Merchant Boarding Sandbox Simulator

You can test and refine your merchant onboarding process by simulating risk review outcomes. Use merchant boarding simulators in the Payrix Pro Sandbox environment to build workflows with realistic platform responses for denied and held merchants. Emulate real-world risk scenarios, develop your response plan for held and denied merchants, and set accurate expectations for all onboarding experiences.

Activate Merchant Boarding Simulators

Trigger each simulator by entering specific values in the Merchant Signup Form.

Merchant boarding simulators use the Zip field to trigger the realistic boarding status updates without manual Payrix Pro Underwriting Team intervention or review. To activate merchant boarding simulators, use only the specified trigger values. Non-trigger values return the standard Successfully Boarded response.

To trigger a merchant boarding simulator:

1. Select Signup Forms in the left navigation panel.

2. Click More Options (⋮) for the relevant Signup Form to copy the link.

3. Paste the Signup Form link into a new browser tab.

4. Complete the Business Overview and Business Details sections.

5. Use one of the following triggers for the Zip field on the Business Address section to simulate a manual review or decline risk review response scenario:

6. Complete the remaining sections as required and submit the completed Merchant Signup Form.

Notes

• A merchant boarding status of Manual Review does not mean the boarding process has failed. As a result, the merchant boarding status is reset to Not Ready. The associated history will still be visible in the Merchant Profile Alerts table.

• New merchants created with the Duplicate zip value are all boarded with the same legal entity ID.

Check Simulator Responses

When triggering the merchant boarding simulators, an artificial platform risk review updates the merchant's boarding status. You can verify expected responses and simulated platform messages.

Verify the merchant boarding simulator responses in two ways:

• Boarding Status: The Boarding Status field for the merchant account updates to show Manual Review, Duplicate, or Denied.

• Alerts: The Alerts table on the Merchant Profile page displays the simulator response message.

Check the Boarding Status

To verify the merchant’s boarding status has successfully updated with the simulator response:

1. Select Merchants in the left navigation panel.

2. Select the relevant merchant to access the Merchant Profile page.

3. Select the Account tab on the Profile Overview menu.

Result: The Boarding Status field shows the boarding status for a merchant after boarding. When a simulator is successfully triggered, the merchant’s boarding status immediately updates to Manual Review or Denied based on the platform and trigger value entered on the Merchant Signup Form.

Check for Platform Alerts

To verify the simulator response message was returned after submitting the trigger value:

1. Select Merchants in the left navigation panel.

2. Select the relevant merchant to access the Merchant Profile page.

3. Select Alerts in the Merchant Profile left menu.

Result: The Alerts menu displays a list of platform alerts and responses to merchant activity. For merchant boarding simulators, the response for submitting a successful trigger will always be Platform denied boarding this merchant, regardless of platform.

Note

The Alerts page always shows the platform is Vantiv. However, VCore simulators can only be triggered using EIN values. This means if you receive an alert from using an EIN value, you’ve successfully triggered the VCore simulator.