Help/Getting paid/PayNow through Aspire
PayNow through Aspire
If your business banks with Aspire, every PayNow payment into your Aspire account can confirm itself: the booking, shop order, invoice, pack, term fee or membership joining fee is marked paid for you, with nothing to check by hand. The money goes straight into your own Aspire account. Free on every plan, the Free plan included, with no fee from SME AI Office. Available in Singapore.
Open an Aspire account
Already bank with Aspire? Skip to the next step. If not, open an Aspire business account. The PayNow (via Aspire) box on Getting paid has the same link.
Connect it
Sign in to Aspire on a computer, in your web browser. The developer settings are on the web app, not the phone app.
Open Settings › Developer tools › API keys and create a new key. Name it something like
SME AI Office PayNow. If you cannot see Developer tools, ask whoever owns your Aspire account for admin access.Give it one permission only: Transactions: Read. A key that can only read cannot move money.
Copy the Client ID and the API key. Aspire shows the secret once, so copy it before you close the window.
In SME AI Office, open Getting paid in the sidebar and choose 2. PayNow (via Aspire). Paste both and press Turn on PayNow (via Aspire). We check the key with Aspire straight away. Only the account owner or a co-owner can.
One setting for your whole business. The same box is in Bookings, Shop and Invoice settings: turn it on in one place and it is on everywhere. Its switch on Getting paid rests it without removing the key.
If Aspire asks you to allow the addresses we connect from, add all three: 208.77.246.240 208.77.246.241 208.77.246.242.
Your Aspire PayNow VPA
Once connected, type your Aspire PayNow VPA in the box and press Save. It looks like your UEN, then A00, then #XNAP, and it is in the Aspire app under your account details. While PayNow (via Aspire) is on, every customer PayNow QR uses this number, so the money lands in Aspire and confirms itself. Your own PayNow number is kept for when you switch it off.
What your customer sees
Just PayNow, on the same pay screen as always. They scan the QR in DBS, POSB, PayLah!, UOB, Citibank or most other Singapore banking apps, and can still tap I have paid. A payment counts when its reference and exact amount match; anything that does not match, you confirm yourself as before. A booking or shop order waiting for payment is checked every few minutes; an unpaid invoice 4 times a day, and every few seconds for a few minutes after your customer taps I have paid.
Questions
Does it cost anything?
Not from SME AI Office. PayNow (via Aspire) is free on every plan, the Free plan included, with no fee per payment. That may change if PayNow or the bank changes its own rules or fees; we will tell you before anything changes.
Can SME AI Office move my money?
No. The key can only read your transactions. It is stored encrypted, never shown again, and used for one thing: checking whether a payment has arrived.
What if it stops working?
It depends on Aspire’s connection, which SME AI Office does not control. If Aspire changes or stops it, payments are not lost: you confirm them yourself, as before, until it is fixed.
I do not bank with Aspire.
Your PayNow QR still works, free, and you confirm each payment yourself. Or connect HitPay for card and PayNow that confirms itself.