TakePayments Card Terminal

Summary

Take in-person card payments by charging an invoice directly from Torqueflow to your TakePayments card terminal (PAX A920 Pro or Ingenico Move 5000). The payment is automatically recorded against the invoice — no manual entry, no reconciliation overhead.

TakePayments is the second card-payment rail in Torqueflow alongside Stripe. Use it when:

• Stripe declines or offboards your garage (auto-repair is a mid-risk category that some processors avoid).
• You want lower processing fees on high card volume.
• A customer is at the front desk and wants to pay by card on a physical terminal.

This guide covers the in-person card terminal flow only. TakePayments online “Pay Now” links are a separate (planned) feature.

Prerequisites

• You have the billing.manage permission to set up the TakePayments connection and pair terminals.
• You have the finance.payments.record permission to charge an invoice through the terminal.
• You have an active TakePayments merchant account.
• You have requested “Integrated Payments API” client credentials from your TakePayments account manager — this is not the same as the Cardstream online-gateway merchant ID.
• You have a supported terminal: PAX A920 Pro or Ingenico Move 5000.
• The terminal is connected to WiFi or 4G (no LAN, USB, or Bluetooth pairing is required — the device talks to TakePayments’ cloud directly).

Steps

Setting up the TakePayments connection

1. Go to Settings → Billing → Accept Payments.
2. Find the TakePayments card alongside the existing Stripe card.
3. Choose your environment:
   • Production for live payments.
   • Sandbox for testing with test cards (no real money moves).
4. Paste the Client ID and Client secret that TakePayments provided.
5. Click Connect & verify. Torqueflow will run an OAuth check and the badge changes to Connected if the credentials are valid.

If verification fails, the badge shows Auth failed and the exact error from TakePayments — typically a typo in the client_id or a revoked secret.

Pairing a card terminal

1. With the connection Connected, the Terminals subsection appears.
2. Click Add terminal.
3. Pick the model: PAX A920 Pro or Ingenico Move 5000.
4. Give it a friendly name (e.g. “Front desk”, “Workshop bench”) — this is what your team sees in the charge dialog.
5. Click Start pairing. The dialog shows the pairing state, which transitions:
   • Setting up… (PROVISIONING)
   • Waiting for terminal (AWAITING_PAIRING) — Torqueflow now displays an IP address, port, and path
   • Connected (CONNECTED)

Entering the pairing details on the device

When the dialog shows the pairing address:

On the terminal: long-press the lock screen → enter the supervisor code (last 4 digits of the terminal’s serial number) → open ECR settings → enter the IP, port and path shown in Torqueflow.

Within a few seconds of entering the details on the terminal, Torqueflow’s pairing state will flip to Connected.

Testing the connection (no charge)

Once a terminal shows Connected, click Test connection (no charge). Torqueflow runs a £0 verification call against TakePayments — this confirms your credentials, terminal pairing, and end-to-end network path. No card is charged.

If the test fails, the most common causes are:

• The terminal lost WiFi / 4G connectivity.
• The TakePayments connection was disabled or de-provisioned upstream.
• Credentials were rotated in the TakePayments merchant portal but not updated in Torqueflow.

Charging an invoice on the card terminal

1. Open any invoice with Unpaid or Part paid status.
2. Click Charge card terminal (sits next to Record Payment).
3. The dialog shows:
   • The invoice number, customer, and outstanding amount.
   • An amount input — defaults to the outstanding balance, can be reduced (no overpayment from a terminal).
   • A terminal selector — choose which physical device.
4. Click Charge. The dialog switches to Waiting for the terminal….
5. Hand the terminal to the customer. They insert their card and enter the PIN.
6. Within seconds, the dialog updates to one of:
   • Payment approved — invoice flips to Paid (or Part paid if a partial amount), receipt appears on the invoice.
   • Payment declined — try a different card or payment method.
   • Payment timed out — see late approval below.

Understanding terminal statuses

Status	What it means	What to do
Pending / Waiting	TakePayments has the request but the customer hasn’t completed the card flow yet.	Hand the device to the customer and wait.
Approved	Card was authorised. The invoice is recorded as paid in Torqueflow.	Nothing — receipts download automatically.
Declined	The card issuer refused the transaction.	Ask the customer to try a different card or settle by another method.
Cancelled	Either the customer or staff hit Cancel on the device.	Try again or use another method.
Timed out (Expired)	TakePayments didn’t respond within 3 minutes.	Wait 5 minutes for late-approval recovery to run, then check the invoice. See below.

Late-approval recovery

If Torqueflow times out at the 3-minute mark but the customer’s card was actually authorised at the terminal — for example, because of a slow network — Torqueflow performs an automatic recovery:

1. The invoice initially shows the charge as expired.
2. Five minutes later, Torqueflow re-checks TakePayments.
3. If the payment did succeed, the invoice flips to Paid and the audit trail records a “late approval recovered” event.

If the invoice has not flipped to Paid within 10 minutes of the original charge, contact support and have the TakePayments transaction ID ready (you can find it in your TakePayments merchant portal).

Walk-in payments taken on the device without Torqueflow

If a member of staff takes a payment directly on the PED without opening the Charge card terminal dialog in Torqueflow:

• The payment will not automatically appear against any Torqueflow invoice.
• You can still see the transaction in your TakePayments merchant portal.
• An automated reconciliation feature is planned (TakePayments now provide a transaction-search API that makes this viable).

For now, ask staff to always start the charge from the Torqueflow invoice — that way the payment lands automatically.

Rotating credentials

If TakePayments rotate your client secret (e.g. as part of an annual security review):

1. Go to Settings → Billing → Accept Payments → TakePayments.
2. Click Edit credentials.
3. Paste the new client_id and client_secret.
4. Click Connect & verify.

Your existing paired terminals and the historical payment audit trail are preserved — only the credentials are overwritten.

Disabling the connection

If you need to suspend in-person card payments (e.g. switching processors):

1. Click Disable on the TakePayments card.
2. New charges via the terminal are blocked immediately.
3. Any in-flight payment continues to completion — Torqueflow will not abort a charge that the customer is mid-way through entering their PIN for.

To re-enable, click Re-enable and Torqueflow will re-run the verification.

Permissions

Action	Capability
Configure TakePayments connection, pair/unpair terminals	billing.manage
Charge an invoice on the card terminal	finance.payments.record

Troubleshooting

• “This terminal model isn’t supported” — TakePayments’ Integrated Payments API supports PAX A920 Pro and Ingenico Move 5000 today. If you have a different model, contact TakePayments support to confirm coverage.
• Pairing didn’t start — the connection might have lapsed or your terminal isn’t reachable from TakePayments’ cloud. Check the device has WiFi/4G signal and try Start pairing again.
• “Charge already in progress” — another team member already started a charge on this invoice. Wait for it to complete or expire (about 3 minutes), then retry.
• “Wait 5 minutes before retrying” — a previous charge timed out. This guard prevents accidentally charging the customer twice if TakePayments approves the first one late.
• Invoice did not flip to Paid after a successful card swipe — give it 10 minutes for late-approval recovery, then check your TakePayments merchant portal. If the transaction shows there but not in Torqueflow, contact support with the TakePayments transaction ID.

Related

• Sales Invoices — recording payments by other methods
• Subscription Billing — Torqueflow’s own billing (separate from your customer payments)