Give merchants the tools to view reports, track transactions, issue refunds, manage disputes, and update account information.
After a merchant is approved, they need a way to manage their ongoing account and payment activity. BlueSnap supports two merchant operations models: merchants can use the BlueSnap Merchant Portal, or your platform can build merchant-facing tools into your own system using BlueSnap APIs, reports, and webhooks.
Merchant Portal access is configured at the platform level during go-live implementation. Your BlueSnap implementation team sets up whether merchants on your platform can access the BlueSnap Merchant Portal. This setting does not vary by individual merchant.
Choose an Operations Model
Before you build merchant-management workflows, decide how much of the post-approval merchant experience you want to own. This decision affects merchant support, reporting, merchant access to BlueSnap, and BlueSnap visibility after approval.
| Model | Best For: | How Merchants Manage Activity |
|---|---|---|
| BlueSnap-Managed Experience | Platforms that want merchants to use BlueSnap-hosted tools. | Merchants access the BlueSnap Merchant Portal to manage reports, refunds, disputes, and account activity. |
| Platform-Managed Experience | Platforms that want to own the full merchant experience. | Your platform uses BlueSnap APIs, reports, and webhooks to build merchant tools into your own system. |
BlueSnap-Managed Experience
Use the BlueSnap-managed experience if you want merchants to manage account and payment activity directly in BlueSnap. This model is best when you want to:
- Give merchants direct access to BlueSnap Merchant Portal
- Reduce development work
- Let merchants run reports, issue refunds, manage fraud settings, and view disputes in BlueSnap
- Avoid building operational tools into your own platform
In this model, BlueSnap provides the merchant-facing operational tools. BlueSnap has more visibility into the merchant’s payment operations, but your platform may still own the commercial relationship and platform-specific support.
Platform-Managed Experience
Use the platform-managed experience if you want merchants to manage account and payment activity inside your own system. This model is best when you want to:
- Hide or minimize the BlueSnap experience
- Keep merchants inside your own dashboard
- Build custom reporting, refund, transaction, fraud, or dispute workflows
- Control the full merchant user experience and support
In this model, your platform uses BlueSnap APIs, reports, and webhooks to retrieve data and perform actions on behalf of merchants. Merchants use your system for reporting, transaction lookup, refunds, payout visibility, disputes, and account access, so your support team should be prepared to answer questions about those workflows and escalate BlueSnap-specific issues when needed.