Epara Business Documentation
Epara is an Iraq-first, merchant-first payment gateway platform. It helps a shop owner collect money with a payment link, and it also gives larger merchants hosted checkout, QR/code payments, server APIs, webhooks, balances, payouts, reporting, provider routing, and reconciliation.
This documentation is written for business, product, operations, support, and engineering teams. Canonical terms stay in English for code, API, database, events, and contracts. Turkish and Arabic labels are used for training, sales, support, and localized operations.
30-second mental model
Epara has three primary sides:
- Consumer: The person who pays. They may pay a school fee, an online order, a service bill, or a QR/code payment.
- Merchant: The business that receives money. It can be a shop, school, clinic, marketplace seller, social media seller, or service provider.
- Platform Operator: The Epara company team. Operators approve merchants, review risk, manage provider routes, control payouts, and verify ledger and reconciliation evidence.
The short money flow:
- Merchant creates a Payment Link, Hosted Checkout, QR/code payment, or Merchant API request.
- Consumer selects a payment method and starts payment.
- Epara records the payment attempt and runs risk, verification, and limit checks.
- Provider confirms the transaction.
- Payment is captured and the Ledger writes the final money movement.
- Merchant Balance, Receipt, Webhook Event, Report, and Reconciliation evidence are created.
- Eligible Merchant Balance is transferred through Payout.
What does Epara sell?
Epara does not sell goods. Epara sells payment infrastructure.
| Merchant need | Epara answer | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Fast collection | Payment Links and QR/code payments | A school sends a payment link by WhatsApp. |
| Secure payment page | Hosted Checkout | A web store accepts card, wallet, or local payment methods. |
| Technical automation | Merchant API and Webhooks | A large merchant syncs payments, refunds, and payouts with its ERP. |
| Money visibility | Balances, Payouts, Reports | A business sees collected volume, available balance, reserve, and next payout. |
| Operational trust | Ledger, Reconciliation, Audit Trail | Epara proves which money moved, when, why, and through which provider. |
How does Epara make money?
Platform revenue is controlled by versioned Pricing Policy.
| Revenue item | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Platform Fee | A fee on successful Payment, Top-up, Payout, or supported money movement. |
| Fixed Fee | A per-transaction fixed amount. Useful for covering small transaction cost. |
| Percentage Fee | A percentage of transaction amount, usually by merchant segment or method. |
| FX Spread | Difference between reference rate and offered conversion rate. |
| Premium Operations | Enterprise reporting, reconciliation support, file handling, or priority support. |
Every fee must be traceable, auditable, and separated clearly in Ledger and financial reports.
Why Iraq-first matters
In Iraq, payment acceptance is not only "accept cards." Merchants need:
- Payment collection through WhatsApp, social channels, web stores, and physical shops.
- Local provider routing across banks, wallets, card acquirers, and payment networks.
- IQD-first ledger, fees, settlement, and reports.
- Merchant approval, KYB, limits, risk review, and payout controls.
- Arabic and English consumer experiences, with Turkish available for internal operating language.
- Webhooks and events that are retryable, signed, and evidence-rich even when merchant systems are unreliable.
Product surfaces
| Surface | User | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Merchant Dashboard | Merchant owner and merchant member | Manage payments, balances, links, API keys, webhooks, and payout state. |
| Hosted Checkout | Consumer or guest payer | Complete a responsive and secure payment. |
| Consumer Mobile | Consumer | Wallet, bill/service payment, QR/code payment, receipts, and security. |
| Operator Backoffice | Epara operations team | Risk, ledger, provider, payout, reconciliation, support, and governance controls. |
| Developer Docs | Merchant developer | Learn API, webhook, signing, idempotency, and integration rules. |
Product scope
First serious business scope:
- Payments
- Payment Links
- Hosted Checkout
- QR / Code Payments
- Merchant API
- Webhooks
- Balances
- Payouts
- Basic Billing
- Reports
- Provider Routing
- Ledger and Reconciliation
- Operator Backoffice
Not first phase:
- Tax automation
- Global fraud marketplace
- Apps marketplace
- Custom SQL analytics
- Usage-based billing engine
- Revenue recognition
- Terminal hardware ordering
- Card issuing
Go-live principle
Merchant approval alone does not enable live payments. At minimum, these gates are required:
| Gate | Evidence |
|---|---|
| KYB | Business verification and ownership evidence. |
| Agreement | Accepted platform agreement. |
| Payout | Approved payout destination and schedule. |
| Provider | Eligible provider route and provider health. |
| Developer | Live API credential, webhook endpoint, and test payment evidence. |
| Operations | Maker-checker approval, audit trail, and no-ledger side effect evidence. |
One-line positioning
Epara is Iraq-first merchant payment infrastructure: payment links, hosted checkout, QR/code payments, APIs, webhooks, balances, payouts, reporting, and local provider routing.