Merchant Onboarding Overview

Merchant Onboarding is where you seamlessly create payment accounts for the merchants on your platform. They can then immediately start accepting payments with little to no friction (depending on the option you choose). The two high level options are:

  • OAuth2 Creation: Using an OAuth2 popup, users can simply create a payment account with only four fields.
  • Custom Creation: Using the /user/register API calls, you create an account for the merchant literally behind the scenes. Then WePay completes account creation later through an email authorization from the merchant but the merchant can get going with accepting payments immediately.
Option PROS CONS
OAuth2 Creation
  • The merchant gets set up in a single intuitive process and can immediately process as much as possible.
  • The OAuth2 flow requires co-branded user action before the merchant can accept payments.
Custom Creation
  • You can get a merchant set up on WePay immediately with no initial user action required, literally behind the scenes.
  • The merchant will need to confirm their registration at a later date.
  • Accounts created with /user/register can only collect $100,000 before being confirmed.
  • Accounts created with /user/register will be deleted if the merchant does not confirm and all payments will be refunded.

 

After creating a merchant account, your merchant will need to provide Know Your Customer (KYC) information via a WePay form or KYC API calls. This way, merchants can easily withdraw revenue after payments are made to their account(s). You’ll find this information in the Withdrawals section.

Account Life Cycle

 

Once a merchant has been onboarded, additional steps may be required in order to keep their account up and running. If those steps are not taken by the merchant in the timeframe provided, WePay will have to refund and close their account. Refunds cannot be undone once issued, so we’ve outlined the action items for your platform and the merchant to take every step of the way to prevent refunds. Handling merchants’ account life cycles is part of merchant onboarding, and your platform needs to respond to specific IPNs accordingly.

The flow chart below shows the overarching account life cycle and outlines the timeframes in which any additional required action must be completed.

Account Life Cycle

user confirmed?

The left-most tree in the account life cycle (resulting from a “no” decision on the “user confirmed?” decision box) is only relevant to user objects that are created via the User API and are in a pending state.

Action Items and Notifications

 

There are 4 overarching possible state flows in WePay’s Account Life Cycle, and each have different associated action items and notification timelines:

Active

 

This is the top-most branch and fork of the account life cycle flow chart. These are the basic action items that a merchant must complete in order to continue accepting payment and to avoid refunds.

  1. The user object is either:
    - created via the OAuth2 API, or
    - created via the User API and in a registered API state (after email confirmation).
  2. The account object is not in an action_required API state:
    - KYC and Settlement have been submitted, and
    - any required KYC documents have been submitted

Deleted - no confirmation

 

This is the left-most tree of the account life cycle flow, following the “no” decision after the “user confirmed?” decision box. This tree is only relevant to user objects created via the User API.

Merchant Action Items

  • Merchant must confirm email address in order to continue processing payments and to avoid refunds.

WePay Notifications

  • WePay will notify the merchant of upcoming disablement 7, 11, and 13 calendar days after first payment.

Platform Action Items

  • Engage with the merchant to encourage email confirmation.
    • Include your own automated reminders based on the state of the user API object.
    • Listen for IPNs so that you automatically get the update when the user API object state becomes registered.

Timeline Example

Notification Timeline

Deleted - missing KYC and Settlement

 

This is the center tree of the account life cycle flow, following the “no” decision after the “KYC and settlement added?” decision box.

Merchant Action Items

  • Merchant must submit KYC and settlement in order to continue accepting payments and to avoid refunds.

WePay Notifications

  • WePay will notify the merchant of upcoming disablement 7 calendar days after the first payment, and then weekly until disablement.
  • Once incoming payments have been paused, WePay will notify the merchant of upcoming refunds 15, 30, 45, and 59 calendar days after disablement.

Platform Action Items

  • Engage with the merchant to encourage KYC and settlement submission.
    • Include your own automated reminders when the account API object’s state parameter has a value of action_required.
    • Use the action_reasons array on the account API object to customize automated reminders with guidance on submitting KYC, settlement, or both.
    • Use the disablement_time parameter on the account API object to include a timeframe in your automated reminders.

Example

Notification Timeline

Deleted - missing KYC documentation

 

This is the right-most tree of the account life cycle flow, following the “yes” decision after the “docs required?” decision box.

Merchant Action Items

  • Merchant must submit required documents to WePay in order to continue accepting payments and to avoid refunds.
    • Specific required documents are identified by WePay in the initial notification to the merchant.

WePay Notifications

  • WePay will notify the merchant and outline the documents needed.
  • WePay will notify the merchant of upcoming refunds 15 calendar days after disablement.

Platform Action Items

  • Engage with the merchant to encourage document submission.
    • Listen for account IPNs; the state will be action_required and the action_reasons array will contain KYC.
    • Normal KYC reminders should include prompts regarding any possible requested documents sent to the email address on file with WePay.

Example

Notification Timeline

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