Credit card terminal in connection with be.ENERGISED

Why credit card terminals?

Credit card terminals offer an innovative solution to make payment at charging stations simple and user-friendly. Electric car owners can use their credit card to start the charging process quickly and conveniently by inserting the card into the terminal or making contactless payments. The integration of credit card terminals optimizes operations for charging station operators, automates payments and enables detailed billing.

Requirements for use in be.ENERGISED

In order to use credit card terminals in conjunction with be.ENERGISED, certain factors must be met in advance for this to work smoothly. These include:

• The charging station must send a DataTransfer to the backend

• You have ensured that routing is given between the credit card terminal and the corresponding bank.
• A numerical range for the transaction numbers must be stored at the charging station. Each time a payment is made via the credit card terminal, this counter increases by one. Therefore, it must be ensured that this range covers the current transaction numbers. The exception here is variant 2 (see below). If you have any questions about this, please contact the manufacturer of the charging station.
• The price per kWh is stored at the charging station (this must be set at the charging station itself and cannot be configured via be.ENERGISED). This also includes the authorization amount and the corresponding tax rate. If you have any questions about this, please contact the charging station manufacturer.

Configuration in be.ENERGISED

In be.ENERGISED, there are basically two different ways to enable credit card payments.

Variant 1

In the first step, you create a virtual authentication medium in be.ENERGISED with the E-Mobility Provider "XX-NFC".

To do this, go to the Infrastructure/ Access control/ Authentication media tab in be.ENERGISED. Then create a new authentication medium by clicking on "Add authentication media".

There you enter the data, as with a conventional authentication medium. The following fields are particularly important:

• Tag ID: The identification medium must have a unique tag ID for your be.ENERGISED access.
• Description: Here we recommend a description that makes the identification medium recognizable as a credit card identification medium, e.g. "Credit Card Payment" or "NFC Payment".
• Valid from and Active: The identification medium must be active.
• E-Mobility Provider: Virtual NFC Payment on site provider (XX-NFC)

In the next step, please contact the be.ENERGISED support so that the authentication medium is stored as an NFC authentication medium.

This completes the configuration. 

Variant 2

With the second variant, too, all the above-mentioned requirements must be met, except for the deposit of the numerical area at the charging station. In the first step, an authentication medium must again be created with the E-Mobility Provider "XX-NFC".
You do not need to contact be.ENERGISED support to deposit the authentication medium, as be.ENERGISED does not handle the assignment of credit card transactions to an identification medium in this case.

As with variant 1, the charging station must transmit a DataTransfer.  As before, this will contain information on how much the charging process costs, among other things. In be.ENERGISED, the charging process is displayed without costs. The associated settings such as tariff, credit card, tag ID, authorization fee, etc. are made directly at the charging station.

Special settings for displaying costs for credit card charging processes in be.ENERGISED 

Charge point rate

The basis here is variant 2. Make sure that the hardware manufacturer has implemented the DataTransfer messages defined for be.ENERGISED. Documentation can be sent if required.
Then create a charge point rate for NFC payment transactions. To do this, go to Finance/ Tariffs & invoicing/ Rate management in be.ENERGISED and create a charge point tariff. More details on how to create tariffs can be found here.

You can then add price configurations in the tariff under "Conditions". Create a price configuration for EMP (Roaming).  In the E-Mobility Provider field, select: "Virtual NFC Payment on site provider (XX-NFC)", then set the applicable cost rate and validity period.

In the next step, you store the charge point tariff at the connector of the charging station. You do this in the charging station data sheet in the "Charge points" tab by clicking on the blue pencil icon (edit) and then entering the tariff in the "Tariff for this connection" field.

The charge point tariff then determines the display of the costs in be.ENERGISED. Please note that the actual costs charged via the credit card are still based on the DataTransfer. If the costs set directly at the charging station are the same as the costs set in the tariff, the display in be.ENERGISED will match the costs charged to the end customer via credit card.

In addition, if your charging station allows it, you have the option of synchronizing the costs from the charge point tariff with the costs set at the charging station. This saves you a trip to the charging station and ensures that the display in be.ENERGISED matches the billing.

To pass on the costs to the charging station in this way, go to "Model-specific control" in the charging station data sheet and then click on "Send command".

The button only appears green if the charging point tariff you have entered includes a price configuration with "Virtual NFC Payment on site provider (XX-NFC)".

With this variant, it is also possible to store purchase costs in the charge point tariff, which can then be credited to the charging station owner (CPO). For more information on crediting Sub-CPOs, see this article.

EMP rate

Another way to better track the costs in be.ENERGISED is to store a tariff in the NFC authentication medium. The basis here is variant 1. In addition, you store a collective CRM contact for the authentication medium and define this as the holder of the card. Thus, all charging transactions via the credit card terminal are automatically assigned to this contact. In addition, you create an EMP sales rate and assign it to the authentication medium.

The charging processes are then also calculated in be.ENERGISED (not invoiced) and the costs per charging process are displayed accordingly.