Getting paid inside a chat, without losing the reconciliation

A conversation is where you agree the amount and share a reference. It is not where card details go, and a screenshot is evidence rather than data - ask for the transaction reference as text or you will be reading images at month end.

Never accept card details in a chat

What to store for every payment

• The reference, as text, indexed. The single most important field.
• The amount and currency, from the payment provider rather than from the conversation.
• The order it belongs to.
• The message it was confirmed in, so the conversation and the ledger can be joined later.
• The screenshot, kept - it is what a dispute turns on.

The screenshot problem

Customers send a picture of the payment confirmation because it is faster and unambiguous to them. To you it is an image with no searchable content, and forty of them at month end is an afternoon.

Ask for both: "Send the screenshot and paste the reference code." Most people do both when asked. Then match on the code and keep the image against the record.

Watch for the forged one

Edited payment screenshots are common enough that any business taking mobile money this way meets one. The defence is not examining images - it is never treating a screenshot as confirmation. Match the reference against what your account actually received, and dispatch on that.

Confirm in words, both ways

1. Before: the amount, what it is for, and the reference to quote.
2. After: "Received 14,800, reference QJK7X2. Your order is confirmed." This message is the receipt the customer will search for.
3. If it does not arrive: say so specifically. "We have not received it yet" rather than silence, which reads as either accusation or incompetence.