PayPal is a well-known, trusted brand for online payments. Salsa is proud to offer this option to our clients for accepting fundraising and events payments. If PayPal is integrated into your Merchant Services account, supporters will be able to select PayPal as a payment in lieu of either credit card or e-check. Supporters will not need a PayPal account to use this option; they will be able to use a guest checkout with a credit card.
Once the supporter reaches the payment portion of your fundraising form, enters their contact information, and selects the blue PayPal button, a pop-up window displays that directs the supporter to log in to PayPal at PayPal.com or to pay with a credit or debit card.
Create a PayPal Business Account
In order to accept PayPal payments, your organization will need a PayPal Business Account that can be linked to Engage. PayPal fees and the subsequent business account are completely separate from any credit card/e-check merchant account or fees and will be billed separately.
- Sign up for PayPal Business Account at https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/account-selection. If you have questions or concerns about the account sign-up process, please reach out to PayPal support directly.
- After creating the account, make sure to verify your email by answering the automated verification email.
Create REST API App to Work With Engage
- Log in to your Business Account if you are not already logged in.
- Go to PayPal Developer Apps and Credentials. You should be logged in already if you logged in to your Business Account in step 1. If you are already logged in, you are in the Dashboard (if not, you can get there from the button in the top right).
- PLEASE NOTE: Be sure to choose the Live account option to create this set up. If you leave it on SandBox, this will not work:
- PLEASE NOTE: Be sure to choose the Live account option to create this set up. If you leave it on SandBox, this will not work:
- In the REST API apps section, select the Create App button. This is necessary to generate a Client ID and Secret for the Configuration screen in Engage.
- Fill in an App Name so that PayPal can receive data from Engage. It doesn't necessarily matter what you name the app, but it would be best to reference Salsa or Engage in the name so you remember why you created it. A Sandbox Developer Account is also created that won't really be necessary for the future, but it is an alternative email for your Sandbox Account. Sandbox transactions will show up in Engage and won't be removed, so be judicious about testing.
- After testing, change the app from Sandbox to Live (as seen below). Sandbox transactions will show up in Engage and won't be removed, so be judicious about testing.
- Do not close the browser tab. You will come back to this app screen later and copy the Client ID value and Secret code for Engage.
Configure Existing Engage Payment Gateway to Accept PayPal
Add PayPal as a new payment type to an existing payment gateway like Merchant Services or WePay.
Note: Because of the terms of service with CardConnect for Merchant Services, you cannot just use PayPal as a standalone payment processor, exclusive of CardConnect.
- In the Engage app, go to the Settings menu.
- Select the teal Switch To... button to the right and select Payment Gateway.
- Select the Payment Gateway for which you wish to activate PayPal. You do not need to create a new Gateway. Use the existing one you have already created when your merchant account was created.
- Change Allow Payments via PayPal to Yes.
- Paste in the PayPal Client Id from the PayPal Developer Account.
- Paste in the PayPal Client Secret from the PayPal Developer Account.
NOTE: if you think for some reason your account has been compromised and you need to generate a new secret, please contact Salsa Support for assistance. Just generating a new Secret and replacing it in Engage may have some unintended consequences relating to Recurring donations. - Select Update Gateway Info in order to save your work.
NOTE: All pages relating to this Payment Gateway will need to be republished to reflect the change in payment processors.
NOTE: You may not see a PayPal payment type option on the Visual Editor version of the page but it will be on the Preview page and the Live page.
PayPal Business Account Settings
A couple of very important settings in PayPal should not be adjusted in any fashion.
Webhooks - Do Not delete them! Live webhooks are created once the connection is made to Engage. If you delete the webhook, we can't get the notification for refunds or other callbacks.
App Settings - Accept Payments and Billing Agreements must ALWAYS be checked.
Find these settings in the REST API Apps section of your Developer account.
- Switch back to the PayPal Developer browser tab or go to
- Log out and then back into the Developer Account by selecting the Log In to Dashboard in the top right.
- Select the Live App under REST API apps.
PayPal Refunds
Full refunds are processable in PayPal and will reflect properly in Engage, but partial refunds in PayPal are not supported for now. A partial refund will reflect in Engage as a full refund.
Canceled future recurring donations can be initiated by the donor and also by your organization. Those callbacks will be updated in Engage. PayPal will queue them up and only update in Engage once PayPal sends the data to Engage.