For point of sale, your Adyen account has three levels:
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Company level. A single account represents the core business entity. In most cases, this is where invoices for terminal orders are sent.
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Merchant level. Under the company level, one or more merchant accounts will receive the payout of funds as well as reports for reconciliation. You can group merchant accounts together in account groups, but you will still receive payouts separately for each merchant account under the same company.
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Store level. Under a merchant level, one or more stores represent the physical store locations, and are used to process point-of-sale transactions. Each store location is identified using a Store ID.
To process payments, each payment terminal has to be assigned to either a store or a merchant account in the same location where the terminal is used. This means that you need at least one merchant account per country/region.
Step 1: Determine account structure
Make sure to involve your Finance Department, because the account structure influences the bank settlement (payout of funds) and cost accounting (reconciliation).
There is no ideal merchant-store account structure. This comes down to your business needs. Considerations to take into account are:
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Customer Area access: if there are multiple stores under a merchant account, users with access to the merchant account also have access to all those stores.
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Various aspects are handled on the merchant account level:
- Payout of funds: bank transfers per merchant account.
- Invoice: created per merchant account.
- Transaction fees: booked and visible as a total per merchant account.
- Scheme fees, interchange, markup: this is transaction-level information, but in summary reports it is shown on the merchant account level only.
- Graphical reports in the Customer Area: show information for the merchant account and the stores under it.
A common setup is to use one merchant account for each business unit or physical store location. Each store location is then represented by a merchant account and has their own separate reporting and payout of funds.
If you operate a large number of physical store locations, we recommend using a merchant account per legal entity, country/region, or brand, with store IDs underneath to represent the physical stores. This reduces the number of reports and bank transfers to reconcile and reduces the effort to manage terminals, terminal configurations, and Customer Area users.
For more considerations, see Account structure and settlement and our general account documentation.
Account structure and settlement
| Merchant account for each store | Merchant account for each country/region or brand with store IDs underneath | |
|---|---|---|
| Bank settlement | One bank transfer for each (physical) store. | One bank transfer for each settlement currency. |
| Transaction fees | Booked and visible for each store. | Booked and visible as total for each country/region or brand. |
| Scheme Fees, Interchange, Markup | Transaction-level information, one report file for each settlement. Store identified in summary reports by account name. | Transaction-level information, one report file for each settlement. Store indicated as data field for each transaction. In summary reports, information only available at the level of country/region. |
| Invoice | Invoice possible for each store. | Invoice possible for each country/region, no separate invoice for each store. |
| Customer Area | Graphical reports for each store. | Graphical reports for each country/region or brand. |
| User credentials | User credentials can be assigned by store, making it possible to limit user rights accordingly. | Authorized merchant users have access to all information regarding a country/region through the Customer Area. Stores can include daily end-of-day totals from the terminal. |
| Implications | Settlement of funds separated for each store which allows for a clear split in all Adyen reporting. However, in the case of many stores, large number of separate report files and bank transfers to be processed. | Simplifies terminal and configuration management, and reduces effort in managing user credentials. Reduces number of bank transfers to be reconciled. |
| Limited possibility in Adyen reporting to group reporting by country/region or brand. | Requires some additional financial processes, for example to book specific transaction costs (separate scheme fees or balance transfers, etc.) which are only reported on a country or brand level to the individual stores, if merchant wants to allocated these costs for each store. | |
| Higher complexity in managing configurations, terminals and user credentials. | ||
| Suggested use case | Recommended for franchises or businesses where there is a need for real-time store reporting in the Customer Area. | Recommended where a business has many stores. |
Step 2: Get merchant accounts
When you have determined an account structure, get one or more merchant accounts.
- Log in to your Customer Area.
- Go to Settings > Merchant accounts.
- Select Request new merchant account.
In the test environment, select Yes to create a test merchant account, or No to switch to your live account. - Complete the requested details. For Channel, select In-person payments if that is your only sales channel, otherwise select Ecommerce.
We send you a confirmation by email when your merchant account is ready.
Step 3: Create stores
If you decided to create an account structure of a merchant account with stores underneath, wait until you have received confirmation of your merchant account(s) and then create one or more stores.
To create stores by making API requests, see Automate store management.
Below we describe how to create stores in your Customer Area.
For this task, you must have the following user role:
- Merchant POS Terminal Management Admin role
To add stores: