Our MIDAS room scheduling software allows your customers to pay invoices for the hire of your rooms, facilities, and resources online.

This feature was first introduced back in 2010 with MIDAS v3.10. Since then, we’ve natively supported payment of invoices using either PayPal or Google Checkout.

Unfortunately, as of MIDAS v4.07 we have now removed – the now defunct – Google Checkout support from our software.

What was Google Checkout?

Google Checkout first came into being in 2006 with the aim of simplifying the process of paying for online purchases. Users would store their credit or debit card and shipping information in their Google Account. This allowed them to make purchases without having to re-enter their information each time, and secure in the knowledge that their card details wouldn’t be made available to the seller.

Transaction fees for using Google Checkout were initially free. However, as one of PayPal‘s main competitors, over time the transaction fees for using Google Checkout became identical to PayPal’s fees. Many of the each platform’s features also aligned, such as providing fraud protection and the ability for customers to track purchases.

Whilst PayPal and Google Checkout were in direct competition offering quite similar services, there were a number of differences.

On the plus side, once a merchant received a payment via Google Checkout it would be automatically withdrawn to the merchants bank account. PayPal, on the other hand, required merchants to manually withdraw funds to their bank account. On the downside, whilst PayPal supported transactions in multiple currencies; Google Checkout only accepted payments in the currency that the merchant’s bank account was in. It was not possible for Google Checkout merchants to accept multiple currencies.

Google Checkout Becomes Google Wallet

In 2011, Google then announced a “rebrand” of Google Checkout to “Google Wallet”, but the services offered remained the same.

However, in late November 2013, Google Checkout was discontinued and the nature of “Google Wallet” shifted.

The shift in Google Wallet’s functionality

Google Wallet then become a method for making and accepting payments exclusively for apps and in-app purchases via the Google Play Store. It could no longer be used as an online payment processor for anything else.

Due to this new direction in which Google took their Google Wallet service in late 2013, the previous functionality we were able to offer in MIDAS – the ability for clients to pay their invoices online using Google Checkout/Wallet – no longer works. We therefore removed all Google Checkout/Wallet integration as of MIDAS v4.07.

We hope Google reconsider their stance to provide online payment processing solely for their own Google App Store. The more choice there is for both consumers and merchants alike the better. That said, there are numerous other online payment processors that have sprung up in recent times. These include notable solutions such as Amazon Payments and Stripe. Incidentally, Stripe is now our preferred card payment processor for purchases made through our website.

Going forward, we continue to support PayPal as a method to allow your clients to directly pay their invoices online for use of your rooms/facilities. In fact, we’ve also improved this support for v4.07 too! If you allow clients to pay invoices online via PayPal, PayPal can now automatically update the status of their MIDAS invoices once payment has been made. This means that you’ll no longer have to manually update invoices yourself! For more information, please see: Configuring PayPal Integration

We’re also keen to hear from you! Are any other online payment processors you’d like us to consider supporting in future updates to MIDAS? We can’t promise we’ll natively support them, but we’d love to hear from you!