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Using Custom Payment Links in Paidnice

Connect Paidnice to almost any payment provider that supports hosted checkout links.

Denym avatar
Written by Denym
Updated over 2 months ago

With Custom Payment Links, you can connect Paidnice to almost any payment provider that supports hosted checkout links.

This gives your customers a seamless “Pay Now” button on invoices, customer portals, and emails – without the need for a direct API integration.

How it Works

When you enable Custom Payment Links in Paidnice:

  1. Paidnice reads your invoice data from Xero or QuickBooks (invoice number, amount due, currency, and your account short code).

  2. Paidnice dynamically builds a URL with that data.

    • Example:

      https://payment.provider.com/pay?amount={{DueAmount}}&inv={{InvoiceNumber}}&org={{ShortCode}}

  3. When a customer clicks Pay Now, Paidnice redirects them to your payment provider’s hosted checkout page, pre-filled with:

    • Invoice number (as reference)

    • Amount due

    • Currency

    • Your merchant ID / shortcode

  4. The customer completes the payment directly with your provider, and you receive the funds just as if you had sent them the link manually.

Think of it as a mail merge for payment links – Paidnice fills in the blanks for you.

Example: PayFast (South Africa)

For PayFast, the link structure looks like this:

https://payment.payfast.io/ext/xero/request?inv={{{InvoiceNumber}}}&shortcode={{{ShortCode}}}&merchant=23761728&amount={{{DueAmount}}}

  • {{InvoiceNumber}} = your customer’s Xero/QBO invoice number

  • {{ShortCode}} = your Paidnice account shortcode

  • {{DueAmount}} = the invoice total

  • merchant=23761728 = your PayFast merchant ID

When the customer clicks Pay Now, they’re taken to PayFast’s checkout page with the invoice pre-loaded.

Setup Steps

  1. Go to Settings → Payments → Custom Payment Links in Paidnice.

  2. Toggle Enable Custom Payment Link to ON.

  3. Paste your payment provider’s checkout link format.

  4. Insert the merge tags ({{DueAmount}}, {{InvoiceNumber}}, {{ShortCode}}, {{InvoiceCurrency}}) where needed.

  5. Save changes.

Paidnice will now automatically show a Pay Now button in:

  • Customer portal pages

  • Invoice reminder emails

  • Payment confirmation screens

⚠️ Not supported: providers that only allow API calls without hosted checkout links (e.g., pure EFTPOS, Adyen in API mode, or providers requiring tokenized sessions).

Troubleshooting

  • Customer redirected but amount is blank? → Make sure you used the {{DueAmount}} merge tag.

  • Reference not showing? → Confirm your provider supports passing invoice numbers via URL.

  • Button not showing in emails? → Check that Custom Payment Links is enabled and saved.

Best Practices

  • Always test your link with a real invoice to ensure parameters populate correctly.

  • Use the provider’s sandbox/test mode before going live.

  • Include invoice reference in the link where possible, so payments reconcile easily.

Summary: Custom Payment Links let Paidnice generate dynamic “Pay Now” buttons for providers like PayFast, Stripe, PayPal, and others. If your provider supports hosted checkout links, Paidnice can integrate seamlessly without a full API connection.

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