Payment Collection

In this document, you’ll learn what a payment collection is and how the Medusa application uses it with the Cart Module.

What's a Payment Collection?#

A payment collection stores payment details related to a resource, such as a cart or an order. It’s represented by the PaymentCollection data model.

Every purchase or request for payment starts with a payment collection. The collection holds details necessary to complete the payment, including:

  • The payment sessions that represents the payment amount to authorize.
  • The payments that are created when a payment session is authorized. They can be captured and refunded.
  • The payment providers that handle the processing of each payment session, including the authorization, capture, and refund.

Multiple Payments#

The payment collection supports multiple payment sessions and payments.

You can use this to accept payments in increments or split payments across payment providers.

Diagram showcasing how a payment collection can have multiple payment sessions and payments


Usage with the Cart Module#

The Cart Module provides cart management features. However, it doesn’t provide any features related to accepting payment.

During checkout, the Medusa application links a cart to a payment collection, which will be used for further payment processing.

It also implements the payment flow during checkout as explained in this documentation.

Diagram showcasing the relation between the Payment and Cart modules

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