Getting your shop ready for digital payments: a five-step method

Why get started now

Your customers are changing. Some go out without cash, others order by message, and others still want to pay for a parent's groceries from another city. A shop that accepts these habits keeps these customers; a shop that refuses them sends them elsewhere. Digital payment also has advantages for you: less cash to handle, fewer mistakes when giving change, and a record of every sale that makes your bookkeeping easier.

The good news is that the transition happens in stages, without a big investment. Here is the order that works best for a local shop.

Step 1: choose how your customers will pay

Start with the situations you already deal with, and one payment method for each:

• At the counter: your QR code displayed near the checkout, which the customer scans to pay. You can also accept card payments from your customers, with no complicated terminal to install.
• Remotely: a payment link sent by WhatsApp or SMS, or your RIB for a bank transfer.
• For services: mobile top-ups and bill payments from your counter, with cashback or a commission based on your volume.
• For the cash that's left: a deposit at a cash agency to top up your account, rather than keeping the money in the shop.

All these methods come together in the chari.ma app, presented on the Collect a payment page. Show clearly what you accept: a customer who sees "QR accepted" at the entrance doesn't need to ask.

Step 2: separate the shop's accounts from the household's

Digital payment only makes sense if you know where the money lands. Have the shop's payments arrive in a dedicated account, and pay yourself a fixed amount for the household. Your chari.ma account has its own RIB and Moroccan IBAN: your customers and partners can send transfers to it, and you'll find every movement in the history.

If you collect online, ChariPay — a Moroccan payment platform, a PSP operated by Chari Money, a payment institution licensed by Bank Al-Maghrib — opens a payment account for you in your company's name, with a RIB in that name and a PDF certificate to download. ChariPay is not a bank: your payment account is held by Chari Money. It complements your bank; it does not replace it.

Step 3: keep a record of every sale

A digital payment leaves a record: the date, the amount, sometimes a description. Use it to bring order to everything else:

• A clear description on every payment link: the customer and what they bought.
• A check every evening between the cash in the till and the history of your digital payments.
• The receipts and invoices you hand out, numbered and filed, for you as well as for your accountant.
• Credit sales written down the same day, customer by customer: our guide to the credit notebook explains how.

Invoicing rules depend on your legal status and your business: ask your accountant what applies to your shop. What's certain is that a clean history makes every formality easier. On ChariPay, every account movement carries the reference of the sale, refund or payout that explains it, and the CSV export keeps those references.

Step 4: prepare your team and reassure your customers

• Show everyone who works the till how to check a payment in the history, not on the customer's screen.
• Keep your PIN code to yourself: no one else needs to know it. In the chari.ma app, every transaction is protected by your PIN code and Face ID.
• If several people collect online for you, the ChariPay portal roles separate viewing from acting: owner, manager, cashier, accountant; the cashier collects without seeing the balance or transfers.
• Explain to your regular customers what's changing, and give them time: cash won't disappear overnight.

On security, one simple benchmark: chari.ma is the app from Chari, a payment institution licensed by Bank Al-Maghrib. The details are on the Security page.

Step 5: open your shop online

When your customers order remotely on a regular basis, an online sales channel becomes useful: a storefront with your products, card payment on a secure page, orders tracked without relying on the memory of your conversations. That is exactly the role of ChariPay (charipay.ma).

• No website yet? Publish your products on your hosted storefront and track your orders — awaiting payment, paid, shipped, delivered — from your portal.
• Already have a website? An order becomes a checkout session: the buyer is redirected to the hosted checkout, by card with 3-D Secure, and the result reaches you through a signed webhook.
• Selling on Shopify or WooCommerce? There is no ChariPay extension for these platforms: you send a payment link for each order, or connect the hosted checkout through the API.
• Your customers without a card can pay in cash: on the page of a single-use payment link, they choose cash, receive a reference and pay it at an agency of the Chari network.

To understand how it all fits together, read the guide to e-commerce payments in Morocco and the one on the payment gateway in Morocco. On costs, test mode is free, with no time limit and no commitment; activation costs MAD 6,000 incl. VAT, paid once when you go live; the commission is a percentage per successful payment, set once your application has been reviewed. Test mode opens as soon as your account is activated: Start in test mode.

The checklist

• My QR code is displayed near the checkout, and "QR accepted" can be seen from the entrance.
• I know how to send a payment link by WhatsApp or SMS, for the exact amount, with a description.
• My RIB is ready to share with customers who pay by bank transfer.
• The shop's payments arrive in an account separate from the household's.
• I do a check every evening between the till and the payment history.
• My credit sales are written down the same day, with a due date.
• My team checks every payment in the history, never on the customer's screen.
• I know when to move to an online storefront and a hosted checkout.

Frequently asked questions

Next step

Do step 1 today: download the chari.ma app, display your QR code and send your first payment link. The terms tied to your volume are on the Merchants page, and our guide to getting paid remotely covers the situations where you sell away from the counter.