As you well know, PaperCut integrates with most major payment gateways. PaperCut created a bunch of the gateways, such as PayPal and Blackboard. Your favourite local PaperCut ASC partner (us!) has also developed a popular selection of online payment gateways that integrate directly into PaperCut MF/NG. Let’s show you around our ParentPay payment gateway for PaperCut integration.

What is ParentPay?

ParentPay is a leading online payment service for schools in the UK. We are sure most of you with children have used ParentPay for your child to pay for lunch and school trips. Well, now you can use it to top up student’s PaperCut print and copy credit instead of buying those chips and a pizza slice.

Getting started

Install is simple; a few presses of the “Next” button and our PaperCut Payment Processer UI leaps into life (but not in Internet Explorer because devs hold grudges).

The UI is going to ask you to enter some basic PaperCut information unique to your install (IP, Port, Auth token etc.), and it will also require information on your ParentPay account, such as School ID (as issued by ParentPay) and authentication details for ParentPay.

Once done, hit the test button, and you should be off and flying.

What do you need to know?

• Initial installation kick starts a 40-day trial
• Trial extensions and NFRs are available
• PDF manual available for installers to prepare for installation, and a built-in manual
• You can easily search transactions
• Windows, Mac and Linux support
• Oh, and yes, the UI has a dark mode option

Licensing FAQ:

What do I get with the ParentPay payment gateway?

You get an installer, manual and support. The product comes with one year of support built in.

What if I need more than a year’s support?

If, for example, you require three years of support, you buy the payment gateway and two years of support. The maximum support term we offer is three years.

What if I need five years of support?

Good question. It’s not a lack of faith in our product that stops us from selling support for longer periods.

Our product connects to two different services (PaperCut and ParentPay). Either company may change, EOL, or close off API access. Payment providers (like ParentPay) must comply with financial regulations, including introducing new regulations, which could mean significant changes.

These companies usually give years of advanced notice of these changes to allow third parties to update any code. But we have to be realistic; this could mean that what we have built today may not work with future versions. This could lead to what we’ve built today not working in the future and we need to start again (which we can/will); this is nothing to be worried about. In our decades of building software, this has only happened 1-2 times, but we must be realistic.  

What happens if support expires?

The gateway will only process payments if it has valid support. You can retry missed payments once the product is licensed again.  

How will I know support has lapsed?

We endeavour to give our partners 90 days’ notice of a customer support contract ending. This should give you plenty of time to raise a PO, etc. The UI will also show any license warnings.  

Ain’t nobody got time for That!

While we have designed it to be easy to install, we also understand you don’t always have time. The good news is we can offer a comprehensive remote installation service with each gateway.

Sounds good – How do I get started?

Reach out to your friendly neighbourhood account manager, give us a call or chuck an email over to sales@selectec.com

As a reminder, our talented Technical Services team often get requests (typically to assist with winning a tender) if PaperCut supports certain payment providers…

The answer is often a firm yes, but if not, we are more than happy to take a look. Every payment gateway we have made to date has been born out of customer requirements. So if you need something made, get in touch and let’s talk it over.