Modernized Evolv Collection’s Payment Infrastructure in Salesforce using ChargeOn

Executive Summary

The Evolv Collection is a premium hospitality group founded in 1991, operating more than 30 luxury restaurants and venues across the UK and New York City. Their portfolio includes Michelin-starred restaurants and iconic destinations. They are known for experience-led dining and sustainable sourcing, while they also manage sophisticated loyalty programs and exclusive private members’ clubs like The Bluebird Club.

What started as a project to implement ChargeOn payment links for streamlining revenue collection soon grew into a long-term partnership focused on managing Evolv’s financial operations. After completing Phase 1, Cyntexa was trusted with Phase 2, migrating Evolv from a legacy payment gateway to Elavon. The partnership focused on protecting high-value corporate transactions through custom 3DS redirect workflows while ensuring smooth historical data migration during the system transition.

Areas for Improvement

Before partnering with us, Evolv Collection identified several areas where operational efficiency could be enhanced.

Time-Sensitive Payment Gateway Migration

The client’s existing payment gateway provider was scheduled to shut down its services. This problem required immediate attention, or else Evolv’s daily revenue, private event bookings, and corporate dining transactions might be affected. Therefore, a shift to the Elavon payment gateway required technical expertise.  

Corporate Firewall Restrictions Causing Payment Failures

Mandatory 3DS security challenges often appeared as pop-ups, which were frequently blocked by strict corporate firewalls and network security settings. This caused legitimate, high-value payments from corporate clients to fail repeatedly, creating significant friction during the booking process. 

Manual Reconciliation and Traceability Gaps

Evolv’s legacy system lacked a direct link between Salesforce records and the payment gateway, making it difficult for the finance team to audit transactions. They required a solution to synchronize Salesforce Opportunity reference numbers with the payment gateway data to ensure end-to-end financial transparency.

Data Continuity Risks

Evolv needed to upgrade its ChargeOn package to access new Elavon features while maintaining access to years of historical payment data stored in an older version.