PayPal notifies Studioware of a payment using Instant Payment Notifications or IPN.
A Student/Parent should use the Business Portal to make a payment (or invoice payment) in order for Studioware to be notified.
PayPal will allow a student/parent to log onto their PayPal account, click on the "Send Money" and enter in your business email address to send the money. For example, here is a screen shot of a parent "Ann" using her personal PayPal account to send you the tuition owed. Ann has logged on directly to PayPal and clicked on the "Pay or Send money". She can enter in your PayPal business email address and send you the money.
This is not a problem; you will receive the payment from Ann. However, Studioware will not be notified of the payment when it's completed within PayPal.
Also note, PayPal makes a smart phone application for iPhone and Android devices.
If you find that you are receiving a lot of Payments from Student/Parents, but there is not corresponding "Payment" transaction automatically added to their Studioware financial account, it is possible they made the payment directly using PayPal.com
You can configure your PayPal account to send all payment notifications to Studioware. That way, Studioware will be notified of all payments regardless of how the parent/student has made the payment.
To configure you PayPal business account to send all payment notifications to Studioware, follow these steps:
- Logon to your PayPal business account and select Profile | Profile Setup | My Selling tools. Under "My Selling tools", click on "Update" next to "Instant Payment Notifications".
- Click on "Choose IPN Settings" in the "Instant Payment Notification (IPN)" web page:
- Enter in the "Notification URL", and select "Receive IPN messages (Enabled):
The notification URL is your main business portal address, with "PayPalIPN" at the end. Within Studioware, click on "Administration | Business Portal" to get your business portal address. Simply add "PayPalIPN" to the end and that is your Notification URL
- Click on the Save button to save your IPN configurations. Your final screen within PayPal will appear as follows:
Now you have your PayPal account configured correctly to send Studioware all Payment Notification. So what does it look like within Studioware when a PayPal notification arrives that cannot be automatically processed?
The notification will appear at the top of Studioware. For example, in the screen shot below, there are 5 new notifications
Simply click on the notification icon to view the notifications:
Click on the "View" button next to each notification, and Studioware will show you all the information it received from PayPal. Studioware will also search your students, staff, and contacts and try to identify who made the PayPal payment.
Remember, Studioware will automatically process Payment transaction that are completed on the business portal. This process only applies to payments are made by your student/parents when they log onto their PayPal accounts and click on "Send money", or they use the PayPal app on their smart phones.
Select the student/parent/contact for the list of potential people that made this PayPal payment and click on the "Process this Notification" button. Studioware will process the PayPal notification, add the Payment transaction to the account, and mark the notification as completed.