Design your integration

Learn about your basic integration choices.

Before building a point-of-sale integration with Adyen, there are some topics you need to know about so you can make the right choices for your business:

Account structure: the stores or other physical locations where you take in-person payments must be represented in your Adyen account. You can add stores to a merchant account, or add a merchant account for each store. The choice you make influences the payout of funds and your reconciliation, among other things.
Terminal models: you can choose from mobile and portable terminals that can be carried around and connect to Wi-Fi, use Bluetooth PAN or tethering, or connect to Ethernet through a Bluetooth base station; stationary countertop and multimedia terminals that connect to Ethernet or Wi-Fi; unattended terminals for use in self-service situations; and a card reader that connects to a phone or tablet through Bluetooth.
Integration architecture: you can let your POS system communicate with the terminals over your local network or through the cloud. Either choice has advantages and disadvantages. For example, cloud communications is a natural choice for mobile or portable terminals. But when the internet connection drops, you can't process payments unless you have implemented a fallback.
Network and connectivity configuration: to enable communications between your POS system, the terminals, and Adyen, you need to configure your network and assign IP addresses to the terminals. It is also good to be aware of the steps to take for various connectivity types.
Terminal API: for a Terminal API integration or an SDK on mobile integration, you need to become familiar with the endpoints and message structure of Terminal API.
Notifications and webhooks: both the payment terminals and the Adyen payments platform generate transaction updates that can be sent to an endpoint on your POS system. You need to decide if your architecture or use cases require receiving these webhooks.