SAP Customer Checkout and Credit Card EFT Terminal Integration

Hello Everyone,

This blog post informs you about SAP Customer Checkout and EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) terminal Integration.

I really get a lot of questions on this topic, so I hope the blog posts helps to understand how things are working with SAP Customer Checkout with respect to EFT payment terminals. EFT payment terminals are mostly used for Credit and Debit card payments at PoS stations like SAP Customer Checkout.

There are 2 ways how customers (shops or stores or cashiers) are using SAP Customer Checkout with EFT payment terminals.

First way, the EFT terminal is not integrated to SAP Customer Checkout. This means that the cashier scans all articles that the customer wants to buy and, in the end, tells the customer to pay for example 80 EUR. The customer says he or she will pay with Credit Card. The cashier enters manually 80 EUR in the EFT terminal, and the payment settlement happens in EFT terminal. The cashier then to register this payment in SAP Customer Checkout, selects Card Payment. Selects the appropriate card and 80 Euro and done. The actual payment has happened outside of SAP Customer Checkout. You just record this in SAP Customer Checkout for tracking, auditing and mainly accounting purpose.  Here there is no additional license needed from SAP Customer Checkout perspective, as SAP Customer Checkout is not talking directly to the Credit Card Terminal.

Second way, the EFT terminal is integrated to SAP Customer Checkout.  This means that the cashier scans all articles and, in the end, the customer says he will pay with Credit Card. And this amount is automatically shown in EFT Terminal. And success or failure of transaction or exchange of information between SAP Customer Checkout and EFT Terminal happens.

For this case, instead of SAP Customer Checkout developing its own implementation to several types of EFT terminal devices, we use the “Pepper” interface library. Pepper is a product from Treibauf LINK HERE

You can read their website for exact definition etc., however generally speaking they provide a set of EFT interface library that connects different kind of EFT Terminal devices to PoS software like SAP Customer Checkout. So, SAP Customer Checkout development team developed a PlugIn (add-on) on top of SAP Customer Checkout, usually referred to as “Pepper PlugIn” which uses this Pepper library to connect to EFT Terminal. The “Pepper PlugIn” itself is available with SAP Customer Checkout and is included in the SAP Customer Checkout license. However, to use the Pepper library, you need to buy license from Treibauf. For license and cost about Treibauf Pepper, you need to contact Treibauf. The list of countries, currencies, terminals they support, all needs to be checked in Treibauf website.

Of-course implementation of the Pepper Library, is not the only way of connecting to EFT Terminals. This is exactly the reason why this was done as a PlugIn. We did it using Pepper. Partners are free to do it for other providers. But of-course doing these integration is complex. The partner needs deep SAP Customer Checkout development expertise and might need also certifications based on regulations.

I hope it explains you how this whole thing works. Additionally, I can share with you how we in our team are performing end to end tests.

For our test Lab, we got a trial license from Treibauf Pepper. My assumption is that it will be possible for a partner as well to get a trial license. But for this you need to contact Treibauf directly.
Also for our test lab, we got
1) Credit card terminals
2) Some test credit cards
3) A trial/test account from service provider so that we can do end to end test.

Some of these (1), (2), (3) came for free, and for some we had to pay. I know that in some countries you can get (1), (2), (3) all from 1 source, while in others you need to source them from multiple sources. But once you have this set-up, you are fully prepared to perform end to end testing and demo.

In this extensive blog, you have learnt about SAP Customer Checkout and EFT Terminal integration.

Hope you enjoyed the blog. Best of luck with your SAP Customer Checkout journey.

Feel free to comment and give feedback about the blog.

About me: 
My name is Bikash Bansal. I work for SAP SE, Germany. My current role is of Product Owner for SAP Customer Checkout.
You can find more blogs from me about SAP Customer Checkout here . If you wish to remain updated, you can also follow me in SAP Community.