Payment Processing, cost of sales?

Question

On our website we currently take payments for downloads, we have a cost of sale associated to this, the royalty which goes to an artist. We know how to take payments via BarclayCard however I was wondering if anyone knew how to automate a process to transfer the money to an artist. Would this need to be done on our end or would they request it?

Answer 1

You would generally take a single payment from your customer, and that would deposit into your merchant account.

If you want to then split that value between cost / royalties, that would need to be done at a later point. It's not something the payment gateway would get involved with.

Answer 2

If you have a true merchant merchant you won't be able to do something like this as once the payment is processed the funds go directly into the merchant's bank account. If you wish to split payments you will need to devise a system outside of the payment process.

If you use a third party payment provider, they may offer a feature that allows you to split payments amog multiple recipients. Paypal Adaptive Payments offers such a feature.