Before your first collection you need one thing in place: a channel — the account your customers' money flows into. Fortpesa supports three kinds of channels, and picking the right one (or the right mix) is mostly a question of your business shape.
The three channel types
Paybill channel
A paybill is the classic business collection account: customers are asked for a paybill number plus an account number that identifies them (an invoice ID, customer code, order number).
- Money lands on the paybill; the account number tells you whose payment it was.
- Great when your existing books are organised around account numbers.
- Fortpesa stores the account number with the channel, and it appears on the customer's M-Pesa prompt — they never have to type it.
Till number channel
A till is what shops and restaurants use: each till number is a checkout point, and the prompt carries the amount.
- Simplest possible mental model — one till, one merchant, money in.
- Ideal for POS-style flows where your system already knows the cart total.
Bank deposit channel
A bank deposit channel routes collections into a bank paybill for a named bank — Equity, KCB, Co-operative, Absa or NCBA. You choose your bank from the list, keep your own bank account number, and Fortpesa fills in the paybill for you.
- Money lands in your bank account instead of an M-Pesa float.
- Attractive if your finance team prefers bank reconciliation over M-Pesa statements.
- The paybill numbers are maintained in Fortpesa, so you never look them up yourself.
How to choose
Ask two questions:
1. Where do you want the money to arrive? M-Pesa float (paybill/till) → you can spend or transfer from M-Pesa immediately. Bank account → ready for accountant workflows, but subject to bank posting times.
2. How do you identify the payer? Fixed account number per customer → paybill. Just "payment received for this order" → till or an API-driven paybill where your system passes the reference.
Most merchants on Fortpesa run one primary channel plus a bank channel as an alternative for larger customers. Every channel is independent — you can disable one without touching the others.
Adding a channel takes a minute
From your dashboard: Channels → Add channel, choose the type, fill in the details (bank channels pre-fill the paybill and only ask for your account number), and Fortpesa provisions it with our payment partner for you. Once approved it appears in your channel list with an Channel ID — the number your API calls use.
Note that a channel's type and shortcode are fixed after creation — they are physical properties of the account. If your business changes shape, you add a new channel rather than mutate an old one.
Multiple channels in practice
Your API calls always state which channel to use (channel_id), so multi-channel accounts stay explicit: retail orders on the till, enterprise invoices on the bank channel, and so on. If you are still deciding, payment links can even be left on "auto" to fall back to your default approved channel.
What it costs to collect
Channel choice does not change pricing — fees follow the published amount tiers either way. See What M-Pesa payments cost your business for worked examples.
Ready? Create an account, add a channel, and send yourself a test payment with the website collection guide.
