Salesforce is a full-scale customer relationship management (CRM) platform with hundreds of features to help you streamline your organization’s operations. With such dynamic functions, admins can struggle to find the answers to their immediate Salesforce questions.

Their feature set is so extensive that Salesforce created Trailhead – an entire library of educational content and tutorials where you can learn about its features and sharpen your Salesforce skills.

One of the most misunderstood areas of Salesforce is payments. As Salesforce’s number one payments app in the AppExchange, Chargent knows a thing or two about accepting and managing payments on this platform.

We understand, accepting payments on Salesforce can be confusing – but we’re here to help. The Chargent team could write an entire series of books on the subject, but in this post, we will give you the quick guide by answering your top 10 questions about Salesforce payments.

1. What is Salesforce CPQ Billing?

Salesforce CPQ and Billing are two products that make it easier for salespeople to send proposals, and invoice and bill their customers.

CPQ stands for Configure, Price, and Quote. Through CPQ, businesses can create quotes for orders quickly and more accurately. With this product, you can generate new quotes with the consideration of customized rules such as pricing, discounts, pricing add-ons, and more. By automating the quoting process, businesses can save time while reducing human error.

Salesforce Billing serves a different purpose. It is an add-on package that can obtain essential records from Salesforce CPQ to automate invoices, payment, and revenue recognition.

2. Can You Invoice Through Salesforce?

Businesses can create and send both manual and automated invoices directly through Salesforce Billing. This solution allows you to send one-time invoices or use an invoice scheduler to create future invoices. Salesforce’s invoices display a list of the products and services ordered, along with a total order amount. Furthermore, Salesforce allows you to customize numerous fields to serve your customers better.

Are you interested in learning more about invoicing through Salesforce? Read our article – Everything You Need To Know About Salesforce Invoicing.

3. Can Salesforce Process Payments?

Salesforce Billing supports several payment gateways to process credit card and ACH transactions. Payment gateways are external service providers that can process electronic payments. Salesforce Billing uses out-of-the-box or API integrations to interface with these payment gateways.

The platform also works with several payment apps – the most popular of which is Chargent. Chargent not only provides a connector for Salesforce Billing to 30+ payment gateways, but it offers the leading stand-alone payments plug-in for Salesforce on the Salesforce AppExchange. Chargent enables you to process payments directly from anywhere inside Salesforce at the click of a button, send payment links to customers for them to make payments online, and manage recurring payments inside Salesforce.

4. Can Nonprofits Use Salesforce to Collect Donations?

Thousands of nonprofit organizations use Salesforce to collect donations and organize their constituents. Salesforce also provides these organizations with the ability to manage events, fundraising campaigns, and marketing initiatives; and to showcase their results in detailed reports and dashboards.

Chargent enriches the Salesforce experience for nonprofit organizations. In addition to Salesforce’s features, Chargent enables organizations to set up recurring donations and automatically send a notification to their donors when they miss an expected contribution.

5. What’s the Difference Between Salesforce Billing vs. Salesforce Billing Department?

If you search for Salesforce Billing on Google, you may not get the results you were expecting. There’s a big difference between Salesforce Billing and the Salesforce Billing Department.

The Salesforce Billing Department is the department you would contact to answer questions about your bill, make a payment towards your account, or speak to customer service.

Salesforce Billing is a product that automates invoices and serves many other functions to give you more control over your customer billing processes.

In other words, if you want to make a payment, look for the Salesforce Billing Department – if you’re seeking to collect payments from your own customers, look for Salesforce Billing.

6. Can Salesforce Process Subscription and Recurring Payments?

Salesforce’s out-of-the-box solution does not allow businesses to collect and process repeat payments. However, Salesforce Billing includes a subscription invoice product that sends invoices on a repeat schedule.

Adding Chargent, however, allows you to add recurring billing to your process. Chargent can automatically process scheduled payments and charge your client’s on-file payment method at a specified recurring frequency. Additionally, Chargent’s Automated Collections feature can automatically retry charges and send emails to customers if their payment fails or is rejected.

7. Does Salesforce integrate with PayPal?

Yes, but only through an API or third-party integration. Chargent’s Gateway Connector, for instance, allows you to integrate Salesforce with over 30 integrations, including PayPal’s PayFlow Pro credit card gateway, Authorize.Net, Stripe, CyberSource, and more.

The primary PayPal service is an online financial service that lets you pay for items through your bank or credit card, using a secure account. Ecommerce integrations like Chargent connect to the PayPal Payflow Pro service, which is a payment gateway.

8. How Would You Implement a Payment Gateway in Salesforce Billing?

To accept payments, you need to install that gateway’s Salesforce Billing integration package into your org. Chargent makes this even easier by providing a connector to many popular payment gateways which you can install to your org in a matter of minutes.

In most cases, installing a payment gateway requires the assistance of a Salesforce developer. Chargent, however, makes the process simple and straightforward, so that even inexperienced administrators can connect to their preferred gateway.

9. Does Salesforce Retry Failed Credit Card Payments?

As an out-of-the-box solution, Salesforce cannot retry failed credit card payments. To achieve this, you will need to use a third-party application.

Chargent allows you to retry failed credit card payments on a defined schedule. In addition, it notifies your customer of the failure – giving them the opportunity to update their payment information and resolve their payment status.

10. How Do You Change Payment Methods in Salesforce?

Through Salesforce, you can accept a variety of payment methods from your customers including credit card, debit card, ACH and more. Businesses can choose the types of payments they want to accept and customers can select the payment method of their choice.

Chargent makes this process even easier. By sending out a Payment Request, customers receive an email that directs them to a secure link where they can make a payment, change their preferred payment method, or add new billing details.

The Most Important Question About Salesforce Payments

There’s one vital question that every organization should ask themselves when accepting customer payments – do you have the right payment system for your business model?

The ideal payment system enables you to automate tasks, streamline the customer experience, and decrease the amount of effort from your employees.

At Chargent, we work diligently to create effective solutions that allow you to collect Salesforce payments effortlessly, no matter how complex your business model. With a variety of features from Recurring Billing to Automated Collections, we provide the tools you need to manage your customer payments successfully.

If you’re wondering whether Chargent is right for your business, it is. But you don’t have to take our word for it – download our free 30-day trial and see the impact our products can have on your business for yourself. Our support team is even available to help you get the basics set up during your trial, so you can get a sense of how it would work for your organization.

Do you have another question about Salesforce payments that we forgot to mention? Ask us in the comments section below!