Why can't I find my first PayPal fast checkout payment?

[LizE2415]

I awhile ago I had my first “paypal” fast check out payment. I couldn’t figure out how to collect payment. Or “catch” the payment. After some research I figured out that I could do it on my computer by selecting it and catching it (or whatever it’s called) within a few days after the purchase. Anyways, now thinking about it I still have not received this payment! It doesn’t show up on my “payouts” on Shopify. And it doesn’t show up on my PayPal account either which is a business account and is the same email as my Shopify is connected to. I don’t know what to do, I’m so lost and frustrated at this point. I just want my money, Someone paid to me. Or any helpful ideas to prevent this from happening again!!! That you!! 

[Summer]

Hey, @LizE2415! Welcome to Shopify Community!

You may be referring to the concept of capturing payments. To give you a brief explanation, when someone places an order and makes a payment on your store, the payment needs to be captured in order for it to be sent to your admin and then your bank account. You have the ability to set your store to either manually or automatically capture payments. Since you had to select or click the option to capture the payment, it sounds like your store is set to manually capture payments. If you want to change how payments are captured, you can follow the steps on this page.

Now, when a customer uses third-party gateways such as PayPal, payments are sent and accessed through your account with the gateway. Therefore, it's expected that you don't see them on the payouts page in your admin's payment settings. Since you don't see the payment in your PayPal account, I recommend reaching out to their support team and having them trace it. You can take note of the order's authorization key and pass it on to PayPal support.

To find the PayPal authorization key, you can follow the steps below.

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Orders > All orders.
2. Click the order in question.
3. Scroll down to the Timeline.
4. Click and expand the activity that states "A xyz payment was processed on PayPal Express Checkout." 

   

5. Take note of the authorization key. 

   

When you have the authorization key, you can then contact PayPal support through the details on this page.

[LizE2415]

First off thank you Summer for getting back to me! I’m so lost so thank you for helping me, as I’ve been trying to get help for awhile! Ok so I actually already have my payments to be captured automatically! Any other payment has been directly put in my payouts. It’s the PayPal payments I’m struggling with. It was saying pending for while. And told me I needed to capture it(only paypal payments I guess) so I manually capture that one. And still haven’t or don’t know where the payment is. PayPal said they don’t see the transaction on my account. And tell me it maybe stuck on Shopify. I noted the authorization key, but they said their isn’t a way they can look it up or track it, because nothing is showing up on their end…. It’s also notes that if it’s not claimed in 29days it will be refunded, I’ve been trying for 19days.. I don’t want to lose the money someone paid me for a product I already sent out.

[Aleeneo]

It's because Shopify dgaf if you are not a US citizen