Payments: Connecting to PayPal

Payments: Connecting to PayPal

Offering PayPal alongside your existing payment methods gives supporters a familiar, low-friction way to donate or pay for their registration—particularly on mobile, where many donors prefer using a digital wallet over entering card details. Connecting PayPal to your Funraisin platform is a straightforward process, but it does require the right API credentials and a few platform-level settings before it can be enabled across your pages and events.

This guide walks through everything you need to get PayPal up and running, from locating your API keys to enabling PayPal on donation pages and event registration flows. You’ll also find guidance on how PayPal appears in your reporting, plus considerations for payouts and fee handling so your finance team knows exactly what to expect.

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What is PayPal?

PayPal is one of the most widely recognised digital wallets in the world, giving supporters a fast, secure way to make one-off donations without entering their card details. Many donors already have a PayPal balance or stored payment methods, which means they can complete a gift in just a few taps—especially on mobile.

When enabled in Funraisin, PayPal appears as a native payment option across your donation forms, fundraising pages, and registration flows. Supporters stay within a familiar checkout experience, and you benefit from reduced friction, higher conversion, and access to donors who prefer paying through a digital wallet rather than a card.

Finding your PayPal API credentials

To connect PayPal to your Funraisin platform, you’ll need to retrieve your API credentials from your PayPal Business account. PayPal provides two different credential types, depending on the kinds of payments you want to accept.

NVP/SOAP API

Used for one-off PayPal donations.

To obtain your NVP/SOAP API credentials:

1

Log in to your PayPal Business account

2

Go to Account Settings > API Access

3

Under NVP/SOAP API integration, click Manage API credentials

4

When prompted, select Request API signature, then click Agree and Submit

These credentials can then be added to your Funraisin PayPal Settings to enable one-off PayPal payments.

REST API

Used for one-off and recurring PayPal donations.

REST API access requires PayPal to enable the Funraisin Regular Giving feature on your account.

To request access:

1

Email the PayPal Australia Business Development Team at: salesau@paypal.com

2

Ask the team to enable the Funraisin Regular Giving feature on your PayPal account

3

Once approved, you’ll be able to generate your REST API keys in your PayPal developer settings

After you receive these keys, add them to your PayPal Settings in Funraisin to support recurring PayPal donations.

Enabling PayPal

Once you’ve retrieved your NVP/SOAP and/or REST API credentials from PayPal, you can enable PayPal directly within your Funraisin admin.

To connect PayPal:

1

Go to Platform Setup > Payment Settings

2

Open the PayPal Settings tab

3

Enter your API details:

• NVP/SOAP API credentials if you want to accept one-off PayPal donations
• REST API credentials if you want to accept one-off and recurring PayPal donations

4

Click Save

After saving your credentials, PayPal will be available as a payment option anywhere PayPal is supported on your platform, including donation forms, fundraising pages, and registration flows.

Enabling PayPal on Donation and Appeal Pages

You can enable PayPal directly on any donation or appeal page using Visual Builder.

To turn it on:

1

Open Visual Builder on the page you want to update

2

Hover over the donation block and click the heart icon to open Donation Settings

3

Go to the Payment tab

4

Tick PayPal to enable it

5

Click Save, then Publish your changes

Once published, PayPal will appear as a payment option on the payment step alongside your other enabled methods.

Enabling PayPal Within Events

You can enable PayPal for both registration payments and sponsored donations within an event.

To turn it on:

1

Go to Events and open the event you want to edit

2

Navigate to Entries & Fees

3

Scroll down to Payment Methods

4

Tick PayPal, then Save

Once enabled, PayPal will appear as a payment option:

• in your registration flow (for registration fees, merchandise, and donations)
• on fundraising pages for supporters making sponsored donations

Limiting PayPal to registration only

If you want PayPal available for registration payments but not for sponsored donations, you can disable it globally for fundraising pages.

To do this:

1

Go to Platform Setup > Donation Defaults > Sponsored Donations > Form Options

2

Open Payment Methods

3

Tick Disable PayPal payments

4

Click Save

This keeps PayPal enabled on registration forms (where you’ve selected it within the event) but removes it from every fundraising page across your site.

Reporting on PayPal Transactions

You can easily identify PayPal payments across your platform using either Donation or Transaction reports.

To report on PayPal activity:

• Add the Payment Method field to your Donations or Transactions report.
  This field shows how each payment was made (e.g., PayPal, Credit Card, Direct Debit), making it simple to filter or segment PayPal transactions.

If you want to quickly review or export all PayPal activity, you can do this through the Payments module:

1

Go to Reporting > Payments > Search

2

Select PayPal under Payment Method

3

Click Search in the top-right corner

You’ll see a list of every PayPal transaction processed through your platform. To export the results, click Download All to generate a CSV.

Reconciliation, Payouts, and Fees

PayPal manages payouts differently from Stripe, so it’s important to understand how this affects reconciliation and reporting on your Funraisin platform.

Payouts:

Unlike Stripe, PayPal does not automatically transfer funds to your charity’s bank account.

To receive your PayPal balance, your team will need to log in to your PayPal Business account and manually request a payout.

Because PayPal doesn’t issue automated payouts, no PayPal payout information is passed back into Funraisin. This means:

• Payout ID
• Payout Date
• Payout Status

…will remain blank for any PayPal transactions in your Donation or Transaction reports.
These fields only populate for Stripe transactions.

Fees

Funraisin fees for PayPal payments are not deducted automatically and won’t appear in your platform’s fees reporting.

How fees are handled depends on your commercial model:

• Fixed Fee model:
  Funraisin will invoice your organisation for the fixed % fee on each PayPal transaction.
• TipJar model:
  Funraisin will invoice for transactions where supporters opted in to pay an Optional Contribution.

PayPal-related Funraisin fees are invoiced monthly.