A customer paid but is not connected

This is the call support staff take most often: “I paid, but it’s not working.” Work through the steps in order. Most cases are settled by Step 2 or Step 3.

For the full list of causes and checks, see Payment received but customer not online.

Step 1: Get the details

Ask the customer for:

The M-Pesa transaction code (for example SFT1ABC2DE) and the amount.
The account number or phone number they paid with.
Whether they are on hotspot (Wi-Fi with a login page) or PPPoE (home or office line).

Step 2: Find the payment

Go to Payments → Received and search for the transaction code in the Reference column, or filter by Account.
Click the row to open the payment.

You’ll now be in one of three situations:

What you see	Meaning	Go to
No payment at all	The payment hasn’t reached ISPMan yet, or it went to a different account.	Step 3
Payment shows No destination wallet assigned.	The money arrived, but the account number didn’t match any customer.	Step 4
Payment is linked to the customer	The money is on the customer’s account.	Step 5

Step 3: The payment isn’t listed

Give it a few minutes. M-Pesa confirmations sometimes arrive late, and when they do the payment appears without you doing anything. Click Refresh on the page.
Check the destination. Make sure the customer paid to your Paybill or Till and not someone else’s.
If you use your own Paybill and no payments are arriving at all, open Settings → Payments Settings, find your M-Pesa Paybill and click Register URLs. Then use Test to confirm that payments reach the dashboard.

If it still doesn’t appear after that, contact support with the transaction code.

Step 4: The payment has no customer

This happens when the customer typed the wrong account number. If you’re an owner, admin or operator:

On the payment page, click Assign Wallet.
Search for the customer by name, username, phone or account number.
Click Select next to the right customer.

You’ll see Destination wallet assigned successfully. The money is now on that customer’s account. Continue to Step 5.

Step 5: The money is on the account but the customer is offline

Open the customer: click their account on the payment page, or go to Customers → Hotspot or Customers → PPPoE.

Hotspot customers

If they have no active package, the money is sitting in their wallet. You’ll find them under Wallets → Loaded. The simplest fix is to have them open the portal and pick a package; their balance pays for it.
If they can’t reach the portal, click Connect on their page, choose the package under Select Package, check Package Expiry Date / Package Expiry Time, and confirm. You’ll see Customer connected successfully.
If they do have an active package but still can’t browse, click Reset Connection. This ends their sessions and drops them from the router so they log in fresh.

If you see There is already an active connection, the customer already has that package running. Use Reset Connection in place of a second connect.

PPPoE customers

Check that the expiry date on their page is now in the future. If it is, have them restart their router.
If it isn’t, click Connect, choose the mode (Normal, Grace Period or Free Trial), set the Package Expiry Date, and choose whether to record a payment (No payment record, Cash or Cheque).
Check PPPoE → Auth Logs for their username. An Access-Reject with a reason such as PPPoE password mismatch is a credentials problem, not a payment problem. See PPPoE customer can’t connect.

Step 6: Close the loop

Tell the customer what you did. If you connected them by hand, you can use Send SMS on their page to confirm.