Pre-authorizing, Capturing, and Forcing Credit Card Payments
If you use Payment Processing, you pre-authorize a credit card payment when you want to verify that sufficient credit exists on a customer's credit card before processing a sale. When you create a pre-authorization, the cardholder's credit limit is reduced by the amount of the pre-authorization until the pre-authorization is captured or expires.
After pre-authorizing a payment, you can capture (process) the payment or void the pre-authorization. If the pre-authorization has expired recently (typically within 30 days), you may also be able to force a payment for the pre-authorized amount.
Pre-authorizing Payments
On the O/E Order Entry form, you can click the Pre-authorize button to pre-authorize a credit card payment. For more information, see Pre-authorize a Credit Card Payment.
The amount of a pre-authorization does not need to match the amount captured in the final sale. The captured amount may be more (as when a restaurant customer adds a tip) or less (as when a service station customer swipes a credit card, and then purchases fuel that costs less than the amount pre-authorized for a fill-up).
Important! If it is likely that more than seven days will pass before an order is shipped, you should not pre-authorize a credit card payment for the order. If you do, the pre-authorization may expire, in which case your merchant service provider will charge a fee. (Credit card pre-authorization in Sage Payment Solutions expires after approximately seven days.)
Capturing Pre-authorized Payments
You capture a pre-authorized credit card payment when you are ready to process payment for goods that you have shipped, or for goods or services that a customer has received.
On the O/E Order Entry and O/E Shipment Entry forms, you can click the Capture button to capture (process) a pre-authorized credit card payment. For more information, see Capture a Pre-authorized Credit Card Payment.
You can capture a pre-authorization only once. After you capture it, the pre-authorization is released in full, regardless of whether the amount captured matches the amount that was pre-authorized.
Forcing Payment for Expired Pre-authorizations
If a pre-authorization has expired, you may be able to force a payment for the pre-authorized amount.
Note: Forced transactions may be subject to higher fees than regular transactions, depending on the terms of your agreement with your merchant service provider.
You can force a payment only if the pre-authorization has expired recently (typically within 30 days), and if you used a saved credit card for the pre-authorization (that is, you did not select the Enter A Card For One-Time Use option when processing the pre-authorization).
When you attempt to capture an expired pre-authorization, if the pre-authorization meets the above criteria and can be forced, a message appears and gives you the option to force payment. If you cannot force payment, a message informs you that you must create a new pre-authorization or prepayment.
Voiding Existing Pre-authorizations
On the O/E Order Entry form, you can click the Void button to open the Pre-authorization form, and then click Void to void an existing pre-authorization. For more information, see Void a Credit Card Pre-authorization.
Merchant service providers charge a fee for voiding a credit card pre-authorization. However, this fee is lower than the fee that is charged if you do not void or capture a pre-authorization and allow it to expire. For this reason, we recommend that you void any pre-authorization that will not be captured.
See also
Process a credit card prepayment
Pre-authorize a credit card payment