Here’s a tip on how to you to use your PayPal account to collect payment from Customers for orders that you create within your DistributorCentral account, and furthermore, pay Suppliers. This would be an ideal solution for smaller Distributors who do not have a merchant account.
The website that you have created in DistributorCentral account, or the link that you use for the product catalog on your outside website; both have a built-in shopping cart that allows your website visitors to place orders to you. You also have the ability to create your own Customer Orders and Supplier Purchase Orders from within your account as well. Below is one recommendation on how to use DistributorCentral and your PayPal account together to invoice your Customers, and even pay Suppliers.
First, for the shopping cart on your DistributorCentral website, you can indicate the payment method(s) that you would like to have available for your customers.
To do this:
- Go to the Account menu
- Select Payment and then Payment Setup
- Next, you can select PayPal – Collect info only and any other payment types that you would like to have available and then click on Save (see example below)
This is what your customer will see on the payment page on your website when placing an order (see example below).
Now that you’ve indicated how you would like to receive payment from your customers, next you can setup the invoice feature in your account so that payments will link with your PayPal account.
To do this:
- Go to the Account menu
- Select Preferences and then Account Preferences
- Click on the Invoices menu on the left side of the page
- From here, select Yes – PayPal Payment Page for the Display Pay Online link on invoices preference and then click on Save (see example below)
Now you need to make sure that your Billing contact email address in your DistributorCentral account is the same as the email address you have setup for your PayPal account.
To do this:
- Go to the Account menu
- Then select Account Maintenance
- Click on the Contacts tab
- Next, if you don’t have a Billing contact setup, click on Add Similar or on the Add New Contact button and setup a Billing contact making sure the use the same email address that you have setup with your PayPal account.
Testing your payment process
Once you have this setup up, you can try placing a test order to yourself from your website, or enter in a test order for a fake customer from within your DistributorCentral account. Note: When placing test orders, make sure you are on your “live” website (not in preview mode) while signed out of your DistributorCentral account.
After an order is placed from your website, you should receive an email confirmation, and the order should be saved in your DistributorCentral account. From this point, locate the order, and access the Summary page, where you can then review the order. You can make any changes to the Customer Order at this point, such as adding/removing charges, adding tax and freight, etc. Once you are ready, you can click on the Create Customer Invoice button (A) to create an invoice for your Customer. Then you can send the invoice to your Customer, by clicking on the Send button. This will allow you to email the invoice to your customer, where they can click on the Pay online now link (B) in the email, which will then prompt them to either login to their PayPal account or pay as a guest if you have a Business PayPal account (C), where they can pay the amount that is due on the invoice (see examples below). Once paid, the funds will be transferred to your PayPal account.
If you really want to streamline this process, you can get a PayPal MasterCard, and use that to pay your Suppliers. Then in your PayPal account, you can just move some of the funds that you received from your customer, and use it to pay the balance on your MasterCard all from within your PayPal account.
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