After a failed Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite implementation project for a medium sized business running $28MM per year in credit card sales a comprehensive Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite credit card payments review article was in order!

This Solupay (Versapay) review begins with an overview of the Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite credit card payments solution then dives into the details of the client project followed by a lengthly list of Solupay issues and finally a conclusion on how to avoid a Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite payments train wreck.

Solupay (Versapay) Review

Solupay is a FirstData Independent Sales Organization (ISO) that delivers simple and secure payment solutions. Purchased by Versapay in 2020. Originally founded in 2004.

Certification: is a NetSuite certified SuitePayments provider since 2015.

Presence: USA, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Processor: FirstData as the sole back-end acquirer. Several gateways used for card-present transactions depending on the setup: Payeezy or Bridgepay.

Card-present: multiple credit card terminals available including the Clover terminal. Certified with the NetSuite SuiteCommerce In Store (SCIS) point-of-sale system.

NetSuite Value adds: a touted credit card reconciliation feature within NetSuite but the author was never able to get it working.

NetSuite footprint: as of 11 Oct 2020, Solupay (Versapay) had 1,183 installs of their bundle in NetSuite (indicating at most 1,183 customers unless other customers are using a private bundle). 

Pricing notes: normal interchange-plus rates (see my article Understanding NetSuite Credit Card Processing Choices for details).

The Fallacy of SuiteApp.com Reviews

All certified SuitePayments providers will be listed on the SuiteApp.com exchange but you should realize that NetSuite never publishes a negative review (based on the author’s experience when attempting to post a negative review on Solupay).

Therefore, the SuitePayments team apparently do not wish negative reviews to be seen or known about. And, you will only see the “good” news reviews.

Existing Client Operations

The client runs all credit card transactions through the Cybersource gateway with an acquirer on the backend. Card-not-present transactions utilize the Cybersource SuitePayments bundle for ERP and Suite Commerce Advanced (web) transactions; card-present transactions utilize a custom script which takes card swipe data from a simple USB magnetic credit card swiper reader that auto-populates the Cash Sale and Customer Deposit forms (non PCI compliant).

Client does $28MM in credit card sales annually with volumes continuing to grow as the retail footprint expands beyond 10 retail locations.

In reviewing the existing NetSuite + Cybersource credit card processing solution, the client was dissatisfied with the solution for the following reasons:

1. CyberSource transactions sometimes took 45 seconds to process in NetSuite.
2. Passing Level 2/3 data from NetSuite to CyberSource was so problematical that the client had to turn off sending line level data (transactions would hang or not approve when that feature was turned on within NetSuite).
3. Without Level 2/3 data being passed from NetSuite, it was estimated the client was losing over $100,000 per year in increased transaction fees.
4. The retail USB credit card swiper is non PCI compliant.
5. User experience with the USB credit card swiper was poor: need a PCI compliant credit terminal for customers to use.
6. Missing an integrated PCI compliant credit card terminal solution that integrates with NetSuite. Client could have an independent credit card  terminal but it would be outside of the NetSuite application and thus negatively impact accounting daily reconciliations.

Top Client Goals

Client has a critical requirement for a PCI compliant credit card processing solution that is seamlessly integrated with NetSuite for card-present credit card terminal processing at the retail locations. The solution must be an omnichannel solution providing a single payments gateway for ERP, POS and Web transactions.

The client’s top business goals for project and are listed in order of importance:

1. Improve the customer experience at the retail stores with modern and efficient credit card terminals integrated with NetSuite (e.g. a Clover or Square terminal or similar).
2. Reduce credit card transaction costs with full Level 2/3 data being passed through correctly for card-present transactions as well as hand entered or stored credit card transactions on the ERP/SCA user interface.
3. Having an omnichannel solution with a single payments gateway to streamline accounting and payments operations.
4. Gain full PCI compliance utilizing PCI compliant credit card terminals and the NetSuite PCI compliant backend.

Solupay (Versapay) Selection

Solupay (Versapay) was selected because at the time they were the only certified NetSuite credit card processing solution that had a seamless NetSuite integration with an advanced credit card terminal without the need to purchase the expensive NetSuite POS solutions.

The NetSuite POS and Suite Commerce In Store (SCIS) solutions do have integrations with many advanced credit card terminals but they are expensive solutions and the client had already determined that given unique ERP transaction requirements, utilizing the standard NetSuite ERP payment forms was the only way to proceed.

This left Solupay (Versapay) as the only viable solution with the Clover Mini credit card terminal selected:

The Clover terminal was very appealing as it would:

1. Provide a PCI compliant credit card processing terminal without the expense of having to purchase the NetSuite POS or Suite Commerce In Store (SCIS) solutions.
2. It would greatly improve the customer experience at the retail stores.

Solupay (Versapay) also touted other aspects of the solution which were appealing:

1. Enhanced credit card reconciliation features within NetSuite.
2. An internal team to help with PCI self-audit compliance.
3. Enable Level II and Level III transaction details for reduced overhead.

Solupay (Versapay) Configuration

Solupay (Versapay) acts as the NetSuite front-end gateway which then connects all transactions to a real payment gateway:

• For NetSuite card-not-present transactions: Payeezy or Bridgepay gateways.
• For the Clover card-present transactions: the Clover gateway.

All gateways then connect the only acquirer that Solupay (Versapay) supports: FirstData.

Solupay (Versapay) Issues

The Solupay (Versapay) implementation project dragged out for 12 months due to innumerable problems with the Solupay NetSuite credit card processing setup and finally the project was aborted because the client had lost any shred of confidence that Solupay would ever resolve their issues for the client.

Details on the many issues encountered follow:

NetSuite Support

Solupay (Versapay) only had one NetSuite developer on their payroll and this caused huge delays on resolving the many and various issues which cropped up in the Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite bundle and with their gateway integrations.

Clover Terminal

The Clover terminal had a number of issues and the first one noticed was that it took up to 10 seconds before the Clover terminal would light up in order to accept the customer payment once the Cash Sale or Customer Deposit transaction was saved.

The performance issue here stems from how the Clover integration was developed by Solupay (Versapay): all communication with the Clover terminal is via the Clover network and not directly to the terminal itself. 

Some NetSuite Customer Deposit transactions run through the Clover would correctly charge the card but then the Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite bundle would suffer a failure and the Customer Deposit transaction would not be saved and was effectively “lost”.  Per Solupay: “This sounds like the issues we have been working on with coding to the new Clover SDK. Unfortunately I still don’t have an ETA on its release.”

There were an increasing number of Clover timeout issues where the NetSuite transaction would give a “device [Clover] initialization failure” message when the transaction was saved (meaning the Clover could not be initialized in order to charge the card). Per Solupay this was a problem in the client’s NetSuite environment and they were not helpful in debugging this issue despite the fact that this was their bundle that was failing.

Payeezy Gateway

Solupay (Versapay) initially provisioned the client with the Payeezy gateway for the NetSuite ERP card-not-present transactions but due to continued reporting issues (transactions not rolling up to the Firstdata back-end soon enough to support next day cash reporting), the gateway was replaced with the Bridgepay gateway.

Bridgepay Gateway

Any NetSuite Cash Sale which had a double quote in the item name/description would cause the Bridgepay gateway to fail with a “gateway error”. Solupay (Versapay) was unable to ever resolve this issue stating it was an issue with Bridgepay gateway not supporting this special character.

This issue effectively blocked the transaction entirely and the CSR would then then have to revert to the legacy Cybersource gateway to make the credit card charge.

Attempting to refund a Bridgepay transaction from a NetSuite Customer Deposit always failed with an “unknown” NetSuite error. Solupay (Versapay) insisted this was some unique issue in the client’s NetSuite environment but the error only appeared when attempting to refund a Bridgepay transaction.

Firstdata Clientline Portal

The only acquirer that Solupay (Versapay) offers is Firstdata and the Clientline user portal for merchants was incredibly antiquated, slow and the reporting features difficult to work with.

The team spent months attempting to get next day automated cash reports to be generated correctly that included the Clover and Payeezy/Bridgepay transactions together.

Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite Reconciliation

The touted Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite reconciliation feature which had a few features that would help Accounting during the credit card batch reconciliation within NetSuite actually never worked despite the Solupay developer working on off and on over 8 months.

Solupay (Versapay) Merchant Services

The client experienced quite the merry go round with the Solupay (Versapay) merchant services team:

• Client underwriting took months to be approved despite a Class A client.
• Consolidated next day transaction reporting took over 6 months to get working and required a gateway change.
• New MID setup was flubbed causing a Go Live at the Beta site to be aborted.
• The Sales Manager providing operations support as Solupay did not have a dedicated operations manager.

Conclusion

The Solupay (Versapay) NetSuite credit card processing solution was certainly not a viable solution for the client given a failed implementation over an agonizing 12 months. Given my experience I definitely do not recommend the Solupay + NetSuite credit card payments solution.

You may then wonder why it took so long before the solution was rejected? The client required a credit card terminal that was seamlessly integrated with NetSuite without having to leverage the native NetSuite POS solutions: Solupay was the only option on the market at that time.

Since then there is a new, recommended solution from FreedomPay and SCS Cloud which seamlessly integrates the Ingenico Lane Series of credit card terminals with the standard NetSuite transaction records.

The FreedomPay + SCS Cloud solution is fast, secure and utilizes the same NetSuite Payment Processing Profile as card-not-present transactions which is a real boon because then card-present and card-not-present transactions all roll up to the same gateway (FreedomPay).

See my Understanding NetSuite Credit Card Processing Choices article for a comprehensive review of all NetSuite choices available.