Partial Authorization

The payment gateway is adding support for partial authorizations for debit cards and prepaid cards for these card types, for U.S. transactions only:

• MasterCard

• Discover

• Diners Club

• JCB

• American Express

• Visa

If the balance on the debit card or prepaid card is less than the order amount, you can accept multiple forms of payment for the order: some or all of the amount on the card in addition to one or more different payment methods.

How a Partial Authorization Works

• You submit an authorization request or a capture request for a debit card or prepaid card.

• The authorization reply message lets you know that only a partial amount was approved because the balance on the card is not enough to cover the entire order amount. The reply message includes:

  • The amount you requested

  • The amount that was authorized, which is the amount available on the card

  • A value called the splitTenderId that you can use to link this authorization request to subsequent transactions

  You can also receive balance information for partially-approved and fully-approved requests.

  Note: All transactions with the same splitTenderId are put in a hold state until the final transaction is received. At this point, all transactions associated with the splitTenderId will be released from the hold state and will be returned to the original state (Auth Only or Auth Capture).

  If the transaction is sent in as an Authorization Only, you have to submit the capture request when you are ready to settle the transactions. You can release all transactions associated with the splitTenderId by sending a Prior_Auth_Capture request. This type of request is the same as the existing prior auth capture request, except that  x_split_tender_id is used instead of x_trans_id.

• If you decide not to capture the partial authorization, you should request a void. A void request can be used to cancel the SplitTender group. This type of request is the same as the existing void request except x_split_tender_id is used instead of x_trans_id.

• You can use one or more different payment methods for the rest of the order amount.

For partial authorizations to work correctly, you must make adjustments to your website, to allow for new fields.

Opting In

You must opt in to be able to receive and capture partial authorizations. There are two ways to opt in:

• You can turn on the Partial Authorization feature in the Transaction Settings section of your Merchant Interface. Select this option when your website has been adjusted to accommodate partial authorizations.

• You can include a new API field in your initial authorization or authorization+capture request that enables partial authorization for that specific request. Use this option to override the account settings.