Checkout.com vs Paycycle

Checkout.com provides businesses with services to accept customer payments and send funds, through multiple payment methods and integration routes. It supports more than 150 processing currencies and local acquiring in over 50 countries. Merchants can take major card schemes, direct debits, vouchers, digital wallets and bank transfers, with recurring and marketplace payments also listed. Integration options include Flow, ecommerce plugins, mobile SDKs for Android and iOS, hosted payment pages and an API; its partner directory names Shopify, WooCommerce, BigCommerce and Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Intelligent Acceptance uses an AI engine to optimize payments. Fraud Detection includes network intelligence, machine-learning risk scores, transaction rules, and allow and block lists, with advanced controls and analytics in a Pro tier. Checkout.com says it is PCI DSS Level 1 compliant and its systems are ISO 27001 certified. Pricing is on request and tailored to business profile and risk category; registered charities can receive free processing where the service operates. The company lists Android, iOS, web and API support.

Paycycle connects payment workflows around Xero for South African businesses and accounting practices. It brings approved supplier bills from Xero into payment runs and reconciles completed payments back to Xero. For payroll, it imports approved employee pay runs from SimplePay for review, authorisation and payment. Its collections tools handle electronic mandates, recurring collections, failed-payment follow-up and reconciliation. Pay Now can be added to Xero invoices so customers can pay without logging in or setting up a new beneficiary.

Supplier and employee bank accounts are checked through AVS before payment. Payments use a direct route where supported, or a funded pass-through settlement route where required. Listed supplier-payment rails include PayShap, Investec Open Banking, Paycycle Payments and Netcash Payments. Paycycle describes an AI reconciliation engine that reviews bank feeds, resolves exceptions and closes month-end reconciliation in under a minute. Listed controls include encrypted and masked bank details, controlled approvals, tamper-evident records and an audit trail. The web service offers free modules and paid plans; prices range from free to 1,450 ZAR a month.