New to the online credit card processing. When it puts a sale in "not finalized" does this always mean that there is a problem with the card or could the processor have an issue at times? In this case it declined the card several times. Do you cancel them or delete them?

Thanks,

in2nascar

Hi in2nascar!

In order to answer your question properly, can you tell me which gateway you're using?

Thank you,
Julie

TITLE says, authorize.net =)

Hi in2nascar

An order can be declined for both reasons, either Authorize.net was down, or there is just wrong cc info, address info, etc.

If you look at the error that Authorize.net returned in the admin notes section of the order, you will see an error code. You can look this up in Authorize.net's documentation to see what specifically caused the order to fail. Lastly, we allow customers to try and place an order three times before we lock their session so you could see up to three declined orders in a row for the same customer.

Joe

They did try 3 times and I guess they were locked out. Do I delete them or file them for future problems, questions from the customers?

Also, why does it take so long for Authorize.net to settle a transaction? I have had some waiting for longer than 6 hours. A manual credit card machine approves or declines in a matter of minutes. I would think that Authorize.net is just as quick.

I contact my customers who have a non finalyzed order...especially if the error is a wrong billing address or invalid number. About 90% of the time I can convert it to a sale when I contact the customer. Then I can just move it to New Order and process the order manually. If I don't hear back after awhile, I delete the nonfinalized orders.

Authorize.net verifies the card validity and funds availability at the time of the transaction, but only "settles" your merchant account once a day. You can change the time of day it settles in your authorize.net account.

Note: If a charge is approved, it isn't placed in "not finalized" - this is only for charges that have not gone through.

You can kind of tell what the issues are by scanning through the Not Finalized orders.
I first look to see if there is a successful order from the same customer - if there is, I delete the not final orders for that customer.
Then I look at why the payment didn't go through - if it's a simple decline, I delete it and do not contact the customer.
Frankly, I don't contact customers about not finalized orders at all anymore.
I did the first couple of days because we were tweaking our security - that's been hashed out and any not final orders I see are because the customer didn't have funds available, or didn't have the basic card info.
Either way, it's really not anything I can help them with.
That may sound harsh, but our indvidual sales amounts are not large enough to justify the time to hold someone's hand.
I would be annoyed if I was trying to buy something online, realized I had no money, and then had the company call me to offer to take another card. If I wanted to use another card, I would have done so.
We have our ordering number posted, so they can call in to have an order processed manually.