Amazon Payments:  A New Option for Payment Processing

Signing Up - Short Version

If you are a boomtime client, use this link to ensure your account options are configured correctly:  http://bit.ly/spaboomfps

What you'll need:  

  1. Business email address - we recommend that you do not use Yahoo or AOL as they tend to throw a lot of email into Spam folders
  2. Secure password - remember, this is a lot of sensitive information.  Choose a long password with upper and lowercase letters and numbers, and try not to use words that can be guessed, such as family or pet names
  3. Credit card (used by Amazon as secondary identification - not used for billing)
  4. Checking account statement (with routing number & billing address) - used as recipient for payments from Amazon & boomtime to you
    • (If Corporate bank account) Fax machine (or ability to fax) for final verification
    • (If Personal bank account) Your driver's license or ID number

If you use your Personal checking account for your business and for Amazon, you can Instantly Verify the bank information via Amazon, or you can Verify with Bank Deposits.  Corporate Checking accounts must be verified by Amazon manually using a fax.  The setup process will step you through the appropriate information - don't worry, I'm making it sound more complicated than it really is.

You can view everything in your account at this site: https://payments.amazon.com/

Integrating with boomtime

Once you have set up an Amazon Payments account, you'll need to integrate it with your boomtime account.  To do this:

  • Go to the Setup tab
  • Click "Basics" in the left column
  • Scroll down the  "Credit Card Processing" section
  • Click the checkbox "Use Amazon Payments?"
  • Click the button "Setup Amazon Payments"
  • Click "Authorize"
  • You will be asked to log in to your Amazon Account
  • Once logged in you will be prompted to authorize the connection
  • Approve the connection and then save, you will be returned to boomtime

Signing Up - Long Version

For a full, step-by-step walk through of the signup process, we have just the thing:  Amazon Payments Signup Steps

Getting Paid

Amazon Payments deposits all payments into your Amazon Payments Business Account immediately after the transaction is processed.  However, Amazon Payments holds a base funds reserve for 14 days - they call this the "Payments Reserve".  Subsequent payments are settled 14 days after the transaction is successfully processed - so that means you can always withdraw any funds that are over 14 days "old" - it is their way of covering your butt in case of refunds, etc.

Amazon also has a great help section that goes into detail about how often you can get paid from your Amazon Payments balance:

https://payments.amazon.com/sdui/sdui/about?nodeId=200227290#pay_oftenpaid

When you view your Amazon Payments account, could see two different balances:

Available Balance: Funds ready to be withdrawn
Current Balance: Total amount in account, including amounts still waiting out their 14 days

Once the funds are available, you can withdraw to the Bank Account you verified above.  The deposit can take 5-7 business days, depending on your bank.