How To Test Your PayPal Integration

This article is for company owners (bandleaders) who have integrated (linked) their PayPal account to your BOS account successfully and wish to test or troubleshoot the service.

If you have not yet linked your PayPal account, please see our guide on how to link your PayPal account to Back On Stage.

If you have just integrated your PayPal account with BOS, you may want to test receiving payments and sending payouts before putting the service to use. Let's go over how to do that.

In this article, we'll use these terms a lot:

Payment

When you receive money from a client using the PayPal integration. This can be a credit card, debit card or native PayPal transaction, but is all processed through our PayPal gateway. You can receive money from clients by creating a booking, adding and invoice to that booking, then sending the invoice to your client for payment. You can also apply invoice payments manually by clicking "Apply Payment" from any booking page.

Payout

When you send money to your musicians or staff. For the purpose of this article, "Payout" will refer to a "PayPal" payout. BOS also offers cash, check or eTransfer payout method options, however these do not move real money - they are for record keeping purposes only.

When you create a new booking inside BOS and add a client invoice to that booking, you're all set to send that invoice to your client in order to collect payment. It's a good idea to test your PayPal integration before sending invoices to your clients in case there are any limitations that prohibit your PayPal account from receiving payments.

1. Create A New Booking:
   Login to Back On Stage and go to Booking List > Create Booking. Fill in all the *required fields on the first page. Make sure you "Add A Service" to the booking so that you'll have something to charge your 'test client' for, then "SAVE & CLOSE".
   IMPORTANT: When entering your Client Info, you MUST input a full name, email address and phone number. Without these, the PayPal payment gateway cannot function.
2. Create an Invoice:
   hit the "Client Invoice" button and review the invoice details. Since we're just making a test payment, change the "Rate" amount to some small number. $1 is a good test payment amount. Hit "SAVE AND EXIT"
3. Apply Payment:
   From the Booking Page, click on "Apply Payment". Choose "Credit Card or PayPal" as your payment method, the choose "Full Contract" and hit "Apply Payment". Once the payment window opens, choose the "Debit or Credit Card" option and proceed to fill in your billing details and card information. Then hit "Pay Now".
   WARNING: This is a real live transaction and actual money will be moved. You will also incur PayPal fees for this transaction.
4. Verify the Completed Payment:
   Once the payment window closes, go to the Finances Tab and you should see the transaction amount under your "Income". Now you can go login to your PayPal account and verify that the money has arrived there as well.

That's it. You have tested your ability to receive credit card or PayPal payments through your PayPal integration.

Once you have booked musicians to fulfil roles for a gig, you're ready to send payouts to musicians. Sending payouts through PayPal is very fast and easy once everything is setup properly, but sometimes various settings within PayPal accounts can cause problems. We'll go over those here and help you test your setup for a smooth future of payout automation.

1. Use A Separate PayPal Account:
   You cannot use PayPal to send a payment from your own PayPal account, to your own PayPal account. This "loop" will be 'Denied' by PayPal. If you don't have another PayPal account you can set up for receiving your test payment, ask a friend if you can send them a payment or you can contact our friendly support at Back On Stage and send us a test payment that we'll happily refund to you (just contact [email protected] or use our live chat). Once you've decided on the PayPal account you'll send the test payment to, enter it into your personal profile. Navigate your profile icon in the top right, and click "My Profile", and input the PayPal email address at the very bottom in the "Get Paid With PayPal" section. Hit "Save Profile".
2. Set Yourself Up as a Musician In Your Own Company:
   Only "musician" accounts can receive payouts (not "Admin" accounts), so you will need to set yourself up as a musician in your own company (band). Navigate to Company Settings > Members > Invite New Member. Enter your own name, email address (it should be the same as your current admin address) and assign yourself a role. The hit "Send Invitation". Check your email and click the link to accept the invitation.
3. Create A Booking And Book Yourself:
   Next, you'll create a new booking and book yourself for a role so that you can pay yourself. Go to Booking List > Create Booking, then fill in all the required details and make sure you 'add a service' so that you can book yourself for it. Hit "Save", then click "Book Roles". Remove all the other musicians from the list, so it's just you, then change the rate amount to $0.01 (it's just a test, don't take it personally), then toggle off the auto-book setting and click "Book Roles".
4. Send A Payout:
   Click the "Close Booking Creator" button to return to the booking page, then find the Finances Tab. Next to your name, click the blue "Pay" button. In the popup, select the "PayPal" payment method. If you wish to test any invoice sending functions, make a selection in the "Send A Copy Of The Paid Invoice To" area. Then hit "Save".
   WARNING: This is a real transaction and will move real money. PayPal will also charge you a small fee (usually around $0.32) for this transaction. This cannot be refunded.
5. Confirm The Transaction Was Successful:
   When the payouts popup closes, go back to the Finances tab. Two things should be different: (1) You should see a "Print Invoice" button next to your name and (2) you should see a transaction with your name and amount logged in the income/expense report area. If you login to your PayPal account, you should also see that the money has been transferred out of your account.

Congrats! You have sent a test payout with BOS using PayPal. Now you can confidently send instant payouts to all your musicians after gigs.