Configuring Your Site For PayPal™

Once you've obtained your PayPal Merchant ID and set your PayPal Instant Payment Notification URL, you are ready to configure your OurGroupOnline site to communicate with PayPal™.

First, set up a Group Account to represent your PayPal™ account. This will allow you to use Statement Reconciliation to monitor the deposits and withdrawals from this account.

If your PayPal™ account currently has a non-zero balance, enter a Starting Group Account Balance for this account from the Individual Transactions page.

You may also want to create a special Transaction Type to be used specifically for PayPal™ deposits. If you do this, we recommend the following settings:

Transaction Type: PayPal Deposit To Member Account
Deposit Date Required? no
Fund Debit Required? no
Fund Credit Required? depends on whether you are using fund accounting
Group Debit Required? no
Group Credit Required? YES
Person Debit Required? no
Person Credit Required? YES
Event Debit Required? no
Event Credit Required? no


Next, select PayPal Configuration from the Site Configuration menu. This will display a page containing the following entries:

The Business ID of PayPal Account is the PayPal Merchant ID that you copied from the PayPal™ site earlier.

Choose the PayPal Account Type that matches your PayPal™ account. To qualify for the non-profit rate you must provide PayPal™ with documentation of your charter organization's 501(c)(3) status.  NOTE: Simply selecting this option here will not get you the lower rate!  You must contact PayPal to obtain this rate.

The PayPal Group Account is the Group Account you just created to represent your PayPal™ account. All PayPal™ payments will be credited to this account.

The Fund for PayPal Deposits is optional; if you are using fund accounting you can specify a fund to which all PayPal™ deposits will be credited.

The PayPal Deposit Transaction Type is the transaction type that will be assigned to all PayPal™ payments. If you created a new Transaction Type as described above, select that one here; otherwise, choose Deposit To Member Account.

Email Address for PayPal Notifications should be the treasurer's e-mail address. An e-mail will be sent to this address each time a PayPal™ notification is received.

By default, the transaction fee which is charged by PayPal will be deducted from the amount deposited to the member's account.  So, for example, if a member pays $100 and the PayPal fee is $3.20, only $96.80 will be deposited to the account.

Your group may choose to absorb this fee, which may encourage more members to make on-line payments.  If you check the box Group Absorbs PayPal Fee For Member Payments, a member who pays $100 will see $100 deposited to his account, while the group will incur an expense of $3.20.

If you check the box Group Absorbs PayPal Fee For Member Payments, you will need to select a Transaction Type For PayPal Fee Absorbed By Group.  This will be the transaction type that will be used to record the expense of the PayPal transaction fee when the group absorbs the fee.

If the selected transaction type requires a fund to debit, you must select a fund from the drop down list for Fund To Charge PayPal Fee.


Click Save to save your work.