Setting Up With PayPal
Bid Beacon is now integrated with CommuniBee to give fundraisers even more tools to manage and execute successful fundraising events. With CommuniBee, you can choose to subscribe (monthly or annually) to unlock the use of Alternate Payments.
Alternate Payments includes Stripe, Square, PayPal, and offline acceptance (cash, check, e-transfer, etc.). Bid Beacon will charge the credit card that was used to subscribe to CommuniBee for the platform fees incurred during the auction. If platform fees are not paid in full, the auction host will be restricted from creating future auctions until their outstanding balance is settled.
Please check out our Pricing page more information on CommuniBee, available subscriptions, and additional silent auction perks.
For quicker set up, it is recommended to use two browser tabs.
In one internet browser open Bid Beacon and navigate to Manage Auction
- Navigate to Payment Settings in left side menu
- To set up your online payment connection, select the SETUP PAYPAL tab
In a second internet tab, log in to the PayPal Developer Dashboard (this is not your usual sign in link), or create a new PayPal Business account then log in through the link provided above.
- Under Apps & Credentials, toggle from Sandbox to Live to ensure you aren’t using test keys
- Click Create App
- Type in an app name and click Create App
- Copy the Client ID
- Return to the Bid Beacon tab to paste this key into the PayPal Client ID field
- Return to the PayPal tab and copy the Secret key
- Return to your Bid Beacon tab and paste this key into the PayPal Secret Key field
- Scroll to the bottom of the Bid Beacon tab and Save
- Click the Test Payment button.
- Note that you will be using a real credit card to test a $1 payment. Once completed, a successful payment message will appear. *you can skip logging in and just test with credit card
- Return to the PayPal tab and log out of the developers dashboard
- Log in to your standard dashboard using this link: PayPal Log in
- View your recent activity. The $1 payment (minus PayPal’s processing fee) should appear within minutes. This is where you can review and manage payments made by your guests going forward.
Want to Enable Auto Pay for Your Guests?
Unfortunately, PayPal does not have an auto pay feature. This means that once your auction ends, guests with winning bids will log back into Bid Beacon to pay for their items.
If you would like to automatically charge guests as soon as your auction closes, you have two options:
- Accept payment through Express Banking (i.e. Stripe Connect). This version of Stripe allows funds to flow directly through to your bank account. See the Express Banking Setup guide.
- Accept payment using Stripe (non-Connect version). See the Stripe Setup guide
