Authorizations

Can all card brands be authorized and captured?

Yes. Visa, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express are all supported for authorizations and captures with TabaPay.

What is the difference between Authorization and Capture?

Authorization is the process of verifying the availability of funds and ensuring the cardholder's account is in good standing. When the requested funds are available, a temporary hold is placed on the funds requested at the cardholder's account without actually moving the funds out yet. The card will not be charged for the funds.

Capture is an instruction to finalize the original authorization and request funds be withdrawn from the cardholder's account to the merchant's account.

How many times can I “capture” a transaction?

Once.

Can I capture a percentage of the authorization?

No, you can only capture the full amount at this time.

What payment categories (cards, accounts, cash) can be authorized and captured?

Auth and Capture is for card only, and for pull payments only.

Will the cardholder's statement have proof of authorization?

The decision to display an authorization event depends on the issuer.

When will an authorization expire?

Authorizations are typically valid for 7 days.

Merchants must reverse any remaining amount authorized that is not captured within the authorization validity timeframe. This reversal must occur within 24 hours of the earliest of the following events:

1. When the Transaction was cancelled, or
2. The Cardholder decided to pay by other means, or
3. The end of the Approval Response validity period (typically 7 days)

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Capturing or Deleting Auths

Make sure you always Capture or Delete your authorizations before they expire.

Does an authorization and capture have to happen back to back or at once?

The time delay between an authorization and capture is up to the TabaPay Client and their business function. For instance, in e-commerce, authorizations happen when the consumer places and order but captures typically happen when items are shipped out and not before.

Does this support 3DS?

Yes, you can pass in the 3DS cryptogram in the Create Transaction + Authorize call.

What is a “hanging authorization”?

When a client calls the Create Transaction API using the authorize flag, this creates an Authorization. This means the issuing bank will temporarily “hold” that amount for the authorization UNTIL a client “captures it” by calling the Capture Transaction API.

If a client DOES NOT call Capture Transaction for an Authorization, this is referred to as a “hanging authorization”.

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Penalizations on Hanging Auths

Merchants may be penalized by the networks if they have “hanging authorizations”.

Merchants MUST “capture” every transaction as soon as possible, or call Delete Transaction to cancel the authorization.

Eventually, the issuing bank will cancel the temporary hold and return the funds to the card holder. However, this is considered a bad user experience and networks may penalize the client for causing this situation.

Capture

How to I capture an authorized transaction?

You can use Capture Transaction with the transaction ID to capture the authorized funds.

Void

How do I void an authorized transaction?

You can use Delete Transaction with the path parameter ?void in the endpoint, or URL path.

Settlement & Reporting

Will TabaPay Clients get charged for authorizations and captures?

Settlement of transactions will depend on successfully captured events.

Authorizations that do not result in capture must be voided.

Excessive authorizations will be subject to card network rules around any fee involved when the behavior is non-conformant from what is recommended.

I am an existing TabaPay Client. What reporting changes must I expect to see?

You will find the transaction statuses in the Transactions reports, Transactions (Daily) or Transactions (Monthly).

What is the Visa Misuse Fee for authorizations?

Visa assesses a misuse fee for authorizations that are neither settled nor voided/reversed within certain timeframes.

What are potential misuse of authorization scenarios?

Here are some typical misuse examples:

• Frequently performing (especially small dollar) authorizations without any intent to capture
• Not voiding or reversing transactions that were authorized. (This results in negative cardholder experiences with their funds being on hold)

Others

What happens when there's a chargeback when the authorization is in hold?

TabaPay Clients can release the hold on funds by voiding the original request by utilizing the Delete Transaction API.