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Processing an Order with the Virtual Terminal
Now that you have customized the Virtual Terminal, you can use it to process your customers’ orders. For instructions on completing the fields, see the online help.
This chapter contains these sections:
In the Virtual Terminal, you can process new orders or Follow-On Transactions. Each is followed by a Transaction Receipt.
You may create a new order either in the Virtual Terminal or from a previous order that you find in the Transaction Search results. For more information on creating a new order from a previous one, see Follow-On Transactions. You can process either card-not-present or, if your account provider allows, card-present retail transactions.
By default, the Virtual Terminal displays only the fields required for a credit card transaction, such as the credit card number and the cost of the order as shown in the figure below. These fields always appear on the Virtual Terminal.
Credit cards are the most common forms of payment. To process a payment, you need to record detailed and accurate payment information:
• Form of payment and details associated with it: credit card number and expiration date to verify that the customer is legitimate and has sufficient funds to pay for the goods.
• Amount to bill your customer
You may also want to collect the customer’s card verification number, which helps Smart Authorization assess the risk of each order. For detailed information about Smart Authorization, see Configuring Smart Authorization.
After you have collected the payment information, make sure to record the detailed and accurate billing address so that you can correlate this information with the payment information. You may also want to obtain the customer’s email address and phone number so that you can contact the customer if you have questions about the order. In addition, you need adequate shipping information if you are to ship the goods.
Card-Not-Present: MOTO or Internet
You can process a credit card or a check order. You need to complete at least the required fields, starting with the transaction type.
For each credit card transaction, you specify the type of transaction:
• Authorization reserves funds on your customer’s credit card for this purchase. You need to capture the authorization to have the money transferred to your account.
• Sale combines authorization and capture in the same request.
Important Credit card associations require that you choose Sale only if the order is fulfilled immediately, for example, for purchases at a retail store. For online orders, you must ship the goods before you capture the funds.
• Capture with verbal auth combines an authorization that you received verbally from the processor and capture in the same request.
This option is available for card-not-present transactions if your payment processor is TSYS Acquiring Solutions (Vital) or GPN. You can process a verbal authorization only with the same processor that gave you the verbal authorization. Otherwise, the transaction will fail.
• Credit refunds the captured amount to the customer.
This option refers to stand-alone credits only, which are credits not associated with an existing authorization. Stand-alone credits are available for card-not-present transactions if your payment processor supports these credits.
Although the Address Verification Service (AVS) runs automatically for every credit card authorization, AVS data is ignored when no address is submitted for card-present (retail) transactions processed in the Virtual Terminal.
Check Transaction
For each check transaction, you specify the type of transaction as a sale, which is equivalent to performing a debit.
The Electronic check reference number is a field that appears only if your check processor is TeleCheck. This number is the TeleCheck Tracking ID that you received with your welcome email from TeleCheck. If you do not send this number with your transactions, CyberSource generates a check reference number and sends it to TeleCheck with each of your transactions.
• Debit when a customer makes a purchase. A debit authorizes the check and captures the authorization.
• Credit refunds the captured amount to the customer.
This option refers to stand-alone credits only, which are credits not associated with an existing authorization. Stand-alone credits are available for card-not-present transactions if your payment processor supports these credits.
If you have a card reader attached to your computer, you can process a retail transaction by scanning cards or entering the information manually.
When processing retail transactions, your Smart Authorization and Advanced Smart Authorization settings are ignored. As a result, card-not-present transactions that might fail may succeed as card-present transactions. For example, the card-not-present order of a customer with a very unusual name may fail if your Advanced Smart Authorization settings mark for review orders that contain obscenities or nonsensical input. However, the same order may succeed as a retail transaction because you can verify that the name is correct.
Note that you still receive an AVS code result for retail transactions even though these transactions may not include the customer's address.
Note Although the screen captures below show the customer’s billing information fields in bold, which implies that they are required, you can choose to make the fields optional. In this case, they appear in normal type. To use this setting, see the online help for the Virtual Terminal Settings page.
The figure below shows the new transaction page enabled for retail transactions with the button called Click Here to Scan Card.
The figure below shows the page that appears after you click the button. On this page, you can either scan the card or enter the information manually.
The figure below shows the new transaction page after you have scanned the card. The card information is entered in the appropriate fields, and the transaction type selected is retail. You only need to complete the remaining required fields.
This section applies to payment cards only.
Follow-on transactions are created by using an existing authorization to process a re-authorization, sale (re-authorization and capture), or new order.
Important Before creating a follow-on transaction, make sure that the original authorization that you want to use is not risky or fraudulent.
To process follow-on transactions, you must have the correct Virtual Terminal and Payment permissions. For more information, see Permissions.
Types of Follow-On Transactions
This section describes the types of follow-on transactions available in the Business Center and a example of each.
Important For each authorization that you request, the customer’s available credit limit (open-to-buy) is reduced. Therefore, if you authorize the full amount of an order before knowing the inventory status, you risk impacting the customer’s available credit limit.
Some card companies, such as Visa, require that you reverse any unused authorization amount.
You may encounter customer service issues if you re-authorize an order without reversing the unused amount or if the card issuer does not post the reversal (card issuers are not required to do so).
The best practices approach to authorization and capture is to authorize only the amount for the item that you can ship.
Depending on your type of business or the availability of your merchandise, you may not be able to ship all the ordered items at the same time. For example, you may determine after authorizing an order that the order amount has changed or that the order must be divided into more than one shipment, such as when an item is back-ordered. You can use the Virtual Terminal to obtain a new authorization for each partial shipment by selecting the re-authorization link on the transaction details page, which displays the original authorization for the order.
The original authorization is good for 7 days for Visa and 30 days for all other card types. Although you can use an authorization older than 7 or 30 days to capture an order, you may be charged higher interchange rates. Some processors can re-authorize older authorizations on your behalf.
Re-authorization example A customer orders two items for a total amount of $100.00. One of the items is not currently available. You can use one of these sample options to process the order.
• Option A: You authorize the amount for the first item and ship it. When the second item becomes available, you retrieve the original authorization, use its information to re-authorize the entire order, and ship the second item. You later return to the Business Center to capture the entire order.
• Option B: You authorize the amount for the first item and ship it. You return to the Business Center to capture the partial order. You repeat this process with the second item.
• Option C: You authorize the amount for the entire order, ship the first item, and capture the first amount. When the second item becomes available, you use the information from the original authorization to process an authorization for the second item, which you ship to the customer. You return to the Business Center to capture the remaining amount. If using this option, be aware that you are authorizing more than the total order amount and that you cannot reverse the excess.
In all cases, you use the original authorization information to process the second half of the order. You do not have to re-enter the order information each time: after retrieving the order from the Business Center, all the order information is placed in the Virtual Terminal. You only need to add the transaction amount and a new order number.
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Option A |
Option B |
Option C |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
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First shipment |
Authorization |
$50.00 |
$50.00 |
$100.00 |
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After the shipment |
Capture |
– |
$50.00 |
$50.00 |
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You clicked Re-Authorize. |
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Second shipment |
Authorization |
$100.00 |
$50.00 |
$50.00 |
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After the shipment |
Capture |
$100.00 |
$50.00 |
$50.00 |
Re-authorization and capture example A customer orders three $50.00 items for a total amount of $150.00. The first item is available today, but the other items will be available in two weeks. You process an authorization for the first item, ship it, and capture the authorization. When the other items become available, you retrieve the original authorization from the Business Center and use it to process a sale for the remaining amount.
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First shipment |
Authorization |
$50.00 |
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After the shipment |
Capture |
$50.00 |
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You clicked Re-Authorize and Settle. |
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Second shipment |
Sale |
$100.00 |
New order from a previous authorization
You may retrieve the customer's previous authorization from the Transaction Search and use it to create a new order in the Virtual terminal. For each new order that you create from a previous authorization, you only need to enter the amount and a new order number, but you can change all the information if necessary. This new order is not linked to the previous authorization.
Characteristics of Follow-On Transactions
You can process additional transactions for your customers without storing customer and order information and without requiring your customer to enter any additional information on your Web site. Instead, after retrieving the order from the database, the Business Center places all the customer and order information in the Virtual Terminal. You only need to add a transaction amount and a new order number.
To process follow-on transactions, you can use any existing authorization: successful, failed, captured, reversed (if full authorization reversal is supported by your processor), credited, voided, or one that was placed in review or is pending settlement.
Available transaction type(s)
What you can process in the Virtual Terminal depends on the link that you clicked on the transaction details page:
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Transaction type(s) available... |
...If you clicked this link |
|---|---|
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Authorization only |
Re-Authorize |
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Sale only |
Re-Authorize and Capture |
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All options |
New Order |
Follow-on transactions are accepted, placed in review, or rejected as are any other transactions. If the follow-on transaction is rejected, the Virtual Terminal attempts to process a capture or sale by using the original authorization.
Follow-on authorizations are linked to each other and to the original authorization by the request ID of the original authorization. However, this does not apply to new orders created from a previous authorization because these new orders are not linked to the original authorization.
You can process follow-on transactions for up to 180 days after the original authorization. After 180 days, the original authorization disappears from the database, but the follow-on transactions based on the original authorization are retained until their storage limit reaches 180 days.
Reports
You are responsible for keeping track of all related transactions because the reports that you obtain from the Business Center do not differentiate between primary and follow-on transactions.
After you process a transaction, you receive a receipt.
At the top of the receipt page, you receive a result message for the order and a list of return codes that tell you the result of the AVS and CVN tests performed. The transaction information is shown in one condensed table, with a line added for the Request ID, which is a link to the details of the transaction.
This figure shows a card-not-present receipt for a credit card transaction. For electronic check transactions, the payment and order information section would contain the appropriate fields. The online receipt contains all the fields relevant to the transaction.
Note that in the Return codes section (top), you can see a Reference Number, and in the Order Information section (bottom), you can see a different Order or Merchant Reference Number. The Reference Number (Transaction Reference Number or Reconciliation ID) is created by CyberSource; this number refers to the service or type of transaction that was requested, in this case, an authorization. The Order or Merchant Reference Number was created by you or by CyberSource and refers to the order. You can see and use both types of reference numbers in your reports.
At the bottom of the receipt page, several buttons enable you to print a receipt, process a new transaction, or create a subscription (if this option is available to you).
This figure shows a double receipt of the same transaction as above. However, this receipt is much shorter because it contains only the fields selected in the Virtual Terminal settings page to appear on the printed receipt.
printed receipt
To learn how to find a record of this transaction, see Chapter 5, Searching and Reviewing Orders.
Correcting Errors and Declined Orders
After you have obtained the customer's information, the customer's bank and CyberSource review and verify the customer's information to make sure that it is correct, complete, and valid.
After you complete an order through the Virtual Terminal, a successful order is processed as follows:
1 CyberSource validates the order and sends the order information to Smart Authorization to be verified and to the customer’s bank to be approved.
Smart Authorization uses the fraud detection tools to verify that the customer is legitimate by analyzing each credit card authorization request and, therefore, guards against fraud losses. For configuration information on Smart Authorization, see Configuring Smart Authorization.
2 The bank replies with an authorization code that you can see in the Transaction Search Details page along with the results of Smart Authorization.
Authorization ensures that the customer has sufficient funds to pay for the goods and reserves the amount until you collect the payment.
3 You can later capture the order.
For more information on locating the authorization results in the Business Center, see Searching and Reviewing Orders.
Correcting Errors and Declined Orders
When errors occur, orders can be declined at each independent stage of the process: by CyberSource, the customer’s bank, and/or Smart Authorization. When an order is declined, a message appears at the top of the order page. The message explains what the error is and, in some cases, how to correct it. Even if errors occur, you may be able to capture the order. The sections below describe how errors can occur and how you can resolve them.
CyberSource: Errors or Failed Tests
As soon as you place an order, CyberSource attempts to validate the order but can reject it because of errors such as these:
• Validation errors in the customer’s order data, such as the credit card number.
For credit card numbers, this test verifies only that the number fits the criteria for the card type submitted by the customer for the order, not that the number is correct. Note that the issuing bank may still decline to authorize a purchase even if the card is valid. To correct a validation error due to the credit card number, for example, you can ask your customer to verify the card number or to provide a different card number.
• System errors that prevent the order from being completed.
To correct a system error, wait a few minutes and place the order again. If you cannot correct the errors or continue to receive system error messages, you need to call Customer Support or reject the order. If you keep processing an order while receiving many system error messages, you may actually be authorizing the order repeatedly and charging the customer’s card many times.
• Failed Smart Authorization: Test(s)
Smart Authorization can fail if the order does not pass the tests that you chose, such as when the amount of the order exceeds your maximum threshold. If you received an authorization code (electronically or verbally), you need to review carefully the reason(s) for the Smart Authorization failure(s) to decide whether to attempt to resolve the problem and accept the order. Otherwise, you may need to reject the order. See Reviewing Declined Credit Card Authorizations for details.
Customer’s Bank: Failed Approval
Without an authorization code, you cannot accept an order. However, you may sometimes be able to obtain a verbal authorization and capture the order. The sections below describe these possibilities.
Rejected Order
The customer’s bank declines the order, and you do not receive an authorization code. The bank can refuse the order for many reasons, such as insufficient funds. You can attempt to correct the problem by using the information in the error message, such as requesting a different credit card from the customer. If you still cannot obtain an authorization code, you reject the order.
The bank may ask you to call the card association for reasons such as these:
|
Verbal authorization required Invalid card |
Card refused |
If you receive a six-digit authorization code, you can process the order and later capture it. For information on capturing orders with a verbal authorization code, see Verbal Authorization Code Needed . Make sure to enter verbal authorization codes manually into your order system. If you cannot obtain an authorization code, you must reject the order.
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