Manual payment methods

Some customers don't want to pay for their orders using a credit card. These customers can still place their orders online if you set up a manual payment method. When your customers use a manual payment method, you can arrange to receive their payment in a way that works best for them. You can send an invoice to your customer. After you receive the payment, you can then manually approve the order.

Common types of manual payments include cash on delivery (COD), money orders, and bank transfers. If your store and your customers are based in Canada, then you can accept email money transfers.

Orders that accept manual payments are marked as unpaid on the Orders page. After you receive payment for a customer's order, you can mark the order as paid on the order details page and fulfill the order as you would if they had made an online payment.

To begin using manual payments, you have two options: you can either utilize a suggested manual payment method or create a custom manual payment method.

Use a suggested manual payment method

You can choose from a list of suggested manual payment methods on the Payment providers settings page in your Shopify admin.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.
  2. In the Payment providers section, select one of the available manual payment methods.
  3. In Additional details, enter any information that you want shown next to the payment method in your checkout.
  4. In Payment instructions, enter the instructions that you want your customers to follow to pay for an order. These instructions are shown on the order confirmation page after a customer completes their order. When you enter this information, check with your bank or delivery service to find out exactly what a customer must do to complete the payment.
  5. Click the activate payment method button.

Create a custom manual payment method

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.
  2. In the Manual payment methods section, select Create custom payment method.
  3. In Custom payment method name, enter the name of your payment method. The following names are reserved by Shopify and can't be used:
    • Bank Deposit
    • Cash
    • Cash on Delivery (COD)
    • custom
    • External Credit
    • External Debit
    • Gift Card
    • Money Order
    • Store Credit
  4. In Additional details, enter any information that you want shown next to the payment method in your checkout.
  5. In Payment instructions, enter the instructions that you want your customer to follow to pay for the order. These instructions are shown on the order confirmation page after the customer completes their order.
  6. Click Activate.

A customer using a manual payment method displays the name of the payment method and the instructions to complete the payment on the order confirmation screen.

Deactivate a manual payment method

If don't want to support a certain type of manual payment anymore, then you can deactivate the manual payment method at any time.

Steps:

  1. From your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Payments.
  2. In the Manual payment methods box in the Payment providers area, click Manage next to the manual payment method that you want to deactivate.
  3. Click the deactivate payment method button.
  4. Click the deactivate payment method button again to confirm.

After you deactivate a payment method, you can reactivate it at any time from the Manual payment methods drop-down menu in the Manual payments section.

Mark a manual payment as paid

When a customer makes an order using a manual payment method, the order is marked as Pending on the Orders page. After you receive payment for the order, you need to manually mark the order as paid. Refer to accepting payment for steps to mark an order as paid.

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