Setting up payment gateways

So parents can pay fees online. About an hour, plus however long your provider takes to approve a live account.

How money flows

Two separate things, and people mix them up:

	Who pays	Who receives
Schools paying you	Each school	You — subscription and plan charges
Parents paying fees	Parents	The school, into the school's own account

A gateway is enabled once by you, then connected to each school with that school's own account details — so fee money lands in the school's bank account, not yours.

Choose a provider

44 payment providers are supported, plus offline methods.

India — Razorpay · PayU Money · Paytm · PhonePe · Cashfree · Instamojo · UPI QR Africa — Paystack · Flutterwave · M-Pesa · Monnify · DPO · Cinetpay · Pesapal · Wompi Southeast Asia — Midtrans · Xendit · PayMongo · Billplz · toyyibPay · VNPAY · PayHere Middle East — Tap · PayTabs · Moyasar · Iyzico Global — Stripe · PayPal · Square · Mollie · Paddle · Checkout.com · Authorize.Net · MercadoPago · SSLCOMMERZ · JazzCash · Khalti · Fondy · Nowpayments · Coinbase Commerce · Zenvia and others

Plus three that take no API at all:

Method	What it does
Manual	Records a payment the school collected another way
Bank Transfer	Parent transfers to the school's account, school confirms it
Mobile Money	Same, for mobile money transfers

Start with Bank Transfer

It works immediately, needs no approval, and lets a school collect fees online from day one while its card gateway is still being approved.

Step 1: Enable the gateway

Sidebar → Settings → Payments

Add the gateway you want. Each one asks only for the fields it actually needs — the form is built from the provider's own requirements.

You will see two groups of credentials:

Group	When it is used
Live — production credentials	Real money
Sandbox — test credentials	Testing, with fake cards

Fill in Sandbox first and leave the gateway in sandbox mode until you have made a successful test payment.

Step 2: Set the webhook URL

Skip this and payments will break in the worst possible way

Without a webhook, a parent pays successfully, their money leaves their account — and the system never learns about it. The fee stays unpaid, the parent has a receipt from their bank, and the school insists nothing was received.

This is the single most damaging misconfiguration in the whole system.

On the gateway's settings drawer you will see Webhook URL with a Copy button next to it. Copy that address and paste it into the same provider's dashboard, in whatever they call their webhook or callback setting.

Each gateway has its own URL. Do not reuse one for another provider.

Step 3: Connect a school

A school does not use your account — it connects its own, so the money reaches it directly.

For each school: enable online fee payment, choose the gateway, and enter that school's own credentials from its provider account.

A school must open its own provider account

Razorpay, Stripe and the rest verify the business receiving the money. A school cannot collect fees through your account — settlement, tax and refunds all follow the account holder.

Step 4: Test before going live

1. Leave the gateway in sandbox mode
2. Pay a small test fee using the provider's test card details
3. Confirm the payment shows as paid in the system, not only at the provider
4. Only then switch to live credentials

Step 3 is the one that matters — it is what proves the webhook works.

If payments are not working

What you see	Cause	Fix
Parent pays, money leaves, fee still shows unpaid	Webhook URL not set, or set at the wrong provider	Step 2
"Invalid key" or "authentication failed"	Live credentials in sandbox mode, or the reverse	Check which mode the gateway is in
Works for one school, fails for another	That school's own credentials are missing or wrong	Step 3
Payment page never opens	Gateway not enabled for that school, or online fee payment is off for it	Step 3
Test card declined in sandbox	Using a real card	Use the provider's published test card numbers
Everything works, receipts never emailed	Not a payment problem — email or cron