Merchant advice codes and Visa category codes
When an issuer declines a recurring payment, the card scheme can send an advice code with the response. Mastercard sends a Merchant Advice Code (MAC). Visa sends a Visa Category Code (VCC).
The code tells you whether you can retry the payment. BillPro uses it to mark the payment as soft-declined or hard-declined:
- Soft-declined: you can retry it. Card schemes allow up to 15 retries in 30 days. BillPro can retry for you. See Auto-retry billing events.
- Hard-declined: don't retry it. Update the customer's card instead.
Visa Category Codes
| VCC | Description | In BillPro |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Approved | Approved |
| 1 | Issuer will never approve | Hard-declined |
| 2 | Issuer cannot approve at this time | Soft-declined |
| 3 | Data quality issues / revalidate data | Soft-declined |
| 4 | Generic response codes | Soft-declined |
Mastercard Merchant Advice Codes
| MAC | Description | In BillPro |
|---|---|---|
| 00 | Approved | Approved |
| 01 | Updated/additional information needed | Soft-declined |
| 02 | Try again later | Soft-declined |
| 03 | Do not try again | Hard-declined |
| 04 | Token requirements are not fulfilled for this token type | Soft-declined |
| 21 | Payment cancellation | Hard-declined |
Find out why a payment failed
Open the order's Billing Events tab, expand the billing event and click the Transaction Unique ID. The Result section of Transaction Details shows the Scheme Response Code, the Result Code and a description from the gateway.
If there is no advice code or scheme response code, the payment may have failed at the payment gateway rather than at the issuer. See Display related transactions for an order.
Updated 3 days ago
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