In-person payments

Bring your counter and your website onto one payments platform. Your point-of-sale software takes a card at the counter through the same API it uses online. Your backend creates a PaymentIntent for the sale and sends it to a specific terminal. The buyer presents a card, the terminal selects the eligible payment option and prompts for a PIN when PIN debit applies, and your backend reads the result. Every test account includes ready simulated terminals, so you can build and automate the full payment flow before any hardware arrives. Physical terminals use the same object, the same fields, and the same payment call.

When to use in-person payments

Situation	Use
A cardholder presents a card at an attended checkout	Accept in-person terminal payments
A merchant needs hardware for a new location	Request physical hardware
You test your point-of-sale integration without hardware	Test without physical hardware
The buyer pays online	Checkout or Ionic Blocks

What you can do

Capability	How it works
Take a card-present payment	Create a PaymentIntent, then process it on a terminal by its `tmr_` ID.
Follow every attempt	Each attempt returns a terminal payment with its own status and failure codes.
Cancel an active attempt	Request cancellation, then keep reading the status until the attempt finishes.
Refund at the counter	Send `terminal_id` to run a card-present refund on that terminal. Its receipt prints there when automatic refund receipts are on.
Print refund receipts	Print a refund receipt on a terminal on request.
Manage hardware	Create locations, request physical terminals, and read each terminal’s setup, connection, and capability states.
Track batches	Refresh, list, and inspect terminal batches and settlement profiles. Webhook events report when a batch closes, reconciles, or needs attention.
Test deterministically	Simulated terminals approve, decline, or delay by profile. Test helpers override one payment or batch.

Start here

Accept in-person terminal payments

Create a PaymentIntent, process it on a simulated terminal, and handle every status.

The Terminal object

Locations, provisioning, and the three independent states of a terminal.

Availability

Terminal payments use USD and automatic capture.
Simulated terminals exist in test mode. Ionic assigns physical terminals through a provisioning request, in test or live mode.
Refunds on the terminal are turned on per account by Ionic, separately in test and live mode.
Run acceptance testing on an Ionic-assigned physical test terminal before enabling production hardware.
Platforms run in-person payments for connected accounts with Ionic-Account. See In-person payments for connected accounts.

Guides

Guide	Use it to
Accept in-person terminal payments	Request hardware, test with simulated terminals, and run the payment flow.
The Terminal object	Understand locations, provisioning, terminal states, and refund receipts.
Refunds, captures, and cancellations	Refund a completed payment.
Webhooks	Receive payment, refund, and batch events.

API reference

Resource	Endpoints
Terminal payments	Process a PaymentIntent, retrieve, request cancellation, print a refund receipt
Terminals	List, retrieve, check connection
Terminal provisioning	List options, request hardware, list requests, retrieve a request
Terminal locations	Create, list, retrieve, update
Terminal batches	Refresh current batches, list, retrieve, list items, list settlement profiles, retrieve a settlement profile
Terminal testing	Override a payment scenario, configure a batch scenario
Payment intents	Create, retrieve
Refunds	Create, retrieve

Ionic sends terminal_batch.closed, charge.settled, refund.settled, and the rest of the terminal batch events.

Payments

Manage payments

When to use in-person payments

What you can do

Start here

Accept in-person terminal payments

The Terminal object

Availability

Guides

API reference

​When to use in-person payments

​What you can do

​Start here

Accept in-person terminal payments

The Terminal object

​Availability

​Guides

​API reference

When to use in-person payments

What you can do

Start here

Availability

Guides

API reference