Overview
A payment link is a clickable link, button, or QR code that directs customers to a unique checkout page, enabling them to complete a purchase or other payment. Payment links are generated by merchants and shared electronically via web browser, text message, or email in order to conveniently request and receive online payments from customers.
In this guide, the terms client or platform refer to your business. The term merchant refers to the payee, or payment requester/recipient. The term customer refers to the payer from whom funds have been requested.
Low-Code/No-Code Integration
The Payment Link actions described below are accessible via both a low-code/no-code dashboard integration solution as well as through traditional REST API integration with our /payment-link/merchant, /payment-link/payment, /public/merchant, and /public/customer endpoints. The connectFi client dashboard allows you to search, view, and export records and reports specific to the services you utilize. It is designed to provide a convenient way to view a broad summary of relevant data for each service, with the flexibility to quickly access specific records when desired. With respect to Payment Link services, this means that our merchant and payment management functionality available through the /payment-link/merchant and /payment-link/payment endpoints can be accessed through the secure, no-code connectFi client dashboard without any extra development on your end.


Client Actions
Either through our traditional Payment Link REST API endpoints or through the available connectFi client dashboard mentioned above, you have the ability to create and manage payment link merchants. A new merchant can be added via a POST /payment-link/merchant/create
endpoint request or in the dashboard with the click of a button. Other management options include updating merchant properties, retrieving merchant details, listing merchants, managing logo images for a merchant, managing invoices attachments, and generating a merchant JSON Web Token (JWT). Additional actions include the ability to search, filter, list, and export payment transactions, as well as managing refunds and payment reminders.
Merchant Actions
After creating a merchant, you may allow an authenticated merchant with a current session to request a JWT through your existing front-end UI (referred to in this documentation as a merchant portal) using a POST /payment-link/merchant/get-token
request. Since the JWT will expire 1 hour after issuing, your merchant portal should request a new merchant JWT when the current JWT is approximately 55 minutes old. The merchant JWT value must be included in the headers of all /public/merchant endpoint requests with a key of x-connectfi-jwtoken
.
A low-code option for accessing /public/merchant endpoint functionality is available through the Payment Link iframe script. This script can be embedded directly into your merchant portal front-end using a single script tag. Our Payment Link iframe script requires a valid merchant x-connectfi-jwtoken
to display the merchant dashboard and will facilitate all /public/merchant endpoint actions for you. View instructions for embedding the low-code Payment Link merchant dashboard in the Payment Link Integration Guide section of this documentation.
Through the embedded Payment Link merchant dashboard, merchants can view their profile details, update or view their logo(s), generate new payment links, update or view payment link details, send payment links to the customer to request payment, cancel payment links (cancellation is limited to allowed statuses), view/export lists of payment links, upload/view/list/remove an invoice file associated with a payment link, handle refunds, and manage payment reminders and notifications. In the merchant dashboard, the payment links for the authenticated merchant will be displayed in a tabular list, providing a convenient way for the merchant to view invoice details at a glance, track the current status of payment links, and to search for or filter payment links based on chosen criteria.
Customer Actions
Once a /public/merchant/payment/send
endpoint request is made (or the merchant requests to send the payment link through the low-code embedded merchant dashboard) the payment link will be delivered to the customer via the email address provided by the merchant when the link was created. The email delivered to the customer will include details about the requested payment, including the merchant name, invoice number, due date, and amount. A clickable link button is also provided that will allow the customer to view and pay the invoice in a separate payment window. The payment window will display the invoice details and a form that will allow the customer to submit their payment information. Customer payments can be submitted via ACH or card*, based on the settings configured for the merchant. If Plaid payments are enabled for the merchant, then an ACH payment can be submitted by linking the customer's bank account via Plaid, or the customer can enter their account details manually. Upon submitting the payment details, the customer will see a confirmation window confirming that the payment is being processed.
Alternatively, you can speak to a support representative to configure your Payment Link services so that, instead of sending an email directly to the customer from our system, the email details are sent to your configured webhook URL instead as a JSON formatted object. See the Payment Link > API > Webhooks documentation for further details.
- Invoice payments via pull-from-card coming soon