Use case
Payment flow diagrams
Authorization, 3-D Secure, capture, refunds, and webhooks drawn as flows that product, engineering, finance, and support can all read.
Scenario
A product team is adding a new checkout: card and wallet payments through a payment gateway, 3-D Secure on risky orders, asynchronous webhooks for capture and refunds, and a nightly settlement file that finance reconciles.
Sequence lifelines show who calls whom and in what order; BPMN and Flowchart nodes show where status and money move next. Keep the security view on the same canvas. Share a branded public link or export SVG/PNG; Pro adds embed and watermark-free PDF/JPEG.
What you draw
Payment flow diagrams
- Customer, checkout, gateway, and bank as Sequence actors and lifelines
- Fragments for 3-D Secure, retries, and declines
- BPMN tasks and gateways for capture, refund, and dispute paths
- Webhook and queue nodes for asynchronous status updates
- Security nodes for the token vault, identity provider, and policies
- A Document node for the settlement file finance reconciles
Why Archboard
Archboard is a hosted diagram workspace where the payment sequence, the settlement process, and the security view share one canvas and one share link. Engineering, finance, and support read the same picture instead of three slides that disagree.
Packs on this canvas
Sequence · BPMN · Flowchart · Security
Every built-in pack is on Free (3 diagrams, 15 diagram nodes + 150 notes, text, stickers & mind map topics each, branded public share, live editing with your AI agents). Pro adds unlimited diagrams and nodes, seats for teammates to edit live, embed, and watermark-free export ($10/seat/month).
Scope
Archboard documents payment flows. It does not process payments, store card data, or run your integration. There is no dedicated payments symbol set yet; today the flow is drawn with Sequence, BPMN, Flowchart, and Security nodes. Keep real card numbers, keys, and secrets out of every diagram.
How a session goes
Start from the template or a blank canvas after Google or GitHub sign-in
Place the actors as lifelines and draw the happy-path authorization
Add fragments for 3-D Secure, retries, and refunds, then the async webhooks
Share a live link for the review and export SVG or PNG for the runbook
Closest template
Auth Sequence
The closest template is the Auth Sequence example: actors, lifelines, and fragments for an OAuth-style exchange. Rename the lifelines to customer, checkout, gateway, and bank, and the message order carries over.
Opens an editable copy in your workspace. New to Archboard? Sign in with Google or GitHub and the copy opens right after.
Payment flows people can follow
Payment flows fail in review when nobody can say, in order, who calls whom. The checkout team draws boxes, the gateway documentation shows a different sequence, and the finance team keeps a third picture of settlement. A payment flow diagram earns its keep when it puts the order on the page: the customer, the merchant app, the payment gateway, the processor, and the issuing bank as lifelines, with authorization, 3-D Secure, capture, and refund as messages between them. When a step changes, such as a new wallet or a retry rule, the same diagram changes.
Draw the happy path first: authorization request, response, capture. Then add fragments for the branches that cause incidents: 3-D Secure challenges, soft declines with retries, timeouts that need idempotency keys, and partial refunds. Asynchronous status belongs on the map too. Webhooks and queues are where payments quietly go wrong, so draw them as first-class nodes instead of footnotes. Keep the settlement and reconciliation flow on the same canvas as a BPMN or Flowchart process, so finance sees the step that turns captured payments into money in the bank.
From flow diagram to review and runbook
A payment diagram becomes useful when it travels. Share a branded public link with the security reviewer, export SVG or PNG for the incident runbook, and save a revision snapshot before each change to the flow so the previous shape is one click away. Put the security view (token vault, identity provider, policies) beside the sequence so reviewers see where card data is tokenized and which systems never touch it. Pro adds embed for the internal wiki plus watermark-free PDF and JPEG.
Archboard documents the flow; it does not process payments, hold card data, or test your integration. Many teams draw this map before a PCI DSS scoping conversation, and the assessment itself stays with your assessor. There is no dedicated payments symbol set yet; Sequence, BPMN, Flowchart, and Security nodes cover it today. Sign in with Google or GitHub, start from the closest template, and rename the lifelines to match your checkout.
Open a published example
- Auth SequenceActors, lifelines, and fragments to rename as customer, checkout, gateway, and bank.
- Zero Trust PerimeterThe security view next to the payment flow, with identity provider, WAF, firewall, and vault.
- Streaming Data PlatformQueues, topics, and stores behind webhooks and settlement files.
Questions
Should a payment flow be a sequence diagram or a flowchart?
Both, on one canvas. Use Sequence lifelines for the message order between customer, merchant, gateway, and bank, and a BPMN or Flowchart process for settlement, refunds, and disputes, where the question is what happens next rather than who calls whom.
Is there a dedicated payments symbol set?
Not yet. Today payment flows are drawn with Sequence, BPMN, Flowchart, and Security nodes. The closest template opens an OAuth-style sequence you can relabel in minutes.
Can we put real card data in the diagram?
No. Keep real card numbers, keys, and secrets out of every diagram. Label flows with what they carry, such as a tokenized card reference or a payment status, never with the data itself.
Open a canvas in a minute
Sign in with Google or GitHub. Free for a single seat. Upgrade when the team joins.