Knowledgebase: Legacy Payments

Why are my PayPal customers paying a different total than my store's invoice?

 
  • Issue:
    Orders paid using PayPal show a different "Paid" amount than the order's "Total" amount.
  • Cause:
    Your PayPal settings may be set to calculate and charge for shipping and/or tax during the transaction.

In some cases, when an order is paid using PayPal, you may notice that the shopper (your customer) paid a different total than the order's total. For example the store's order invoice shows something like the following:

Subtotal $75.25
Discount $0.00
Shipping $12.65
Sales Tax $0.00
Total $87.90
Paid $93.57

Usually this happens because the settings at PayPal are set to also calculate and charge shipping or tax costs for the order. When the shopper uses your store's PayPal payment method, they log into their account (at PayPal) and process their payment. At this point they are charged for the order, and then they are then sent back to your store to complete the order on the Shift4Shop store.

However, if the PayPal settings are set to also calculate and charge for shipping and/or tax, the shopper is charged whatever amount PayPal calculates the total as being. This overrides the amounts calculated by your store's shipping and tax settings, and results in the mismatch shown above.

To prevent this, be sure to turn off the shipping calculation settings as well as tax calculation in your PayPal settings so that the store's shipping and tax calculation methods are used instead.


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