Accepting a payment with the GUI is very easy. Doesn't matter if you are a merchant or an user, you will have two pages available: Receive and Merchants.
To receive XMR you only need to provide the payer with an @address where they can send funds to. Most of the time it's easier to just share a QR code and let the payer scan it, instead of copy-pasting the alphanumeric string. With the GUI every generated address come with its QR code. Make the person scan the QR code with the Monero @wallet on their phone and receive your XMR in minutes. Remember you can generate as many addresses (subaddresses) as you want. This is useful if you want to keep funds separated for any reason.
Merchants will probably find more convenient to use the 'Merchant' page (screenshot below), which is explained in detail in the 'Merchant view' section of
This is a POS-like page that merchant can easily use to set the amount of XMR to receive. If the 'Sale tracker' option is enabled, you will see the payments while they arrive in real time in your wallet, along with the number of confirmations.
Share the address composed by letters and numbers to the person you want to receive coins from. You probably prefer to use the more user friendly QR code.
If you want to specify the amount to receive, go to the 'Merchant' page (after you selected in the 'Receive' page the @account that will be used to receive XMR).
Insert the amount to receive, then share with the payer the payment URL or the QR code. If you want to track the payment in real time, tick the 'enable sales tracker' option.
Wait until the payment has arrived and has enough confirmations (The more confirmations, the safer the transaction is. You need at least 10 confirmations before you can spend the funds.).
When you create your wallet for the first time, an @address will be automatically shown to you. That's your primary address. If you want, you can simply use that address to receive payments. You should be concerned about who knows about this address (since one address in different locations can be associated), but you do not need to worry about blockchain observers watching transactions to this address like with Bitcoin. A friend can send transactions to the same address without reduced privacy.
You can have much more control if you want to. Monero gives the possibility to create multiple accounts, each containing multiple subaddresses, useful if you want to control multiple accounts. For example, you may want to have an @account for receiving donations and another one for your daily use. That will allow you to easily monitor incoming funds to your 'donations' account, without mixing it with your primary account.
