For Automated Credit Card Charges or Customer Initiated Charges (Pay Now, Customer Portal, Auto-Pay)
- Since there is no opportunity for a reference number to be entered for these types of transactions, when payment is successful, the reference number will use the first 11 characters of the PayEngine/Payabli Transaction ID.
When Receiving a CC or ACH Payment Manually Within the System
- Reference number is an optional field if the payment method is CC or ACH. In this situation, the character limit of your input is 9 characters.
- If you don't add a reference number: For successful payments, the reference number will follow the same logic as automated CC charges, which is to use the first 11 characters of the transaction ID.
- If you do add a reference number: For successful payments, the reference number will be the concatenation of the first 11 characters of the transaction ID with what you have inputted.
- Example: Transaction ID = 123456789011, you input = ABCDEFG, then Reference Number = 12345678901ABCDEFG
- Example: Transaction ID = 123456789011, you input = ABCDEFG, then Reference Number = 12345678901ABCDEFG
In QuickBooks, the Reference Number field has a character limit of 21 characters. The rules above are to ensure that the total length of the field does not exceed 21 characters while also incorporating useful information, such as Transaction ID.
When Receiving CC or ACH Payments via Batch Functionality
- Reference number is a required field.
- The final reference number will be the concatenation of the first 11 characters of the transaction ID with what you have inputted.
Updated: 3/21/25