Adyen Integrations

Adyen: gateway and acquirer on a single platform

What sets Adyen apart from other gateways is that it also acts as the acquirer: it processes the payment, manages risk and settles funds without an intermediary acquiring bank in many of the markets where it operates. For a brand selling in several countries, that means one contract, one dashboard and one data format across all channels and markets, instead of a different virtual POS in each country.

That position comes with requirements. Adyen is aimed at companies with volume and their own payments operation, and onboarding includes a commercial and compliance review. It is worth tackling early in the project, because it shapes the account structure: Adyen lets you organise a company account with separate merchant accounts per brand, country or channel, and that structure later determines how reporting and reconciliation work.

In terms of data ownership, the store owns the order and the customer, Adyen owns the transaction and its risk, and the ERP owns invoicing. Adyen's payment reference travels with the order to the ERP so any system can trace the original transaction.

How we integrate Adyen with the online store

Adyen is integrated through its checkout API, with payment components embedded in the page (a complete form or individual pieces per payment method) or with an Adyen-hosted payment page. Card details are encrypted in the buyer's browser before reaching the store, and final confirmations arrive as server notifications that the store must accept and process without duplicates.

A key decision is when to charge. Adyen lets you separate authorisation, which reserves the amount at purchase, from capture, which actually collects it. In retail it is common to capture when the order leaves the warehouse: if the ERP or the warehouse system finds an item is missing, only what is shipped is captured, for methods that support it, and the rest is released without issuing a refund. The capture request can be triggered by the ERP itself or by the logistics system.

We work with Adyen's official plugin for Adobe Commerce (Magento) and build direct API integrations for custom portals and operations with specific rules. On other platforms, we check which connector Adyen currently maintains before proposing an approach.

Unified commerce with Adyen: physical stores, online channel and new markets

When a brand uses Adyen both in its eCommerce and in its in-store terminals, payments across all channels share the same platform and references. That opens up scenarios that are hard to achieve with separate providers: recognising the same shopper in store and online, returning a web order in store against the original payment, or taking payment in store for an order reserved online.

For this to work, the integration does not stop at checkout: the point of sale, the online store and the ERP need to share the order number and the payment reference. We design these flows together with store operations (who authorises a cross-channel return, how it affects stock and the day's till) so store staff do not have to sort it out by hand.

The same logic applies to opening new markets. Each country's payment methods are enabled on the existing integration, so adding a market is mainly a matter of configuration, contract and testing rather than new development.

Reconciling Adyen with the ERP and managing risk

Because Adyen settles funds directly, it also provides the detail of each settlement: which transactions it includes, in which currency, which fees were applied and which amounts relate to refunds or chargebacks. With an account structure per country or brand, that detail arrives separately, which suits groups that book each legal entity on its own in SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Oracle NetSuite.

We automate downloading those reports and posting them to the ERP, matching by order reference, so treasury only reviews exceptions. On risk, fraud rules and 3D Secure requests are tuned in Adyen; our job is to make sure the store responds correctly to each outcome: holding an order under review, cancelling a declined authorisation or alerting customer service when a chargeback comes in.