Attaching a Card That TORO Can't See
Where to find it: Dashboard > Customers > Paya Contact Linker (also under Admin Tools > Customer Management)
Sometimes a customer's card gets stored at your processor without TORO ever being involved. Someone keyed it into PayaConnect's virtual terminal. The customer filled in a signup form you emailed them. Processor support set it up over the phone. However it happened, the card is safely in the vault — but TORO doesn't know whose it is.
The result is a customer whose Card on File screen looks empty even though they definitely have a card on file. You can't charge it at the register and you can't point a billing schedule at it, because as far as TORO is concerned that card belongs to nobody.
The Paya Contact Linker fixes exactly that. It lists the cards sitting at your processor with no TORO account attached, and lets you attach each one to the right customer.
Nothing is charged, and no card is created, changed, or deleted at your processor. This window only records who an existing card belongs to. It's a filing job, not a money job.
Before You Start
- You need Paya as your processor. This window doesn't apply to other processors.
- It starts out available to admins only. If you want your managers to have it, give us a call.
- You need an internet connection — the list is pulled live from the processor every time.
Which Account Are You Looking At?
If your store has both a Card Present (Retail) account and a Card Not Present account, TORO asks which one you want before it loads anything: "Which Credit Card Account?"
This matters. Each one is a separate location at the processor with its own separate list of cards — the same reason a card saved under Card Present never shows up under Card Not Present. A customer missing from one list may well be sitting on the other. If you don't find who you're looking for, close the window, open it again, and pick the other account.
If your store only has a Retail account, TORO skips the question and goes straight there.
Reading the List
The heading above the table tells you where you stand — for example, "2 Processor Contacts Not Linked to a TORO Account." If everything is already attached, it says so, and you're done.
Each row is a card record at the processor:
| Column | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Name | The name on the record at the processor. |
| Company | The company name, if one was entered. |
| Phone | The phone number on the record — this is what TORO matches on. |
| The email on the record. | |
| Account Number | A reference the processor holds. If TORO created the card originally, TORO's own stamp is here. |
| Suggested TORO Account | Who TORO thinks it belongs to, or an explicit "no match." |
Rows highlighted in blue are the ones TORO already recognises. Those are your easy wins — work through them first.
Click any row and the panel on the right fills in with everything the processor holds for that record, plus what TORO makes of it.
Attaching a Contact
The panel on the right always puts the recommended action at the top, so the button you want is the one your eye lands on first.
When TORO recognises the customer
The top button reads Link to (the account's name) — the actual customer, spelled out on the button itself, so you can see who you're agreeing to without reading anything else. Press it and TORO confirms, telling you why it thinks it's that person:
- it matched the phone number on the record to that customer, or
- it found TORO's own stamp in the Account Number, left there when TORO set up that card the first time.
Read the confirmation before you say yes. TORO is making an educated guess from a phone number, and you're the one who knows your customers. Say No and nothing happens.
You can also just double-click the row — that fires whatever is sitting in the top button, so it can never mean something different from what the panel is showing you.
When it doesn't, or the guess is wrong
Use Link to Customer Account and look the customer up the way you always do. Link to Wholesale Account does the same for a wholesale account. These are always available, so a wrong suggestion is never something you're stuck with — just ignore it and pick the right account yourself.
If a record has no phone number and no account number, TORO won't guess. A wrong suggestion you accepted is worse than no suggestion at all.
After it's attached
TORO confirms it worked and refreshes the list — the row you just handled drops off, because it isn't unattached any more. The card now shows up on that customer's Card on File screen and can be charged or put on a billing schedule like any other.
Refresh List at the bottom re-reads everything from the processor, which is worth doing if someone else has been working in PayaConnect while your window was open.
When TORO Stops You
Two things get checked against the database at the moment you press the button, not when the list loaded — because another station may have attached the same card while your window sat open.
"Already Linked" — somebody beat you to it. TORO names the account the card is now on and reloads the list. Nothing is wrong; the job is done.
"That Account Already Has a Contact" — the customer you picked already has a card record on this merchant account, and one TORO account can only hold one. TORO refuses rather than making a second one.
Don't try to work around the second message. A customer with two records ends up with one of them permanently invisible — TORO only ever reads the first, and every card on the other one disappears for good. If you think the existing record is the wrong one, call us and we'll sort it out properly.
If the List Won't Load
If TORO can't reach the processor, it says so plainly: "Could Not Reach the Processor," and the heading changes to warn you that the list is not complete and nothing in it can be trusted.
That warning is deliberate. An empty table after a failed connection looks exactly like "everything is already attached" — and that's the one conclusion you must never draw from it. Check your internet, then press Refresh List. If it keeps failing, give us a call.
Things to Know
This never charges anybody. No card is created, edited, or removed at the processor. All that changes is TORO's record of who a card belongs to.
Card Present and Card Not Present are separate lists. Not finding someone doesn't mean they aren't there — check the other account.
A record with no phone number gets no suggestion. That's normal. Look the customer up yourself.
Wholesale accounts work the same way, with their own button.
Right-click any row to copy the contact's ID or all its details — handy when support asks you to read one of those long codes over the phone.