Use PayPal Complete Payments in LGL Forms for the best PayPal checkout experience

In this article:

Launch timing

As of late November 2024, this upgrade is available in all LGL accounts, so if you connect PayPal as a payment account in LGL Forms, it will be using PayPal Complete Payments.

Benefits of PayPal Complete Payments

  • This new integration supports the use of credit cards for recurring donations. In the past, if you used PayPal for recurring donations in LGL Forms, the recurring donation would successfully complete only if the donor checked out using their PayPal account while logged in.
  • This new integration supports Venmo as a payment option in LGL Forms. If a donor selects to pay via Venmo, they'll click on a Venmo QR code and pay via Venmo.
  • The new integration supports Google Pay, however only for one-time payments, not recurring donations.

Requirements

As is the case with our existing PayPal integration for LGL Forms, you will need a PayPal business account in order to be able to connect it to LGL Forms. When you go through the setup process, you may be asked some additional questions about your organization, especially if you have not updated your organization's information in your PayPal account for a long time.

How to set up the PayPal Complete Payments integration

Before going through any of these steps in your LGL Forms area, we strongly recommend that you first log into the PayPal account you want to connect. Make sure it's the PayPal business account for your organization, not a personal account. Then, in the same web browser, complete the following steps.

  1. In the LGL Forms area of your Little Green Light account, navigate to the Admin page and click on the Payment Accounts tab. From there, click the blue Add payment account button.

  1. In the Add payment account area, you will see sections for Stripe and PayPal Complete Payments. Open the PayPal section and click the blue Set up PayPal button.

You'll need to go through a login screen, and afterward you should see a success message.

  1. You can then return to the LGL Forms area, and you'll see that a new PayPal account is listed among your payment accounts. The default name is "PayPal CP #1" (CP stands for "Complete Payments").

  1. You can now select that payment processor when editing any of your forms. Remember that for any form in which you want to start using this new PayPal payment account, you'll need to make an update to that form. You will need to make that same edit to every form in which you want to use the new PayPal payment account to accept gifts.
  2. After selecting "PayPal CP" as your processor, add the payment options you'd like to offer your donors: Venmo, Google Pay, and Credit Card. If you don't select any of those, the only checkout option will be PayPal.

Important note about Google Pay: The Google Pay option is not supported in this integration for recurring donations, so if your donor is making a recurring donation, they will not see Google Pay as an option.

Important note about Venmo: The Venmo option here works as part of LGL Forms. This does not mean that Little Green Light will know about any payment a donor initiates in their Venmo account. In other words, the Venmo payment they make has to be for a transaction initiated using LGL Forms and then completed using Venmo, as described at the end of this article.

What is the donor experience?

Your donors will see a checkout button using their PayPal account and any other payment options you've selected in the form editor. This example shows all of the available options:

If the donor chooses to pay using PayPal, a hover window will appear on the screen where they can log into their PayPal account and complete payment:

If the donor chooses to check out using Venmo instead, they will see a QR code, which they can scan using their Venmo app on their phone to complete payment. After completing that payment, the checkout screen on their computer will show that payment was completed. LGL Forms will also record that the payment was successful.

If the donor chooses to make a recurring donation, then the Google Pay option will not display, and the donor can check a box allowing PayPal to save the credit card for recurring payments.

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