Pay Theory Blog
July 2, 2026

A New Merchant Portal Experience

Merchant Portal Updates

We gave the Merchant Portal a new look and a simpler layout. This update reflects everything we've recently heard from merchants. Funding data is now easier to navigate, money terminology is clearer, and managing users takes fewer steps.

Changes at a glance:

  • Custom user management — create users and set permissions from one screen.
  • Updated dashboard — Instantly compare net payment methods, reconcile exact deposit-to-fee funding cycles, and monitor vital account health metrics. 
  • Payment creation in one place — invoices, links, and manual payments under one button.
  • Better payment management — sharper filters, search, and CSV export.
  • Updated transaction-status terminology — language that matches the card networks.
  • A clearer picture of your funding — see exactly how each deposit was built, including split funding.
  • Custom receipts — add your contact info and socials to your receipts

User Management

With the new user management, you can create users, assign specific permissions, and update those settings at any time, all from the Account screen.

A Clearer Dashboard 

Transaction Overview: Net Payments compares the range you've selected using the new date filter to the one before it, so you can analyze at a glance. Alongside it, the Payment Method panel breaks that same total into ACH, card, and cash, with each method's share. Toggle between Amount and Count to further analyze dollars or transactions.

Funding Totals, formerly Settlements: The Settlements list has been rebuilt as Funding Totals. Instead of scrolling individual settlement amounts, you get the whole deposit cycle in one place: total deposited, payments, fees, refunds, ACH returns, disputes, and adjustments, summed across every batch in the period. It answers what landed in your account and exactly what came out to get there. View Funds opens the batch-level detail when you need to trace a number back to its source.

Performance and Risk: A new row of cards surfaces the important health metrics: card and ACH authorization rates, card dispute rate, and ACH return rate. Each shows recent windows against the prior period.

Creating Payments, All in One Place

Create Payments with speed: You'll find a 'Create a Payment' button at the top of the sidebar. From there you can create an invoice, create a payment link, or take a manual payment.

Virtual Terminal is now Take a Manual Payment: The same feature, now named for what it does. It's the manual-payment option you'll find under the Create a Payment button or on the Created Payments page.

Created Payments: Invoices, recurring payments, and payment links now live together under a single screen called Created Payments, so you no longer have to navigate separate sections to see what you've set up.

Better Payment Management

Sharper Filters and Search: Finding and managing transactions is faster. The payments screens now have improved filters, more precise search, and expanded CSV export. You can stack filters — a date range, a status, an amount, a payment method — to isolate exactly the transactions you're looking for, rather than scanning a long list. Once you've set a filtered view, the expanded CSV export carries that same set into your records.

More Detail in the Side Sheet: Payment details in the side sheet are more comprehensive and linked to related records, like funding IDs, so you can follow a payment from charge to deposit. Sections are collapsible, so you can hide what you don't need and focus on the rest.

Updated Transaction-Status Terminology

We've changed our transaction-status language to better reflect what's actually happening to your money, and to align with the terms the major card networks use. A payment moves through three stages:

  • Pending is now Authorized — the payment has been approved but not yet finalized.
  • Succeeded is now Captured — the payment is complete and secured.
  • Settled is now Funded — the money has been deposited into your account.

A Clearer Picture of Your Funding

Settlements is now Funding: The change goes beyond the label. The new Funding Overview card shows the breakdown of the transactions by type so you can easily see how the deposited amount was built. Instead of working backward from a single total, you can see every component that makes it up.

Split funding: If you need to distribute a single received payment across multiple accounts or partners, you can send the split details along with the transaction. Where splits are enabled, they appear in the Funding Overview, and you can expand them in the side sheet for the full breakdown.

Developer Key Updates

The following changes are reflected in the portal's Developers section and in our documentation. Functionally, they still behave the same:

  • API Key is now SDK Key
  • Secret Key is now GraphQL API Key

Customer Support 

Customize your customer support contact information (email, website, phone number and social media links) and it will appear at the bottom of customer emails.

What's Next

Users will be able to gain access to the new portal by clicking the banner found in the current portal. During the overlap period, both versions remain accessible. Changes made in either portal will be reflected in the other. 

If you run into anything, our team is here — reach out through Contact & Support.

Sources Referenced