, such as an invoice number, a rent charge, or a loan payment number. The amount is set by whoever creates the payment, which is your software or your client.

How do their customers pay?

By payment link or prefilled payment page. Interac, ACH/EFT, and credit cards are available side by side, and they complement each other on one platform. Payment pages can carry your colors and logo.

Can we record the language their customers prefer?

Yes. Each of their customers is recorded against the client they pay, along with the language they prefer, English or French.

How does our software find out what happened to a payment?

Each payment has a status, such as pending, paid, failed, or returned. TIB Finance passes the status on through the API and by webhook, which is a notification when a payment's status changes, so your own screens and records can reflect the result. A failed or returned status is attached to the specific payment.

Can TIB Finance connect to our software?

Yes. TIB Finance can connect to your software through its API and webhooks. The connection is set up around your system and your process.

Can we test before using real payments?

Yes. The sandbox is a separate environment for testing before any real payment. It is the place to check how your software handles the statuses it receives.

What stays with our team?

Your team keeps your product, the relationships with your clients, your own screens, and what you show your clients and their customers. What happens after a failed or returned payment is also a decision for you and your client.