Building an Automated Payment Integration Between Unishippers and CardChamp
About The Company
Lendin Merchant Services is a payment technology provider built to simplify how businesses accept and manage payments. Backed by more than a decade of hands-on experience serving small and mid-sized businesses through the Unishippers franchise network, the company delivers practical payment solutions designed around real operational needs. Its platform includes secure credit card processing, ACH payments, customer vaulting, virtual terminals, API integrations, and payment automation tools that help businesses reduce manual work, streamline invoicing, and improve cash flow.
The Operational Challenges That Led to Integration
Lendin Merchant Services was managing payment processing operations for Unishippers, a leading shipping and logistics company with an extensive network of franchise locations across the United States. As the payment technology partner, Lendin was responsible for helping franchisees securely process payments while ensuring payment information flowed seamlessly into Unishippers’ billing systems.
The challenge emerged when the existing payment platform was scheduled to be discontinued, with a firm deadline of March 31, 2026. A new solution had to be implemented before then to avoid disruptions to payment processing, invoicing, and day-to-day business operations across the franchise network.
Beyond this time-sensitive migration, Lendin also needed to address several operational requirements to ensure the new solution could support Unishippers’ existing payment workflows.
Managing data across multiple franchises
Unishippers generated a single master file containing payment information for every franchise in its network, including merchants managed by different payment providers. The integration needed to identify and process only the records associated with Lendin’s merchants while ignoring the rest. This was essential to ensure payments were routed accurately without requiring manual filtering.
Supporting a dual-pricing model
The payment workflow also needed to support different pricing rules based on the customer’s payment method. Transactions had to be processed differently depending on whether the customer chose to pay by credit card or ACH. Since most payment platforms don’t support this type of pricing logic out of the box, the integration had to ensure the appropriate pricing rules were automatically applied during payment processing, without requiring any manual intervention.
Automating invoice payments
Another requirement was to eliminate manual payment collection. Once an invoice reached its due date, the system needed to automatically charge the customer’s saved payment method, record the successful transaction, and update the invoice status. This ensured payments were collected on time while reducing administrative effort for franchisees.
Keeping payment data synchronized
As soon as a payment was completed, the payment status had to be sent back to Unishippers’ billing system in near real time. Without timely synchronization, invoices could remain open even after payment, leading to billing discrepancies, duplicate follow-ups, and unnecessary customer confusion.
Building a solution that could scale
The solution also needed to support a growing franchise network. With hundreds of franchise locations onboard, each having its own payment credentials and configuration, the integration had to provide a standardized onboarding process instead of requiring custom development for every franchise.
Connecting Unishippers and CardChamp Through Automated Workflows
To meet Lendin Merchant Services’ operational requirements, DCKAP automated integration between Unishippers and CardChamp. Acting as the middleware between the two platforms, the solution automated the flow of customer, invoice, and payment data, eliminating manual processes while ensuring both systems remained synchronized.
Instead of building a new integration for every franchise, DCKAP created a standardized onboarding framework that could be reused across locations. Each new franchise is configured with its own payment and connectivity settings, while inheriting the same automated workflows for customer synchronization, invoice processing, autopay, and payment confirmations. This repeatable approach significantly reduces onboarding time, minimizes configuration errors, and enables new franchises to start processing payments with minimal manual effort.
Key Workflows Between Unishippers and CardChamp
The integration is powered by five automated workflows that keep customer, invoice, and payment data synchronized between Unishippers and CardChamp while minimizing manual effort.
Customer Synchronization (Unishippers → CardChamp):
Unishippers serves as the source of truth for customer information. DCKAP Integrator retrieves the latest customer records from Unishippers and synchronizes them with CardChamp, creating new customer profiles and updating existing ones whenever changes are detected. This ensures that CardChamp always has accurate customer information before any invoices or payments are processed.
Invoice Synchronization (Unishippers → CardChamp):
Once customer records are synchronized, DCKAP Integrator imports open invoices from Unishippers into CardChamp. The integration automatically creates new invoices and updates existing ones whenever changes are made in Unishippers. It also applies the required payment rules so customers are presented with the correct amount due before making a payment.
Automated Payment Processing (CardChamp):
Every day, DCKAP Integrator identifies invoices that have reached their due date and checks whether the customer is enrolled in autopay. If the customer is eligible, the integration securely initiates the payment using the customer’s saved payment method. The appropriate payment rules are applied automatically, eliminating manual payment collection and ensuring invoices are processed on time.
Payment Confirmation Synchronization (CardChamp → Unishippers):
After a payment is successfully processed, DCKAP Integrator retrieves the transaction details from CardChamp and synchronizes the payment confirmation back to Unishippers. This allows invoices to be updated automatically, keeps billing records accurate, and eliminates the need for manual reconciliation between the two systems.
Autopay Assignment Synchronization (Lendin Merchant Services → CardChamp):
To simplify franchise onboarding, DCKAP Integrator also supports the bulk assignment of customers to the autopay program. During onboarding, eligible customer records are imported into CardChamp, allowing new franchise locations to begin processing automated payments without individually configuring every customer account. This standardized approach helps franchises get up and running faster while ensuring a consistent payment experience across the network.
The Impact
The integration transformed how Lendin Merchant Services manages payment processing for the Unishippers franchise network. By automating the complete payment lifecycle from customer and invoice synchronization to payment collection and confirmation, the solution significantly reduced manual effort while improving operational efficiency.
Some of the key business outcomes include:
- End-to-end payment automation, eliminating manual data entry, invoice handling, and payment processing.
- Faster payment collection through automated autopay, helping reduce Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) and improve cash flow.
- Accurate and consistent billing, with dual-pricing rules applied automatically for every eligible transaction.
- Reliable data synchronization between Unishippers and CardChamp, ensuring customer, invoice, and payment information remains up to date across both systems.
- Reduced administrative overhead, allowing teams to spend less time on reconciliation and routine payment tasks.
- Simplified franchise onboarding, making it easier to bring new locations onto the platform with a standardized, repeatable process.
- Greater operational reliability, reducing billing errors, payment disputes, and manual intervention while delivering a smoother payment experience for franchisees and their customers.
With DCKAP Integrator serving as the middleware between Unishippers and CardChamp, Lendin Merchant Services now has a scalable, automated payment ecosystem that supports its current operations while providing a strong foundation for future growth.
Conclusion
No two businesses manage payments the same way, which is why every integration should be built around the way the business actually operates.
In this case, DCKAP helped Lendin Merchant Services automate payment processing, keep systems synchronized, and make onboarding easier for its growing franchise network. If you’re looking to solve similar payment challenges or want to streamline the way your systems work together, let’s start a conversation. We’d love to explore what the right integration could look like for your business.
