Setting up eWay

eWay is an online payment gateway that operates in Australia and New Zealand.

How to set up a new eWay account and connect it to the Booking Service:

The cheapest plan with eWay is their “all in one” account. With this plan, eWay provides the merchant facility so you don’t need a credit card facility with your bank. However, eWay varies in their approach and may require a lot of documentation before deciding whether to give you this plan. Otherwise there is the “community plan” in which eWay works with a merchant facility that you get from your bank. A merchant facility allows you to take payments by credit/debit card and hooks up to eWay which handles the on-line gateway. If your bank tries to sell you their own gateway, that won’t work as we don’t interface with each bank’s individual system.

Here’s the link to get started with eWay, https://www.eway.com.au/online-payments/. If it asks for a plan, select “all in one” plan which doesn’t require a merchant facility from your bank. If eWay won’t give you the all-in-one plan, use their Community Plan, this is only available to not-for-profits and you also need a merchant facility from your bank.  More information and costs are at https://www.eway.com.au/payment-gateway-solutions/. The all-in-one plan has no annual fee so it will be cheaper than Bank + Community Plan, if you are eligible.

eWay transfers your funds into your bank account overnight, automatically.

For the Community plan, if you do not have a credit card facility with your bank, you need to apply for that. If you already have this, you need to tell the bank you will be taking payments online and respond to their questions (we can help with the answers).

Do not turn on a surcharge in your eWay settings, as this will double up on the surcharge which is invoiced by the Booking Service. See Surcharge Configuration Items

PCI Compliance

How to demonstrate your compliance with credit card industry security standards.

How to link eWay to the Booking Service:

All the settings for eWay can be found here. You find the values to input by logging in to your eWay account.

• eWay API key is a very long string, help to find this is at https://go.eway.io/s/article/How-do-I-setup-my-Live-eWAY-API-Key-and-Password
• The above link also helps you to find your API Password (aka eWay password) which is a much shorter string.
• Turn off the sandbox (untick the config item).
• Test your eWay connection by creating a debit balance of $1 on your personal login and paying it. You can create an invoice as admin for example.

Important

Follow instructions at https://go.eway.io/s/article/How-to-return-to-my-site-automatically-after-using-the-responsive-shared-page to automate the communication of payment data from eWay to the Booking Service. Without this setting, you are relying on customers to click on the “complete transaction” button, which communicates the funds capture to the Booking Service.

Select a wait time of zero seconds to reduce the chance that the user will close the screen before this happens. They are redirected to the Booking Service which shows the payment confirmation.

If despite this setting the member closes their browser before the receipt is generated, we run a check once an hour, on the hour, which queries eWay regarding incomplete transactions. The receipt will be generated then, the booking(s) will be confirmed and the member will receive their email.