Understanding the Lifecycle of a Credit Card Sale with foreUP Payments

Overview

This article aims to help readers understand the flow of a transaction from the initial sale process to the payout. 

Preconditions

The following conditions must be met before starting on the instructional steps below:

• Your facility must be using foreUP Payments as your integrated credit card processor
• You must have access to the Finix dashboard

Important Information

foreUP Payments utilizes an authorization and capture method for credit card processing rather than a direct sale approach. This allows transactions that need a tip to be authorized for the initial amount (e.g., $20) but then captured at an increased amount after the tip has been added ($25 = $20 + $5 tip). The cardholder will then see ONE transaction ($25) on their account rather than two separate transactions (one for $20 and one for $5).

Flow of a Transaction

Below is an outline to show the transaction flow from the initial authorization/sale to the payout. In the flow below, we will use the example of a $100 F&B sale that gets a $20 tip added: 

Day 1 (Monday) Authorization

• A $100 sale is ready to process
  • The foreUP user clicks Credit Card in foreUP and inserts, swipes, or taps the cardholder's card on the credit card unit when prompted.
  • Through secure communication, foreUP asks our acquirer to authorize the credit card for $100.
  • The acquirer will attempt to process the card.
    • If successful, the acquirer sends a success signal back to foreUP, which allows foreUP to assign a sale number, close out the transaction, and print a receipt.
      • If you want to view the successful $100 authorization immediately in the Finix dashboard, you can log into Finix (see the following article for more information on where to find authorizations in Finix: How to View and Understand Authorizations in Finix)
    • If unsuccessful, the acquirer will return the reason for the decline to foreUP. foreUP will then show a decline error message back to the user.
• The cardholder signs the receipt and leaves a $20 tip
• The foreUP user adds the $20 tip to the transaction in foreUP
• At this stage, if the cardholder were to view their account, they would see a $100 PENDING charge
• NOTE: If your facility were to issue a same-day refund, the cardholder would not see a refund hit their account, but the original pending charge fall off (See FAQ below for more details regarding same-day refunds)
• All authorization IDs in Finix start with "AU"

Day 2 (Tuesday) Transfer/Payment

• The foreUP capture tool is run at 2 AM local merchant time (your facility's timezone). This tool captures all of the previous day's successful authorizations. In our example, the $100 + $20 tip would get captured at $120
• When an authorization is captured via foreUP's capture tool, the successful authorization is converted into a transfer, also known as a "payment" in Finix. Our acquirer is officially transferring/withdrawing the funds from the cardholder's account.
• The action of capturing a successful authorization and converting it into a transfer/payment is when the cardholder would expect the charge on their account to move from "pending" to "completed." In our example, the cardholder would see one $120 transaction on their account, not two separate transactions of $100 and $20 
• If you want to view the $120 transfer/payment in the Finix dashboard, you can log into Finix (see the following article for more information on where to find transfers/payments in Finix: How to View and Understand Payments in Finix)
• All transfer/payment IDs in Finix start with "TR"

Day 3 (Wednesday) Settlement

• In the morning, all transfers/payments from the previous day (Tuesday) are now batched into two settlements, one for the card-present (VANTIV) transactions and one for the card-not-present (LITLE) transactions. (Please note: if your facility only processes card-present transactions one day, you would expect to see only one settlement created)
• Before the settlements are approved in the afternoon, the credit card fees are withdrawn from the settlement, meaning the amount deposited into your bank account is the NET amount
• In the afternoon, the settlements are approved, and the merchant payouts initiated
• If you want to view the details of the settlements, you can log into Finix (see the following article for more information on viewing and understanding the details of settlements: How to View and Understand Settlements in Finix)
• All settlement IDs in Finix start with "ST"

Day 4 (Thursday) Merchant Deposit

• You should expect to see the net merchant payout from yesterday's approved settlement deposited into your bank account. 
• For more information on the settlement schedule for both card-present (Vantiv) and card-not-present (Litle) transactions, please see the following article: Understanding the foreUP Payments Batching and Funding Schedule

FAQ

Q: When should the cardholder expect to see a refund? 

A: This can depend on whether the refund is issued on the same day as the original sale or a different day.

If the refund is issued on the SAME day as the sale, instead of the authorization being captured and converted into a transfer/payment, the authorization will get voided, and the cardholder can expect the pending charge to fall off their account within seven to ten business days. Once the authorization is voided, we CANNOT speed up the process of a pending charge falling off the cardholder's account. 

If the refund is issued on a DIFFERENT day than the original sale, the cardholder can expect to see the refund hit their account within five to seven business days, if not sooner. We CANNOT speed up this process.