Authorise and capture payments

This page describes how to authorise a customer's card for a payment, which will reserve an amount on the card for a few days. It also describes how to reverse an authorisation to release the funds that were held.

You will need:

• One or more single payment products. See Create a single payment product.
• A customer or their details to enter when creating an order (name and email address are required).

How to authorise and capture a payment

To hold funds on a customers card for later collection do these steps.

1. Click + and select Add Order.
2. Select or add your customer.
3. Select one or more single payment products and enter a quantity and a price, then set pricing options.
4. Optionally, select the checkbox to save the customer's card.
5. Select the Pre-authorise option.

   

6. If the payment is authorised, the order status becomes Active. The authorised payment with the type of PA is in the Related Transactions list. To collect the authorised payment, click the round arrow button to Capture the payment.

   

7. You can capture the full amount or enter a partial amount to capture, and click Capture Now. This amount will be charged to the customer's card.

   

After the capture is processed, the order status becomes Complete.

The capture transaction appears in the Related Transactions list with the transaction type of CP. You can use the round-arrow Refund button to make a full or partial refund, as for any debit (DB) transaction.

How to reverse an authorisation

The amount of time that funds are held before they are automatically released depends on the issuing bank but it is usually around one week.

If you need to return the held funds to the customer, we recommend that you always use a full reversal, but some acquirers support partial reversals. Please check with Merchant Support for more information.

After you authorise a payment, to release the amount held on the customer's card, do these steps.

1. In the order, go to Related Transactions and find the PA authorisation transaction.

   

2. Click the round-arrow Refund the payment to reverse the pre-authorisation.
3. You can reverse the full amount, or enter a partial amount to release the reserved funds from the customer's card, if your acquirer supports it.
4. After you reverse the payment, the order status becomes Complete.