A payment failed or is stuck

Work out which of these you have first. They have different causes and different fixes.

Where to look depends on how you take cards:

• Alaga Payments: Sidebar → Business Settings → Payment Settings. The Transactions and Payouts tabs show every card payment and every transfer to your bank. Only the business owner sees these tabs, and only once Alaga Payments is set up.
• Square: your Square Dashboard shows Square payments and payouts. In Alaga, use Sidebar → Reports → Payments & Transactions.

The card was declined

The customer's bank said no. Nothing was taken.

Alaga cannot change a decline. Common causes are an expired card, not enough money, a wrong ZIP code or security code, or a fraud hold. Ask the customer to try another card, or to call their bank. Banks often approve the same card right after the customer confirms the charge is real.

There is nothing to clean up.

A payment is sitting on "pending"

This is usually a card form that was opened and never finished. Opening the card form starts a payment. If the customer closes it or walks away, that unfinished payment stays on the list.

You do not need to do anything. Every hour, Alaga cancels unfinished card payments that are more than 24 hours old, and the row changes to cancelled. Payments that are really processing, or that went through, are never touched.

If the same payment still says pending after 48 hours, contact support.

The customer paid but the invoice still says unpaid

Alaga Payments

The card company tells Alaga when a payment is done. Sometimes that message is a few minutes late. Wait a few minutes, then reload the invoice.

If it is still unpaid:

1. Go to Business Settings → Payment Settings → Transactions and find the payment.
2. If the payment is there and says succeeded, but the invoice still has a balance, contact support with the invoice number.
3. If the payment is not there, the money never reached Alaga. A "pending" line on the customer's bank statement is not a finished payment. It usually drops off on its own.

Square Terminal or Square Reader

If the screen closed early or the internet dropped, Alaga still picks up the finished payment from Square within a few minutes. Wait, then reload.

If the Square app took the payment offline, Alaga cannot confirm it. Once Square syncs, find the sale in your Square Dashboard. Then record it in Alaga with Card (terminal) at checkout.

See Connecting Square to take card payments for other Square problems.

Card taken on a machine Alaga is not connected to

If you ran the card on a separate machine, Alaga does not know about it. Record it at checkout with Card (terminal) so the invoice is marked paid.

Never charge the card a second time to "fix" an invoice that looks unpaid. That is how customers get charged twice. Waiting is less work than a refund.

Stuck on "Waiting for your Terminal"

Check that the Square Terminal is turned on and connected to Wi-Fi or Ethernet. To stop the payment, click Cancel Payment and try again.

The money has not reached your bank

A payment and a payout are different things:

• A payment means the customer's money reached your payment account.
• A payout is that money moving to your bank. It happens on the processor's schedule, usually a couple of business days later. A brand-new account's first payout can take longer.

Alaga Payments: go to Payment Settings → Payouts to see what was sent and when. If a payout failed, it says so. The usual reason is bank details that need to be entered again.

Square: Square sends your payouts. Check them in your Square Dashboard, not in Alaga.

Refunds

Only owners and managers can refund. See Refunds, voids and adjustments for the steps.

What to send support

Use Get help in the sidebar, or the Help button at the top of the screen. Include:

• the invoice number or client name
• the date, time and amount
• how the card was taken (Alaga Payments, Square Terminal, Square Reader, or another machine)
• what the customer's bank statement says