A store’s checkout settings control where revenue posts, how buyers can pay, and how Rhythm invoices orders. You set these options on the store setup form, and Orders & Inventory uses them for purchases through that store, including member purchases in the Portal and staff-entered orders in the Console. This article covers the checkout settings. For the settings that control how the store appears, including publishing, sale dates, and sort order, see Storefront Presentation.
Prerequisites
- You need access to Orders & Inventory setup to open and edit a store.
- The business unit, merchant account, bank account, and any invoice template or payment terms you want to use should already exist in your account’s financial setup.
Where to Find It
Go to Orders & Inventory › Setup › Stores, then create or edit a store. The checkout settings are on the store form.
The Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Business Unit | Any business unit in your account | — | Posts the store’s revenue to that business unit’s books and uses that business unit’s currency for the store |
| Merchant Account | Your business unit’s active merchant accounts | — | Processes card payments for the store |
| Bank Account | Your business unit’s active bank accounts | — | Receives payments for the store |
| Pay Later / Bill My Organization / Bill My Parent Organization | Each on/off, with its own options | Off | Lets a buyer place an order without paying immediately, so Rhythm invoices the order |
| Card Payment | Always accepted / never accepted / accepted only within an amount range | Depends on your account’s setup | Controls whether checkout offers card payment and which order totals qualify |
| Card Processing Fee | Do not charge / always charge / ask the buyer | Do not charge | Controls whether a buyer who pays by card also pays the card processing fee |
| Extra Payment Methods | Electronic check, payroll deduction, split payments, each on/off | Off | Adds these choices to checkout alongside card and invoice options |
| Installment Plans | On/off, with plans to choose from | Off | Lets a buyer choose to pay in installments |
| Donations at Checkout | On/off, with a donation product | Off | Invites the buyer to add a donation during checkout |
| Restocking Fee Product | Your business unit’s active miscellaneous products | — | Records a return’s restocking fee against this product |
| Cancellation Fee Product | Any product with cancellation fees | — | Records a cancellation fee on this store’s orders against this product |
| Invoice Template / Invoice Payment Terms | Templates and terms from your financial setup | — | Sets the invoice layout and payment terms for the store’s orders |
| Stop Saving Payment Details | On/off | Off | Stops the store from saving a buyer’s card or bank details at checkout |
Tip
Card Payment and Card Processing Fee appear only when credit-card processing options are turned on for your account. If you do not see them, ask Rhythm Support to check whether credit-card processing is enabled for your account.
Choosing the Business Unit and Accounts
The Business Unit sets the store’s currency because a store does not have its own currency. The store always sells in the business unit’s base currency. The business unit also limits the Merchant Account, Bank Account, and Restocking Fee Product choices to that business unit’s active accounts and products. Portal checkout does not show a currency selector when a member starts from this store because the store sells in only one currency.
Warning
Rhythm cannot move an existing product to a different business unit. If a product needs to post to a different business unit, make the old product inactive and remove it from the store. Then create a new product under the target business unit and add it to a store configured for that business unit.
Warning
If your Rhythm account uses multi-currency, set up exchange rates or equivalent currency configuration before you rely on foreign-currency pricing and orders. Without that configuration, the order process raises an error instead of pricing the order.
Warning
Anyone who can open the store setup form can change its merchant account and bank account. There is no separate permission for only the payment accounts. Changes affect only orders placed after the change; existing orders keep the accounts they were recorded with.
Letting Buyers Pay Later or Bill an Organization
Turn on Pay Later, Bill My Organization, or Bill My Parent Organization when you want a signed-in member to place an order with money due and pay the invoice later. When any of these settings is on, checkout offers that choice and lets the order go through without immediate payment.
If none of these settings is on and an order has money due, a buyer must pay before they can complete Portal checkout. This rule applies only to Portal checkout. When staff enter an order for a customer in the Console using the store’s checkout settings, the payment-required rule does not hold the order.
To bill a parent organization, the buyer’s organization must have a parent organization set up. See Organizations for how organization hierarchy works in your account.
The organization shown as a billing option on the payment page comes from the order created when the buyer registered, not from the contact's current organization record. If a contact's organization affiliation changes later, the order can keep showing the earlier organization as a billing option until you update the order itself.
Checkout has shown a Billing Address option after a buyer selects Bill My Organization, but that option can still default to the buyer's own preferred address instead of the organization's address. Check the billing address before completing the order, and choose the organization's address yourself if it did not fill in.
The Check/Reference # field belongs to a payment record. Pay Later, Bill My Organization, and Bill My Parent Organization do not create a payment at that step, so this field does not appear when a buyer or staff member chooses one of those options.
Card Payment Range and Processing Fee
If your account has credit-card options turned on, you can accept cards for every order, limit card payment to orders within a chosen amount range, or turn card payment off for this store. To stop accepting credit cards across an entire store, go to Orders & Inventory › Setup › Stores, open the store, and set Card Payment to never accepted. This turns cards off for every product in that store. It does not let you keep cards on for the rest of the store while disabling them for one merchandise item.
Warning
If you limit card payment to an amount range, leave the minimum blank only if you're sure. A store configured with no minimum can fail to process any storefront order, including an order being invoiced or paid later where the card range should not matter. The error asks for the minimum range start. Enter a minimum, even a low one, to avoid this.
You can choose whether the buyer pays the card processing fee. You can never charge it, always charge it, or ask the buyer to agree to it at checkout. This requires a merchant account on the store. The fee applies store-wide, so you cannot enable it for only one merchandise item while leaving the rest of the store's checkout without it. You can configure this fee only for card payments; there is no equivalent automatic fee for check payments in the Portal or Console.
When the fee is set to Do not charge, checkout should not show the buyer-facing prompt asking the buyer to cover the processing cost. This includes orders where the buyer splits payment across more than one method. Checkout does not automatically explain that a debit card's processing fee can differ from a credit card's. If that distinction matters to your buyers, add your own explanatory text near the payment step, since Rhythm does not message it for you.
Extra Payment Methods lets a store also accept electronic check, payroll deduction, or split payments. Split payments let a buyer divide one order's payment across two payment methods; that does not necessarily mean two credit cards. If a buyer's chosen combination is not supported, checkout refuses it, though the error does not name which combinations are allowed.
When a Portal buyer pays by card through Stripe, checkout gives them an explicit choice to save the card for future use or use it only for this order. It does not save the card without asking. This choice belongs to the buyer at the time of payment, separate from the store-wide Stop Saving Payment Details setting above.
When a card processing fee is being charged, you can also set a Minimum Charge and a Maximum Charge for it. These limits apply regardless of the order total, so the calculated fee is never lower than the minimum or higher than the maximum you set. Leave either field blank to remove that limit, so the buyer is charged the calculated fee with no floor or ceiling on that side.
Installment Plans and Donations
Turn on Installment Plans to let buyers choose an installment plan at checkout and pay for their order over time. The choices come from the installment plans set up for your account.
Turn on Donations at Checkout to invite the buyer to add a donation during checkout, using the donation product you choose. This requires at least one donation product in your account. You create and manage donation products in the Finance & Billing application, not here. Any donation product you set up there becomes available in this list.
Warning
Turning on Donations at Checkout adds the default donation amount to the order automatically instead of leaving it unselected. The buyer sees it pre-selected and must remove or change it if they do not want it. There is no separate setting today that shows the donation option without also applying that default amount. To reduce accidental donations while this is the behavior, use the donation prompt's own descriptive text to call out the amount clearly so buyers notice it before checking out.
Do not set the Suggested Donation amount to 0 to make the prompt effectively opt-in. A $0 donation still creates an order that counts as a donation, which distorts your donation totals.
Invoicing
Choose the Invoice Template and Invoice Payment Terms the store’s orders use when Rhythm invoices them instead of taking payment immediately. A separate, API-only default-terms setting also exists for a store’s non-electronic payments. When both are set, which setting order processing uses is not established, so keep your invoice payment terms consistent for a store instead of relying on both.
Placing Checkout on a Portal Page
To let members reach a store’s checkout, add the checkout block to a Portal page in your page designer. Choose which store it checks out for and where the buyer goes afterward.
Custom Checkout Logic
Checkout has supported running custom logic at two points during order processing: immediately after order bundle expansion, where the order's contents can change, and immediately after order pricing, where the order's price can change. This customization is defined in one store's checkout settings, rather than as a single account-wide rule, so different stores, order types, or events can each run their own logic.
Dependencies and Precedence
- These settings govern every order placed through this store, whether the order is placed in the Portal or entered by staff in the Console under this store. Staff-entered orders do not have a separate set of checkout rules.
- When staff process an order in the Console, they choose which store’s settings apply. The wizard remembers the last store chosen in that browser and preselects it. If no store is remembered, it preselects the first store. It does not use an account-wide default store, and it lists every store, including inactive ones.
- A donation, restocking fee, or cancellation fee setting needs its product to exist first. If the product named in a setting is later removed, whether the store’s save is refused is not established. Keep the products these settings name in place.
Change Impact and How to Revert
You can change any of these settings at any time. Changes affect orders placed afterward. If you turn off Pay Later, Bill My Organization, and Bill My Parent Organization, every future Portal order with money due must be paid at checkout.
Permissions
You need access to Orders & Inventory setup to open and change a store’s checkout settings. There is no separate permission for the payment-related settings on the store form. See Orders & Inventory Staff Access Policies.
Validation and Errors
| Message contains | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Form Errors | A required field, such as Business Unit, Merchant Account, or Bank Account, is empty | Fill in the field |
| Unable to save Store | Rhythm could not save the store | Correct the field named in the message and save again |