Testing with a payment of 1 cent

Your connection is in place. Before you share your link, you prove that the whole journey is right: from the Pay button to the ticket in a mailbox.

You do that with one real payment of one cent — with Stripe 50 cents, the smallest amount Stripe accepts. Not with a fake payment — a button that says "it works" while it is talking to a fake system proves nothing.

What you need beforehand

• A connected provider. See Connecting your payment provider.
• The Owner role.
• A phone or card you can really pay with. One cent (with Stripe 50 cents).
• Ten minutes.

Test 1 — The button in the back office

This is the quickest check. It proves that your connection is right, that your account with the provider works and that we can open your payment page.

1. Go to Settings → Payments.
2. In the block of your connected provider click Test payment of €0.01 (with Stripe the button is called Test payment of €0.50).
3. You are sent straight on to your provider's payment page. With Bancontact Pro that is Bancontact's payment link, which you complete with the app.
4. Pay that cent, for real. Choose the same method your visitors will use — Bancontact, for example.
5. When you then come back to Passavo, you see the green message Test payment of €0.01 created. (with Stripe €0.50).

What you have proved with this:

Your connection works	A payment page appeared
Your account is usable	The provider did not refuse
Your method is on	It was in the list

That test payment does cost you your provider's transaction cost, according to its price list. That is the cheapest proof that your whole chain works that you will ever buy.

An order for this appears under Orders, with a reference that starts with TEST-. It has no tickets attached to it. It does count towards the figures on your dashboard, as one order for the amount of the test payment.

Is there a "Test mode" badge?

If the orange badge Test mode is in your provider's block, that connection does not collect real money, and the test payment only proves that the connection works.

• Mollie: you connected before your Mollie profile was verified. You also notice it while paying: Mollie shows a page where you choose yourself whether the payment succeeds. Orders in test mode are test orders: their tickets do not grant entry. As soon as Mollie approves your profile, the connection goes live by itself; with Go live you don't have to wait.
• Bancontact Pro: you saved a key for the Test environment (ext). The badge disappears when you save a key for Production (prod).
• Stripe: the connection was made with Stripe's test environment. Send support a message.

See Connecting your payment provider.

If no payment page appears

If all you get is a red message The test payment could not be created., read When a payment fails. Under the message it says which provider refused, with the advice to check your account with that provider; the exact reason you see in your provider's dashboard.

Test 2 — The real order, from beginning to end

Test 1 proves the connection. Test 2 proves your shop: your prices, your emails, your ticket, your scan. Always do this one, even when test 1 was green.

Step 1 — Set up a cheap test product

Create a product with a price of, say, €1. It is visible in your shop for as long as the test runs; switch it off again afterwards. See Products and prices.

If you sell with time slots, choose a slot for tomorrow rather than today, so that you see at once whether the right date ends up on the ticket.

Step 2 — Order as a visitor

Open your ticket shop on your phone, not in the tab you are signed in to. That is exactly what your visitor does.

Go through the whole order and watch out on the way for:

• are the prices right, with the VAT as you set it?
• does the shop look good in the language your visitor chooses?
• is your discount code field there, if you use one?
• do you end up on your provider's payment page?
• is the name of your organisation recognisable on that payment page?

Step 3 — Pay

Pay with the method your visitors will use. Use a real card or a real banking app.

Step 4 — Check what happens afterwards

Where you look	What should be there
The confirmation page	Your ticket, with a QR code and the wallet buttons
Your mailbox	The confirmation email, within a few minutes
Your junk mail too	Did the email end up there? Then tell your visitors
Orders in the back office	The order on Paid
Your provider dashboard	The same payment, with the same amount

Does the order stay on Pending while your provider says it succeeded? Then the provider's message has not arrived. See When a payment fails.

Step 5 — Scan the ticket

Open the scanning app on your scanning staff's phone and scan the QR code of your test ticket. You should get Admit. Scan it again straight away: you should then get Already scanned, because the ticket has already been used by then. See Scanning app and scanning staff.

That second scan is the more important of the two. It proves that nobody gets in twice with the same screenshot.

Step 6 — Clear up

• Cancel your test order, or refund it. See Refunds and cancellations.
• Switch your test product off with the Active switch. Deleting it is not possible: it already has an order.
• Feel free to leave the TEST orders from test 1 in place.

Recognising test orders

The one-cent test payment — and every order paid in your payment provider's test mode — is a test order. You can recognise it by TEST — not a real payment next to the order number, and by TEST in the subject of the email and on the ticket.

A test order is left out of your dashboard, is not sent as a webhook to your integrations and gets no invoice. A ticket from a test order is refused at the door: the scanning app says it is a test ticket. That way you test the whole chain up to the entrance, without a test ticket ever letting anyone in.

The checklist before you go live

Print this out or tick it off on your screen:

• The test payment succeeded.
• There is no Test mode badge on my provider: my connection collects real money.
• A real order worked through on a phone.
• The confirmation email has arrived, with the ticket in it.
• The ticket scans Admit, and the second time Already scanned.
• The order is on Paid in the back office.
• The payment is in my provider's dashboard.
• The right provider carries the Active for the ticket shop pill.
• The Online sales are on switch is on in Settings → Organisation, Your shop tab. If I want search engines to find my shop, Published is on there too.
• My own terms are filled in. See Privacy and terms.
• My contact email address is right, so that visitors can reach me.

Commonly made mistakes

Only doing test 1. That proves the connection, not your shop.

Testing in the tab you are signed in to. Use a phone or a private window: you want to see what a stranger sees.

Testing with a free product. The payment is then skipped and you test precisely the part you wanted to test.

Not checking your junk mail for the email. If your email ends up there, your visitors' email ends up there too.

Testing on the day of your advance sale. Test a week earlier. Then you still have time to put something right.

What if …

What if I do not want to spend a real cent?

With Bancontact Pro you can use a key for the test environment (ext). With Mollie everything runs in test mode for as long as you are connected with a profile that had not been verified yet; that is not something you choose yourself. A real cent does remain the only way to prove that real money too comes through your chain.

What if I cannot find the test order again?

Search for TEST- under Orders. The orders from the button all get a reference starting that way.

What if the email does not arrive?

First look in your junk mail. If it is not there, check on the order whether it is on Paid — without a payment no email goes out. For a paid order you send the email again with Resend the ticket email; it goes to the order's email address. See Following up orders.

What if my ticket scans "invalid" on the first attempt?

Check whether you are using the right device and whether today's manifest has been fetched. A device without a network does not yet know a ticket that has just been sold.

Frequently asked questions

Do I get that amount back? You can refund it, but that costs you more with your provider than the amount itself. Leave it.

Does the test order count towards my figures? It is under Orders and counts on your dashboard as one order of one cent (with Stripe 50 cents). It has no tickets attached, so it takes up no places and does not count towards your number of tickets sold.

How often do I have to do this? With every new connection, and every time you change something important: a different provider, a new domain, a new product with a different VAT rate.

Can I have somebody else do this? The button in the back office: only an owner. The real order: anybody — feel free to let a volunteer who knows nothing about the system buy a ticket. That is the most honest test there is.