Hi All,
We've heard a number of common questions asked over and over again and i think it's time i post the answers to these questions to make your life easier :-)
1. I have registered but i can't seem to locate the consumer key and secret.
- Confirm that the account you registered is a business account and not a personal account. You can receive funds using your business account, however, you can't do the same using your personal account. A personal account in this case is a payer's/donor's account. You can always reach out to our help-desk team (support.pesapal.com) for confirmation on what type of account you have registered.
- If the registration was done on the live system, an email will be sent automatically. In case you can't locate the email, login to your merchant account and check below your dashboard for the resend button .
- If you registered on our sandbox, login (demo.pesapal.com) and get the credentials on your dashboard(The demo system doesn't send notifications).
2. Can i integrate PesaPal on my system.
- Well.. as long as you have full control of your system, it's possible to integrate PesaPal. By full control i mean you have access to the system's files. This applies to both desktop and web applications. However, it's important that the app is connected to the internet.
- If you have a website that is built using a website builder, the website builder must provide a way for you to hook in external plugins. If this isn't available, you could either ask the system owners to add PesaPal on their system or send us an email at
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requesting for an online form that will allow clients to make payments to you. Have a look at this example payments.pesapal.com/demobusiness To login to this example's backend use username: demobusiness password: demobusiness login link: payments.pesapal.com
3. How do i actually integrate PesaPal
STEP 1
STEP 2
STEP 3
Build a simple form that connects to a database, load PesaPal's Iframe and uses an IPN to update your database. It's very important that you forget about your system at this point :-). Why do i say so? If you try integrating PesaPal directly into your system, you will probably have a hard time especially if you don't know your system end to end! This is why we insist that you forget about the system and work on a simple form to help you implement what you've learnt.
STEP 4
Now that you have PesaPal on your finger tips, it's time to do the real work. Let's go ahead with the integration. However, make sure you know how your system works end to end. For example, if you have an e-commerce website, check how to build a custom payments plugin for that specific e-commerce extension. Use the same knowledge acquired to build your own custom PesaPal plugin.
4. Am getting the error: Problem: signature_invalid | Advice: > .
There are two reasons as to why you may be getting the error message above:
- Your consumer secret is incorrect. Ensure you've not included spaces at the beginning or end of the consumer secret
- The OAuth file you've used generates the wrong signature. (Mostly common if using other Languages. We've shared the PHP and .NET code for this. Check also for plugins you might have installed that use OAuth for authentication. The file they use may be causing a conflict. Tip, you can look for social media plugins..
5. Am getting the error: Problem: parameter_rejected | Advice: unknown_error_occured> oauth_parameters_rejected | request_xml_data
This is as a result of send incorrect parameters to PesaPal. Check that the XML file contains valid data. One most common mistake is when you try to organize your code and in the process introduce unnecessary spaces in the $post_xml variable.
6. Am getting the error: Problem: consumer_key_unknown | Advice: > |
This happens when you use the wrong consumer key in your application. Please note that demo.pesapal.com (sandbox application) and
www.pesapal.com (live application) run of different databases hence you can not connect to the live application using the consumer key issued after registering a business account on demo or vice versa. To correct this issue, you need to check the following:
- Confirm you are using the correct key and secret. (avoid adding spaces at the beginning or at the end of the key/secret)
- If you are connecting to the sandbox application, please use the demo key and secret. You can find them on your demo business account dashboard
- If you are connecting to the live application, please use use the live key and secret sent to your email address.
7. Am getting the error: Problem: timestamp_refused | Advice: > oauth_acceptable_timestamps |
Basically this means your server time is incorrect. Please have a look at the following post on how to correct your server time:
developer.pesapal.com/forum/2-pesapal-in...t=6&start=6#1283
Feel free to post your comments here or send us an email at
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