# Connect CardPointe and accept payments on a form

> Connect your CardPointe gateway account with its API credentials and take card payments on any form.

Connect your own CardPointe gateway account to your workspace, then add a **Payment** field to your form. Every payment a respondent makes is processed on your CardPointe merchant account, so the money settles to you and Maxforms never holds it.

## Get your credentials from CardPointe

Maxforms asks for four values. CardPointe issues API credentials when your gateway account is set up; they arrive in your onboarding email, or you can request them from CardPointe support.

1. **Site**: the subdomain of your gateway URL. If you sign in at `fts.cardconnect.com`, the site is `fts`. Enter just the subdomain, not the full URL.
2. **Merchant ID**: your gateway MID, shown in the CardPointe portal and on your onboarding paperwork.
3. **API Username** and **API Password**: the API credential pair for your merchant account. These are separate from your CardPointe portal login. If you never received them, ask CardPointe support to provision API access for your MID.

## Connect the account to your workspace

1. In the sidebar, select **Integrations**.
2. Under **Available integrations**, find the **CardPointe** card and select **Connect**.
3. Enter the **Site**, **Merchant ID**, **API Username**, and **API Password**, then select **Connect**.

Maxforms verifies the credentials against your gateway and confirms the merchant account is enabled. When it succeeds, the account appears in your connected accounts list.

If the connection is rejected, re-check each value: the site must be just the subdomain, the Merchant ID must belong to that site, and the username and password must be the API pair (not your portal login).

## Add a Payment field to your form

1. Open your form in the builder and select **Add field**, then **Payment**.
2. In the field settings, set **Payment provider** to **CardPointe**.
3. Enter a **Payment Description**, pick a **Payment Type**, and set your amount or options.

Respondents pay by card directly on your form. Card details are captured by CardPointe's own secure tokenizer and never pass through Maxforms.

As with every payment provider, you are the merchant of record: tax, refunds, and disputes for money collected through your forms are yours to handle. You can refund a payment from the submission in Maxforms or from your CardPointe portal.