Pre-authorizing a Credit Card Payment

You pre-authorize a credit card payment when you want to verify that sufficient credit exists on a customer's credit card before processing a sale. When you create a pre-authorization, the cardholder's credit limit is reduced by the amount of the pre-authorization until the pre-authorization is captured or expires. More...

The amount of a pre-authorization does not need to match the amount captured in the final sale. The captured amount may be more (as when a restaurant customer adds a tip) or less (as when a service station customer swipes a credit card, and then purchases fuel that costs less than the amount pre-authorized for a fill-up).

If you use multicurrency accounting, you can pre-authorize a credit card payment only if the customer currency matches the currency specified for an existing processing code. For example, if you want to pre-authorize a credit card payment for a USD customer, USD must be specified as the currency for an existing processing code.

Merchant service providers charge a fee for voiding a credit card pre-authorization. However, this fee is lower than the fee that is charged if you do not void or capture a pre-authorization and allow it to expire. For this reason, we recommend that you void any pre-authorization that will not be captured.

If a pre-authorization has expired, you may be able to force a payment for the pre-authorized amount. You can force a payment only if the pre-authorization has expired recently (typically within 30 days), and if you used a saved credit card for the pre-authorization (that is, you did not select the Enter A Card For One-Time Use option when processing the pre-authorization).

Note: Forced transactions may be subject to higher fees than regular transactions.

If it is likely that more than seven days will pass before an order is shipped, you should not pre-authorize a credit card payment for the order. If you do, the pre-authorization may expire, in which case your merchant service provider will charge a fee. (Credit card pre-authorization in Paya expires after approximately seven days.) Rather than pre-authorize a credit card payment, you can process an initial prepayment when the order is created, and then process the balance when the order is shipped.

For more information about processing codes, see About Processing Codes.

For more information about pre-authorizing and capturing credit card payments, see About Pre-authorizing, Capturing, and Forcing Credit Card Payments.

  • Sage Exchange must be installed and running on the workstation you are using to pre-authorize the payment. For more information, see About Paya.
  • You must have a working Internet connection.

To pre-authorize a credit card payment:

  1. Open Order Entry > O/E Transactions > Order Entry.
  2. Create or select an order for which you want to pre-authorize a credit card payment.

  3. Click one of the following buttons:

    • Pre-authorize. If you click this button, you must complete the remaining steps in this procedure. More...

      When you click Pre-authorize, the O/E Pre-authorization screen appears. The Pre-authorization Amount field displays the order total (including taxes).

    • Quick Pre-authorize. If you click this button, the order total (including taxes) is pre-authorized. No further steps are required to pre-authorize the payment. More...

      Note: To use Quick Pre-authorize, information required for the transaction must already be entered in your system. For more information, see About Quick Processing for Credit Card Transactions.

  4. Review the information on the screen. More...
    1. Verify that the Payment Code field displays the correct payment code, or select a payment code that uses the payment type SPS Credit Card.

      Tip: Click the Finder Finder button to see a list of payment codes and associated payment types.

    2. Verify that the Processing Code field displays the correct processing code, or select a processing code.

      The bank code associated with the processing code appears in the Bank Code field.

      Note: The processing code you select must use the same bank and currency as the current transaction.

  5. Click Pre-authorize.

    The PMT Process Credit Card screen appears.

  6. Specify a credit card. More...
    • To select a saved credit card, use the Finder Finder button.
    • To enter details for a new card and save the card in the customer record, click the New New button button, and then add the card details on the A/R Credit Card Information screen.
    • To enter details for a new credit card that will not be saved in the customer record, select Enter a Card for One-Time Use. (You enter card details on the Paya browser form after you click the Process Pre-authorization button.)
  7. Enter or review billing details. These may be different from the information in the customer record. For example, the customer may be using a company credit card, or may be authorized to use a card on behalf of the primary cardholder.

    Tip: When entering billing details, you can select the Same as Customer Address option to fill in billing details with name and address information from the customer record.

  8. Review totals.

    Note: For some transactions, you can edit the amount in the Taxes field in order to comply with Level 2 processing requirements. When you edit this amount, the amount in the Subtotal field is calculated automatically by subtracting the taxes you entered from the transaction total.

  9. Click Process Pre-authorization.

    The Paya browser form appears.

  10. Review or enter credit card details.
    • If you use a card reader device and did not select a saved credit card for this transaction, you can click Swipe Card to swipe a credit card.
    • If you want to review these details, click the Next button on the browser form.
  11. Click Submit. You might need to click Submit twice if you did not click the Next button.

    Paya processes the pre-authorization. A message displays information about the transaction.

  12. On the PMT Process Credit Card screen, review pre-authorization details and status.
  13. Click Close to return to the O/E Pre-authorization screen.
  • After posting the order, you can capture the pre-authorization either when the order is shipped (using the O/E Shipment Entry screen) or when the order is invoiced (using the O/E Invoice Entry screen).

    Note: The options available for capturing individual pre-authorizations depend on the settings you specify on the PMT Options screen. For more information, see PMT Options Screen.

  • You can use the O/E Capture Payments With Invoices screen to process a batch of pre-authorized payments for multiple Order Entry documents. For more information, see Capturing and Invoicing Pre-authorized Credit Card Payments.
  • If you want to void the pre-authorization, you can click the Void Pre-auth button on the O/E Order Entry screen.