Overview

Affirm’s Virtual Terminal enables your sales team to provide instant financing to qualified customers without the need for a technical integration to your order management system.

The basic customer flow includes the following steps:

1. Gather some basic information from your customer and enter your charge details into Affirm’s Virtual Terminal web form.
2. Send the customer a link to the Affirm checkout so they can apply securely using their device.
3. Receive instant notification when the customer confirms the loan and Affirm authorizes the charge.

How Virtual Terminal works

The Virtual Terminal order process is very similar to an e-commerce order process flow. However, the Virtual Terminal relies on operational processes rather than a technical integration.

When a customer initiates their order with a merchant over the phone, the merchant will manually create their order in an order management system. Then the merchant will generate an Affirm checkout for the customer, and the customer will go through the same checkout flow. Finally, the merchant will capture the charge in Affirm's Virtual Terminal, and update their order as "paid with Affirm."

Processing steps

The processing steps for the merchant sales team when using Affirm's Virtual Terminal are:

1. The merchant processes the order in their order management system (OMS).
2. The merchant sends the Affirm checkout link to customer using the Virtual Terminal.
3. The customer completes the Affirm application and confirms loan terms.
4. The merchant communicates the order status and next steps to customer.
5. The merchant captures the charge to receive payment from Affirm (we recommended that you capture at shipment).
6. The merchant marks 'Paid with Affirm' in their order management system.
7. Affirm submits payment to the merchant the following day (the bank sends settlement within 2--3 business days).
8. The customer pays off their loan with Affirm.