Connect Alternative Payments to Conduit

This walkthrough connects Alternative Payments (payments, in Conduit’s accounting category) to Conduit. Alternative Payments authenticates with an OAuth Client ID + Client Secret pair, plus an optional Environment selector for choosing between the production API and the demo sandbox.

Menu labels can change

The Alternative Payments steps below reflect the API-keys flow at time of writing; labels can shift between releases. If a label differs, see Alternative Payments’ API keys guide.

Before you start

You need:

• A Conduit role that can manage connections — owner or admin on your organization.
• An Alternative Payments account able to create API credentials (see the Alternative Payments docs).
• To know whether you’re connecting the production environment (live data) or the demo sandbox. If you’re unsure, it’s production — that’s also the default.

Step 1 — Create API credentials in Alternative Payments

1. Sign in to Alternative Payments.
2. Create API credentials following the API keys guide. Expected: a Client ID and a Client Secret.
3. Copy both values.

Caution

Copy the Client ID and Client Secret now and store them somewhere safe. Don’t paste them into chat, email, or a shared document — the next step moves them directly into Conduit, which encrypts them at rest. If you accidentally expose the pair, regenerate it in Alternative Payments first; the exposed pair becomes useless immediately.

Step 2 — Connect Alternative Payments in Conduit

1. In Conduit, go to Connections (/org/catalog). Expected: the vendor catalog.
2. Find Alternative Payments in the catalog (under Accounting) and click Connect. Expected: a credential form with three fields.
3. Fill the fields:
   • Client ID (required) — from Step 1.
   • Client Secret (required) — from Step 1.
   • Environment (optional) — a dropdown with production and demo. Pick production for live data, or demo to point at the sandbox. Leave it blank to use production, the default.
4. Click Connect. Expected: Conduit validates immediately by minting an OAuth token against the selected environment’s API and shows a green Connected status. A bad pair is rejected here, not on the first tool call.

The credential is stored at the organization scope, so every technician in your org shares this Alternative Payments connection. (For per-technician credentials, connect at the personal scope instead — see Vendor connections.)

Verify it worked

Connect an MCP client to Conduit — Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or any MCP-compatible client (see Connecting an AI client) — and ask it to run a read-only Alternative Payments tool. You should get real data back, and the call appears in your audit log with the correct user, vendor (alternative-payments), and a successful status.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Likely cause
Connect fails with “Invalid Alternative Payments client credentials.”	The pair is wrong or revoked — or it belongs to the other environment (demo credentials checked against production, or vice versa). Match the Environment selection to where the credentials were created and reconnect.
Connect fails with “Alternative Payments returned HTTP …”	The token endpoint answered with an unexpected status — often a transient service issue. Wait a moment and retry.
Tool calls return 403 “no credentials for vendor”	Alternative Payments isn’t connected at a scope this user can resolve. Connect it at the organization scope, or confirm the user’s team has a credential.
Connected, but data looks like test data (or is missing live records)	The connection points at the demo sandbox. Reconnect with Environment set to production (or left blank).
Need to rotate the credentials	Regenerate the pair in Alternative Payments, then update the credential at /org/catalog.

Related

• Vendor connections — credential scopes, rotation, and the full vendor catalog.
• Security — how Conduit encrypts and resolves the credential you just stored.