Add and manage merchants in the company panel

Purpose#

A delivery company adds its own merchants, decides how each one pays the delivery fee, tops up their shipping balance and settles the cash due. This guide covers those tasks in the company panel.

Who can use it#

Any company account that holds the merchant-management permissions merchant_read, merchant_create, merchant_update, merchant_delete and merchant_view. The company admin has no bypass: it receives these keys from the modules of the company's plan, and other staff through their role. Company merchants and their wallets and Top up requests are open to company staff (admin, in-charge, hub).

Requirements#

• At least one hub in your company: Hub is required and must belong to your company.
• A mobile number and, if you enter one, an email that no other account on the platform uses.
• Room in your company plan's merchant limit. It is checked when you save: at the limit the save fails with the error "Your company plan allows N merchants, and you have reached the limit. Upgrade the plan to add more merchants."

Add a merchant#

1. Open the merchants list

   In the side menu open Merchant Manage, then Merchants. The list shows each merchant's details, status and Shipping balance with the company. Use the + button to add a merchant.

2. Fill in the account details

   Required: Business Name, Name, Phone (digits only, 9 to 15), Password (at least 6 characters), Hub and Address. Optional: Email, Status (Active by default), Image, NID, Trade License, Reference, Opening Balance and the older fields below.

3. Save

   Saving creates the merchant's login account (6-digit unique ID), the default wallets and one default pickup location using the phone and address you entered. The opening balance goes into the merchant's Shipping balance with the company.

4. Choose how the merchant pays the fee

   Open Company merchants and their wallets. In the Payment column choose From COD (nothing is deducted at creation; the fee is subtracted from the COD amount on delivery) or From their balance in advance (the fee is deducted from the shipping balance at creation, and the parcel is not created if the balance is not enough).

5. Top up the shipping balance

   On the same page use the small form in the Shipping balance column: choose Top up or Withdrawal, type the amount in your display currency and confirm. A withdrawal larger than the balance is refused: "The merchant balance is less than the amount you want to withdraw."

6. Handle top-up requests

   Merchants send a request when they transfer money to you. Open Top up requests and approve a request once you have received the money, which adds the amount to their shipping balance, or reject it with a reason the merchant sees. A merchant can have at most 5 pending requests. In the English interface only part of this page is translated. For example, the title, the Merchant accounts button, the Merchant and Amount column headers, the last column header on the approved and rejected tabs (Result), the payment-method names (Bank transfer, Cash receipt, ShamCash, Other) and the Rejected badge appear in English; the tab names (pending, approved and rejected requests), the approve and reject buttons, the reason field, the explanatory text, the 'Method and reference' column header, the last column header on the pending tab ('Action') and the badge on approved requests stay in Arabic.

Expected result#

The merchant can sign in on your company's site and create parcels through your company. Company merchants and their wallets shows, per merchant, the Shipping balance and the COD dues ("Owed to them", "Owes" or "Settled"), a summary, and the last 40 movements.

Dues and settlement#

• COD dues is the cash collected for the merchant minus any fee taken from COD. When positive, you owe the merchant. Use I paid them when you hand money over, or I received from them when the merchant owes you; the amount cannot exceed what is due.
• In a card above the merchants table (below the summary and counters), a field sets what share of the fee goes back to the merchant when a parcel is returned undelivered: "If your merchant parcel is returned undelivered, they get back [ ] % of the fee." (0% = the fee stays on the merchant, 100% = fully refunded).

Pickup locations#

The merchant's details page, opened from the actions menu on the merchant's row, has a Pickup Points tab if your role has merchant_shop_read. A default pickup point is created when you add the merchant.

COD charges, VAT and other older fields#

• The Edit form shows a COD Charge section with three percentages; the create form sends default values for them silently. Creating parcels from the merchant panel, the API, linked stores and the merchant Excel import does not read them, nor VAT, Return Charges or Payment Period. Only the older Excel import in the company panel still uses the COD Charge percentages and VAT, to fill the parcel's legacy amount fields.
• The Delivery Charge tab on the details page is an older per-merchant table. Current pricing does not use it (the older company-panel Excel import still looks it up, or an older general table when the merchant has no row, to fill the legacy amount fields); delivery prices come from the Delivery pricing page.

Activate, deactivate and delete#

• Set Status to Inactive on the Edit form. The merchant can no longer sign in.
• Delete is permanent: it removes the merchant record, the login account and the uploaded documents, and also the merchant's parcels. Prefer Inactive.

Common mistakes#

• "This mobile number is already used by another account on the platform." (for an email: "This email is used by another account on the platform.")
• "Choose the hub. If the list is empty, add a hub first from the hubs page."
• "The selected pickup location does not exist or does not belong to your company." (the English interface text says "pickup location" but it refers to the hub): the hub you chose is not one of your company's hubs.
• Expecting the price of a new parcel to change when you edit the COD Charge percentages. They do not affect parcels created from the merchant panel, the API, linked stores or the merchant Excel import.

Limits and permissions#

• Staff see only their own company's merchants.
• The Charge wallet entry may show in the merchant's actions menu for the company admin, but it does not work on a company's own site (its target is not available there), so use Company merchants and their wallets to top up.