A TapFlow is how a business gets paid. It has two parts:
  • An address customers open, like pay.paynecta.co.ke/mama-mikes
  • Payment methods: where the money actually lands
That is the whole idea. A TapFlow is not a shop, and there is nothing to list inside it: a customer opens the address, types an amount, and pays.

Why more than one

A business can have several, and they are independent. Common reasons: One is normal. Most businesses never need a second.

Choosing an address

The address is what a customer reads before deciding to pay, so it has rules.
1

Three to forty characters

Long enough to say who you are, short enough to print.
2

Lowercase letters, numbers and hyphens

For example mama-mikes. Nothing else, because an address with a character somebody cannot type is an address they cannot use.
3

It must start with a letter and contain one

001 is not an address. A number on its own tells a customer nothing about who they are paying.
Some names cannot be taken. Anything that reads as a bank, a regulator, a government service or a well-known brand is refused, whatever business you are. Somebody impersonating a bank is exactly what a short meaningless address is useful for.
An address is checked as you type it, so you find out it is taken while choosing rather than after filling in a form.

Payment methods

Each TapFlow has at least one, and one of them is where money goes.
A bank account is not a short code. Money reaches it through that bank’s own paybill with your account number as the reference, which is how it arrives at an account M-Pesa has never heard of. That routing is ours to get right; you just choose your bank.
You can hold more than one method and switch which is in use. Changing a bank account should not mean an hour with nowhere to receive money. Changing where money goes requires a code sent to the address on the account, and every change is recorded with who made it. See Keeping payments honest.

When a TapFlow cannot take money

It says so on the page and takes nothing. That happens when verification is not approved, no payment method is switched on, the TapFlow has been suspended, or a prepaid account has run out of credit. Your dashboard names which one. Your customer is told only that the business cannot accept payments at the moment, because why is between you and us.

Suspension

Staff can suspend a TapFlow, with a reason recorded. It stops taking payments immediately and the record stays: a payment made before it was suspended is still explainable afterwards, which it would not be if the TapFlow had been deleted.

Next

Your payment page

What a customer sees when they open the address.

Keeping payments honest

The rules behind the ones an address has to follow.