Why Defer a payment - the benefits?

What are the limitations of Deferred transactions?

DEFERRED payments allow you to hold onto an authorised transaction, without taking any money from your Shopper's credit card and then send it for settlement at a later date.

For a DEFERRED transaction, our system obtains an authorisation at the time of the transaction, in exactly the same way as a real-time payment. A 'shadow' is then left on your Shopper's card for a certain period of time to reserve funds for that particular transaction, ensuring that the Shopper cannot spend the funds on anything else.

A DEFERRED transaction will not be sent for settlement until requested. This gives you a period of time in which to review the order or your stock and once you are ready to ship your goods and obtain the funds, you simply RELEASE the authorised transaction for settlement.

A DEFERRED transaction will remain active for 30 days for you to RELEASE. However, the bank's authorisation 'shadow' will usually only remain active for up to 6 days. This is dependant on the bank / card issuer as some banks / card issuers only shadow cards for 24 hours and others for 14 days. It is recommended that you RELEASE transactions ASAP, ideally within 48 hours. Any transactions released outside of this time cannot be guaranteed as the customer may have reached their card limit or cancelled their card. Debit cards and credit cards have different shadow periods with debit cards generally having the least time shadowed.

Once a DEFERRED transaction has been authorised and sent for settlement it has been completed and cannot be repeated. As far as your Shopper is concerned, they will be expecting the funds to be taken as usual.

If you wish to REPEAT an order several times or delay the payment for more than 6 days, you should maybe consider using the PREAUTH payment type. For more information on this payment type, please click here If you wish to REPEAT an order several times or delay the payment for more than 6 days, you should maybe consider using the AUTHENTICATE / AUTHORISE payment type. For more information on this payment type, please click here.

DEFERRED payments can prove useful in the following situations:

•   If you stock goods that might not yet be available - deferred payments can be used as the   Shopper may purchase a product from your website even though you may not have   them in stock.



•   If the value of the order changes after the Deferred transaction has been processed, the transaction can be Released for any amount up to the amount of the original transaction.



•   If you wish to make further fraud prevention checks and/or see the full fraud screening results   of the transaction before you decide whether or not to accept the transaction and ship   the goods.



•   If you wish to check for duplicate orders before authorisations are forwarded for   settlement.

•   Even though DEFERRED transactions will remain active for 30 days on our system, if your   ordered stock is delayed we cannot guarantee that you will receive the funds if the   authorised transaction is not released within the card shadowed period. i.e as a general   rule within 6 days of the transaction taking place. If your goods take longer than a few   days to be ordered, you should consider using the AUTHENTICATE payment type instead.



•   You can Release ONLY ONCE and ONLY for an amount up to and including the amount of the original DEFERRED transaction.



•   All DEFERRED transactions must be released in order for you to obtain the funds which   can delay your cash flow process.

When a transaction is processed, it is sent to your acquiring bank for authorisation. It will then appear within your VSP Admin area showing that a DEFERRED transaction has taken place and that it is awaiting release (when you are ready to ship the goods and take payment). At this stage the Shopper's card will have been 'shadowed'. However, no funds will have changed hands at this stage.


      


When you are ready to take the funds, you RELEASE the transaction in your Protx VSP Admin area and the transaction will be sent to your acquiring bank for settlement who will then start to obtain the funds from the Shopper's bank to transfer into your account.

NB: The shadow lasts up to approximately 6 days, depending on the card issuer, so if you ship your goods before the shadow expires, you will get your money. If you ship your goods after the shadow has expired, there is no guarantee that you will obtain the funds as the banks do not reply to the 'Release' informing us if there are funds available in the account.

You only have the option to RELEASE or ABORT this type of transaction. So this is not an option if you are wanting to part-ship goods and only charge the Shopper for the price of the goods you are shipping.

If you wish to use this payment type you need to ensure that you select this option within the online application form or request to have it enabled on you Protx account by emailing the support team

When a transaction is sent through your website for authorisation, it will pass through a field called "TxType" which will determine how the transaction should be processed. To process the transaction as a deferred transaction so you can release it at a later date, you need to make sure that this field is passing the value "DEFERRED"


N.B: These changes will need to be done within the coding of the website and you may need to seek the assistance of a web developer.

More information regarding setting this up for each VSP payment solution can be found within the relevant Protocol and Integration guidelines document which can be downloaded here

If you are using Shopping cart software:

With the wide variety of shopping carts available, it is possible that some shopping cart solutions will not support the Protx Deffered transaction processing service for your website or may use a different term for this payment type.

If you are unsure and require more information, please contact your shopping cart provider and/or refer to the cart's guide for setting the transaction types to DEFERRED.

Processing a Deferred transaction through the VSP terminal:

To process a transaction through the VSP Terminal using this payment type, you simply select the "Deferred" payment type from the transaction type drop down menu on the Terminal Interface (see screenshot below).


      

A request to RELEASE an authorised Deferred transaction sends the transaction for settlement within that day's batch settlement file to your acquiring bank affirming that you now wish to complete the transaction process and take payment from the Shopper's account.


Where the transaction is released within 6 days, the bank will use the shadow which was placed on the Shopper's account to transfer the funds. After this time, the funds cannot be guaranteed.

N.B: If you do not release a deferred transaction, you will not receive the funds for that transaction.

Releasing a deferred transaction can be done automatically by your server should you process a large volume of transactions or wish to automate the transaction process(for VSP Direct and VSP Server Users only).

To perform this task automatically, you will be required to capture and store additional information which is sent to you from Protx with regards to each Deferred transaction.

With this additional information you simply send a RELEASE POST request to our servers from yours containing the following information:

(More information can be found by downloading the "VSP Server and Direct Shared Protocols" document)

N.B: This method is available ONLY to those who use our VSP Server or VSP Direct Payment solutions.

A RELEASE can also be performed via the VSP admin area for any DEFERRED transaction - It is possible to both Release single as well as multiple Deferred transactions via the VSP Admin area, which is explained below.


Releasing a Single Deferred transaction via the VSP Admin area

Before logging on to your Protx VSP Admin account, you need to ensure that you have granted the Release privilege to your 'User' that you intend to use to perform the Release of the Deferred transaction.

Once logged on, you will need to find the Deferred transaction you wish to Release.

You can search for the transaction by using either of the search tools, 'The Daily transaction List' or the 'Find a Transaction', both from under 'Transactions' in the menu.

If you use the 'Daily Transaction List' as the search, then obviously you will need to have a fair idea of the date of the transaction and the name of the cardholder (shopper). The results of the search would then be displayed as shown below;

Click on the actual 'VendorTxCode' of the Deferred that needs Release . If you wanted to Release Mr Test for £36.00 (as per the screenshot above), then you would click on '20060815130333_nm'

The full transaction detail will now be displayed in a new browser window - If you scroll to the bottom of the page you should see a section of futher options called 'Actions' (see screenshot below)

Click on the 'Release' button

If the Release button is not displayed, it could mean one of two things;

•   You have not granted the User account with the Release privilege.
•   The transaction you are attmepting to Release has already been previously released.

Once the Release button has been clicked you will be presented with a Release confirmation screen. (screenshot shown below)

Enter the amount you would like to Release and click the 'Release' button

The Release request will be sent to your acquiring bank for authorisation and the result will be retuned as either 'Authorised' or 'Declined'.

Once the Release has been sent for bank authorisation, depending on whether it was 'Authorised' or 'Declined', it will appear under 'Authorised Transactions' if the Release was successful or under the 'Failed Transactions' section if the Release was declined.

The below screenshot shows the Release, performed above, in the 'Authorised Transactions' section of the VSP Admin account.

Releasing a Multiple Deferred transactions via the VSP Admin area

Before logging into your Protx VSP Admin account, you need to ensure that you have granted the Release privilege to the 'User' that you intend to use to perform the Release on the Deferred transactions.

Once logged on, you will need to find the Deferred transactions you wish to Bulk Release.

You can search for the transactions by using 'The Daily transaction List' from under 'Transactions' in the menu.

Run the desired date range from the 'Daily Transaction List' and once happy you have all the Deferred transactions that you wish to Bulk Release on screen, mark each desired one for selection as shown in the screenshot below (the 'sel' box is ticked for each required transaction).

Click on the 'Bulk Release' button

Once the Release button has been clicked you will be presented with a Release confirmation screen. (screenshot shown below)

Now just click the 'Bulk Release' button again

The Bulk Release request will be sent to your acquiring bank for authorisations on all the Releases and the results will be retuned as either 'Successful' or 'Not Successful'.

You will then be able to view the status of each transaction in your Bulk Release selection via your VSP Admin area 'Daily Transaction List' (as shown in screenshot below)

If you are unable to fulfill the order or do not wish to continue with the transaction, you can ABORT the deferred transactions. This will fail the transaction and stop the payment process and the transaction from being released for settlement. This will means that the Shopper never be charged. However, the Shopper may still have an active bank shadow on their account.

Aborting a deferred transaction can be done automatically by your server should you process a large volume of transactions or wish to automate the transaction process (for VSP Direct and VSP Server Users only).

To perform this task automatically, you will be required to capture and store additional information which is sent to you from Protx with regards to each DEFERRED transaction.

With this additional information you simply send a ABORT request to our servers from yours containing the following information:

(More information can be found by downloading the "VSP Server and Direct Shared Protocols" document)

N.B: This method is available ONLY to those that use our VSP Server or VSP Direct Payment solutions.

An ABORT can also be performed via the VSP admin area for any DEFERRED transaction - It is possible to Abort single as well as multiple Deferred transactions via the VSP Admin area, which is explained below.


Aborting a Single Deferred transaction via the VSP Admin area

Before logging on to your Protx VSP Admin account, you need to ensure that you have granted the Abort privilege to the 'User' that you intend to use to perform the Abort on the Deferred transaction.

Once logged on, you will need to find the Deferred transaction you wish to Abort.

You can search for the transaction by using either of the search tools, 'The Daily transaction List' or the 'Find a Transaction', both from under 'Transactions' in the menu.

If you use the 'Daily Transaction List' as the search, then obviously you will need to have a fair idea of the date of the transaction and the name of the cardholder (shopper). The results of the search would then be displayed as shown below;

Click on the actual 'VendorTxCode' of the Deferred that needs Aborting . If you wanted to Abort Mr Test for £36.00 (as per the screenshot above), then you would click on '20060815130046_nm'

The full transaction detail will now be displayed in a new browser window - If you scroll to the bottom of the page you should see a section of futher options called 'Actions' (see screenshot below)

Click on the 'Abort' button

If the Abort button is not displayed, it could mean one of two things;

•   You have not granted the User account with the Abort privilege.
•   The transaction you are attmepting to Abort is not actually a Deferred transaction.

Once the Abort button has been clicked you will be presented with an Abort confirmation screen. (screenshot shown below)

Now just click the 'Abort' button again

The Abort request will now be processed and confirmed on screen.

Once the Abort has been processed it will appear under the 'Failed Transactions' section.

The below screenshot shows the Abort, performed above, in the 'Failed Transactions' section of the VSP Admin account.

Aborting Multiple Deferred transactions via the VSP Admin area

Before logging on to your Protx VSP Admin account, you need to ensure that you have granted the Abort privilege to the 'User' that you intend to use to perform the Bulk Aborts on the Deferred transactions.

Once logged on, you will need to find the Deferred transactions you wish to Abort.

You search for the transactions by using the 'The Daily transaction List' from under 'Transactions' in the menu.

Click on the 'Bulk Abort' button

Once the Bulk Abort button has been clicked you will be presented with a Bulk Abort confirmation screen. (screenshot shown below)

Now just click the 'Bulk Abort' button again

The Bulk Abort request will be processed and the results will be retuned as either 'Successful' or 'Not Successful'.

You will then be able to view the status of each transaction in your Bulk Abort selection via your VSP Admin area 'Daily Transaction List' (as shown in screenshot below)