Starting with Safepay: A step-by-step guide

Ready to start accepting online payments? Read this guide to understand the steps you need to follow to get to that point.

Important to note

We are required by our financial partners and the State Bank of Pakistan to gather information from any merchant using Safepay before allowing access to the processing of real payments. You can still test Safepay in sandbox mode (testing environment).

You should read this guide to understand what documents you will need to prepare and submit to Safepay. These may take you a few days to gather so you should start now!

Who should read this document? Anyone who wants to start using Safepay. We’ve created this step-by-step guide to provide users of Safepay with a process flow to get them up and running as quickly as possible.

We go into a lot of detail in this document. If you want to learn more about a certain area please skip to the part of the document which is relevant for you.

Step 1: Setting up your Sandbox Account

Step 2: Moving from a Sandbox Account to a Production Account

Terms used in this document

If you have further questions which are not answered here, please email us at support@getsafepay.com.

Step 1: Setting up your Sandbox Account

A Sandbox Account allows a user to get familiar with Safepay so that when their application is processed and approved, they can switch to live mode (i.e. their Production Account) with zero downtime.

Sign up to Sandbox

Please visit our Sandbox website to set up your Sandbox Account. This website is different from our Production website (which you will need to use to create your Production Account later).

Please provide the following information:

Email address: You can sign up with any email address and password. Normally this would be something like admin@<storename>.com or finance@<storename>.com, but there are no restrictions. Your email address must be valid and you must have access to it as we will send an automated email to that email for verification. If you have not received an email from Safepay after signing up please click here.
Password: A secure password to authenticate you to the dashboard.
Store name: Please provide your business’s name.

Important to note

If you want to use Safepay Checkout on different websites, you must create a separate account with Safepay for each website.

Even if you have been approved for a Safepay Account for one website, for regulatory reasons we need to treat an application to use Safepay on any other website as a separate application. You will have to submit a KYC application in association with any other website in order to be approved for a separate Safepay Account.

Your Safepay Dashboard will not provide you consolidated information across all websites your have integrated it.

What's next in Sandbox?

A Sandbox Account looks and works exactly the same way as a Production Account except that the money shown in the account isn’t real and test card numbers can be used to simulate payments (click here for sample dummy data to conduct transactions with).

You can use your Sandbox Account to:

View and manage your Sandbox Account.
Become familiar with our features by:
- Integrating Safepay Checkout on your website by choosing the relevant plug-in. You can configure any of our plug-ins with your website through your API Public key and Secret key. You can use our plug-in to test out how the checkout flow works on your website. Make sure you are able to see orders being generated in your system as well as reconcile them with the payment on the Sandbox dashboard.
  - You can access detailed instructions for integrating our WooCommerce plug-in here.
  - You can access detailed instructions for integrating our Shopify plug-in here.
  - You can access detailed instructions for integrating our WHMCS plug-in source code here. For easy installation, you can install our WHMCS plug-in from Marketplace here.
  - You can access detailed instructions for integrating our other plug-ins (Magento 1.9, Magento 2.0 and Opencart) here.
  - You can access instructions for custom code here.
- Using Quick Links to generate one link invoices. If you are using Quick Links only, you do not need to install our plug-ins on your website. Read this guide to learn more about Quick Links.
- Observe payment details that you receive from test buyers.
See notifications generated by your mock transactions.

Important to note

Any transaction made while you are in Sandbox mode will not be real. Even if a customer manages to make a payment to your through your website while you are integrating a plug-in, this will not be a real transaction. No real money will have left your customer and you will not have received any real money.

If a customer has somehow paid you while you are still in Sandbox mode, their payment actually hasn’t been made as this is not possible. You should refund your customer's payment from your Sandbox dashboard in any event. Read this guide to learn how to make a refund.

To avoid mistakenly accepting payments through your Sandbox integration, you can create a demo or testing subdomain for testing (this option is available on WooCommerce) instead of your live website. This way there is no risk that a customer visits your website and makes a payment using Safepay.

Step 2: Moving from your Sandbox Account to a Production Account

After creating your Sandbox Account and becoming familiar with it, set up your Production Account by visiting our Production website.

Sign up to Production

Sign up to create an account in the same way you did for your Sandbox Account. You can either use the same details that you used for signing up to your Sandbox Account or completely different details.

Important to note

Your Production Account is a separate account from your Sandbox Account so you will need to provide details as if you are signing up to Safepay again. Refer to the instructions earlier in this document as to what information you need to fill out.

What happens next in Production?

When you log-in to your Production Account, you will see a red notification on top of the dashboard asking you to COMPLETE YOUR ONBOARDING PROCESS in order to start accepting live payments.

To complete your onboarding process you must complete our Merchant Onboarding Form from your Production Account. To understand in detail how to do this please read this guide.
If you have integrated any plug-in with your website through your Sandbox Account, you do not need to repeat this. You will only have to replace your Sandbox keys with your Production keys in your administration panel.
While we review your application through our merchant onboarding form, you can do the following:
- Set up your notifications and customize your store branding and logo. Read this guide to learn how to set up your email addresses and customize your store.

When will Safepay contact me?

We receive many applications to our merchant onboarding form every day from merchants across Pakistan. We aim to respond to all queries within 48 hours but sometimes it can take longer than this. If the provided information is verified, we will contact you either with a request to collect more information or with an email letting you know that your account has been successfully enabled to accept live payments.

Welcome to Safepay!

Terms used in this document

Sandbox Account : Our Sandbox Account is simply a demo account. Any transactions conducted through your Sandbox Account are not real. The reason why we provide a Sandbox Account is to provide you with an extensive, secure-test environment where you can test your technical integration with Safepay.

Production Account : This is a live account through which you can conduct real transactions.

Sandbox keys: Your Sandbox Account is configured with two API keys. Your Sandbox API key is your public key that can be shared and displayed. You can find this under Developers >API from your Safepay dashboard in your Sandbox Account. Your Sandbox Secret API key is your secret key and should never be shared. You can find this under Developers>API from your Safepay dashboard in your Sandbox Account.

Production keys: Your Production Account is configured with two API keys. Your Production API key is your public key that can be shared and displayed. You can find this under Developers>API from your Safepay dashboard in your Production Account. Your Production Secret API key is your secret key and should never be shared. You can find this under Account>Developers from your Safepay dashboard in your Production Account.