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Offline Payments

5 min read

Introduction #

The Offline Payment feature seamlessly addresses the needs of businesses and customers who prefer traditional payment methods, catering to scenarios where internet access may be limited or unavailable. This feature enables merchants to receive payments from customers offline, eliminating the necessity for customers to have internet access.

This can be done by using one of these approaches

  1. Customer Offline Reference
    The Offline Payment feature operates by generating a unique payment reference for each customer. This payment reference serves as a identifier for the transaction made by a particular customer and is utilized by customers to make payments to the merchant. Once the payment is made, the funds are efficiently credited to the merchant’s ClickPesa account, providing a smooth and reliable offline payment process.
  2. Merchant Offline Reference
    This was added special for merchants whose customers are not registered on ClickPesa Platform. The first approach involved generating reference for a specific customer. For this approach merchant own the reference number we can call it “Lipa Namba”. The difference with the actual lipa namba provided by mobile money services such as MPesa is that this reference includes four digits that identifies Merchant, after that merchant can attach any number after the four digits to refer the customer / loan / invoice that the customer is supposed to pay.
    Once the payment is made, the funds are efficiently credited to the merchant’s ClickPesa account.

Key Features and Benefits:

  1. Inclusivity: The Offline Payment feature ensures that businesses can serve a diverse customer base, including those who may not have regular access to smartphones or the internet.
  2. Accessibility: Businesses can tap into a significant segment of the market that relies on offline payment methods, preventing missed transactions and fostering financial inclusivity.

The Offline Payment feature seamlessly integrates into our comprehensive suite of services, providing businesses with the tools they need to thrive in a dynamic and diverse market landscape.

How to use this feature #

Customer Offline Reference #

  1. To access this feature, visit merchant.clickpesa.com, login with your account and navigate to the “Customers” menu item.
  2. If you have customer, you can navigate to one of them, but if you don’t you can create them. Learn More.
  3. On customer page, you will see a section for CUSTOMER OFFLINE REFERENCE.
    You can assign an offline reference to a customer by clicking this button.
  4. Once offline reference is set, you can copy and share it with your customer.
  5. If your customer doesn’t know instruction, you can share instructions by
    • Opening an instruction drawer by clicking info icon
    • A drawer will show set of instructions for Tigo Pesa and Airtel Money for customer to make a successful payment
      1. Tigo Pesa

      2. Airtel Money

      3. M-Pesa
    • At the bottom right corner you will see a button that will help you copy all the instructions by clicking it. This will copy all the instructions to your device clipboard, so you can share it with your customers via different communication media.
    • Instructions will look like this (Instructions are in swahili due to language support for offline payments by mobile money)
      • Tigo Pesa Instructions
        • Piga *150*01#
        • Chagua Chaguo 4 — “Lipia Bili”
        • Chagua Chaguo 3 — “Ingiza Namba ya Kampuni”
        • Ingiza Namba ya Kampuni — 889999
        • Weka Kumbukumbu ya Malipo — JP036337
        • Ingiza Kiasi
        • Ingiza Namba ya Siri
      • Airtel Money Instructions
        • Piga *150*60#
        • Chagua Chaguo 5 — Lipia Bili
        • Chagua Chaguo 2 — Chagua Kampuni
        • Chagua Chaguo 7 — Chagua Kampuni
        • Weka Namba — 47
        • Ingiza namba ya Kumbukumbu — JP036337
        • Weka Kiasi
        • Chagua 1 (Ndio) Kuthibitisha
        • Weka PIN
      • M-Pesa Instructions
        • Piga *150*00#
        • Chagua Chaguo 4 — Lipia Kwa M-Pesa
        • Chagua Chaguo 4 — Weka namba ya kampuni
        • Ingiza Namba ya Kampuni — 909101
        • Weka Kumbukumbu ya Malipo — JP036337
        • Weka Kiasi
        • Weka namba yako ya siri
        • Weka 1 kuthibitisha
  6. When sharing instructions to customer, you can append your own details (characters) on the payment reference, its optional and can be used to reference something that you need to know from that particular payment you are expecting.
    • On this item, its important that you don’t omit any character from the reference generated.
    • Make sure the appended characters are on the right side of the text, for instance if JP036337 was your customer offline reference and you want to append something like LO123, the shared reference will look like this JP036337LO123.
  7. Customer with Tigo Pesa, Airtel Money and M-Pesa will be able to pay by following the shared instructions and you will receive the payment.

Note: or M-Pesa, instructions will not be displayed, and you will not be able to receive funds as you would with other networks. To activate M-Pesa on your account, please contact support@clickpesa.com.

Merchant Offline Reference #

  1. To access this feature, visit merchant.clickpesa.com, login with your account and navigate to the “Collectio” menu item.
  2. On settings page scrolling to the bottom, you will see a section for Offline Payments Collection You will be able to find your offline reference that your customers can use to make payments

  3. If your customer doesn’t know instruction, you can share instructions by
    • Opening an instruction drawer by View Instructions button
    • A drawer will show set of instructions for customer to make a successful payment
      1. Tigo Pesa

      2. Airtel Money

      3. M-Pesa
    • At the bottom right corner you will see a button that will help you copy all the instructions by clicking it. This will copy all the instructions to your device clipboard, so you can share it with your customers via different communication media.
    • Instructions will look like this (Instructions are in swahili due to language support for offline payments by mobile money)
      • Tigo Pesa Instructions
        • Piga *150*01#
        • Chagua Chaguo 4 — “Lipia Bili”
        • Chagua Chaguo 3 — “Ingiza Namba ya Kampuni”
        • Ingiza Namba ya Kampuni — 889999
        • Weka Kumbukumbu ya Malipo — 0969
        • Ingiza Kiasi
        • Ingiza Namba ya Siri
      • Airtel Money Instructions
        • Piga *150*60#
        • Chagua Chaguo 5 — Lipia Bili
        • Chagua Chaguo 2 — Chagua Kampuni
        • Chagua Chaguo 7 — Chagua Kampuni
        • Weka Namba — 47
        • Ingiza namba ya Kumbukumbu — 0969
        • Weka Kiasi
        • Chagua 1 (Ndio) Kuthibitisha
        • Weka PIN
      • M-Pesa instructions
        • Piga *150*00#
        • Chagua Chaguo 4 — Lipia Kwa M-Pesa
        • Chagua Chaguo 4 — Weka namba ya kampuni
        • Ingiza Namba ya Kampuni — 909101
        • Weka Kumbukumbu ya Malipo — 0969
        • Weka Kiasi
        • Weka namba yako ya siri
        • Weka 1 kuthibitisha
  4. When sharing instructions to customer, you can append your own details (characters) on the payment reference, its optional and can be used to reference something that you need to know from that particular payment you are expecting.
    • On this item, its important that you don’t omit any character from the reference generated.
    • Make sure the appended characters are on the right side of the text, for instance if 0969 was your customer offline reference and you want to append something like LO123, the shared reference will look like this 0969LO123.
    • You will not be able to identify the customer who paid via our platform but you will ba able to use the extra characters to match it with your customer / service data.
  5. Customer with Tigo Pesa, Airtel Money and M-Pesa will be able to pay by following the shared instructions and you will receive the payment.

Note: you will not be charges when settling received offline payments.

Note: or M-Pesa, instructions will not be displayed, and you will not be able to receive funds as you would with other networks. To activate M-Pesa on your account, please contact support@clickpesa.com.

Common Use Cases #

  1. When you want to receive payment from customers without internet access
  2. Some customers with internet access may find it difficult to follow online payment instructions, hence it will be easier for them to use this feature

Limitations #

  1. Maximum amount that can be paid via this method is 5,000,000 TZS. But there is variation on how much is supported for some mobile money accounts, since some could be 3,000,000 TZS maximum.
  2. Minimum amounts that can be paid are
    TigoPesa – 1,000 TZS,
    Airtel Money – 100 TZS
    M-Pesa – 100 TZS