Auto Credit Card Feature

Index


Overview

* ResPax bookings authenticate from the ResPax server to the webserver to Camtech authentication server to the Bank and back again.

* NetWizard bookings authenticate from the webserver to Camtech authentication server to the Bank and back again.

* ResPax transactions can be refunded from within the booking once only for any amount up to the amount of the original transaction.

* NetWizard transactions can be refunded from within the booking in ResPax once only for any amount up to the amount of the original transaction.

* ResPax and NetWizard transactions can be further refunded using the CCard Charge tool in ResPax as many times as needed up to the amount of the original transaction.

* ResPax transactions can be refunded from the Camtech website for any amount up to the original transaction amount.

* NetWizard transactions are not visible on the Camtech website and therefore cannot be refunded from there.

Generally all payment transactions should be dealt with from inside the appropriate booking because all payment amounts must equal for a booking to commit and any payments taken should be put against a booking.

However, sometimes the credit card transaction being dealt with came from a web booking that did not get committed due to the transaction not being confirmed, or the payment line in the booking was never saved due to a failure on commit, so these transactions may need to be dealt with outside the booking and manual adjustments put in the booking where appropriate.

Managing Credit Card Transactions from Inside the Booking

Authenticating a Credit Card Payment

Take the booking in the normal manner up to the entering of payments. To enter a credit card payment either click on the POB/On Account payment that is to be collected by credit card, or add a new payment into the booking. The example below shows a new payment line being created as a reservations credit card payment.

Click on ADD New and fill in the payment details for the credit card payment down to the credit card expiry year field (Card Fee will be prefilled with appropriate dollar amount if fees have been set for this card type)...

Click on Authenticate Credit Card for auto authentication (Processing Credit Card message will show and a confirmation message will be displayed)...

Click Yes to continue with the transaction (the yellow screen will continue to display until a message is returned from the bank)...

Click OK on the Authentication result if approved (this will place an approved and locked credit card payment line into the booking...

The booking can now be completed as normal.

Refunding a Credit Card Payment

Credit cards may need to be refunded under a number of circumstances .. * Legitimate refund in the booking due to booking changes (pax numbers changed, cancellations due to weather, incorrect amount taken by the reservations staff etc) * Card charged via the web booking system but no booking committed due to internet errors * Card charged multiple times by web user trying to make a booking

Each circumstance for the refund needs to be individually assessed before a refund in given to the card holder.

Company policy will dictate when and how a refund should be made and by whom. User permission are set to disallow some users from doing refunds in ResPax.

The web booking application, NetWizard, does NOT allow refunds on the web so all refunds from web bookings must be done in ResPax EITHER in a booking OR in the credit card charge screen.

Click on the approved and locked credit card payment line to be refunded (the only actions that can be made on this locked payment line are to change the Paid Date – reporting purposes only – or refund the payment)...

Click on Refund Payment (and add a refund reason) and click OK...

If a reason is not entered the payment refund will not be allowed to continue...

So add a reason and click OK...

Processing will begin and a prompt for choosing Partial Payment Reversal Or Full Booking Refund will be displayed...

Specify the refund type...

Payment reversal will refund the money to the credit card WITHOUT ALTERING THE SALE VALUE OF THE BOOKING.. this is the most common type of credit card refund.

.. a typical example of when to use the payment reversal would be if a credit card payment was taken on a single card for two people traveling. Due to illness one of the people cancels (and the company policy allows the total amount for the one passenger to be refunded). The booking will be edited to have one person only traveling which automatically reduces the sale value of the booking by half. The credit card payment reversal will be done for half the value of the booking so that the payment amount will equal the new booking amount.

Edit the booking to be adjusted...

One pax ill so take one person out of the booking and see the Total reduces by half...

Open the credit card payment, click on Refund Payment and add the refund reason the click OK...

Click Yes for Payment Reversal...

Enter the amount to be refunded .. by default the full amount of the credit card payment is prefilled in this field...

In this example $168 is half the booking value and therefore the amount to be refunded on the card...

Click on Refund to process the transaction...

Click Yes to continue...

Click OK to complete the process once the Refund has been approved...

The booking payment and total amounts now balance and the booking changes can be committed.

NOTE THAT ONCE A CREDIT CARD PAYMENT (or REFUND) HAS BEEN APPROVED THE Exit Without Commit BUTTON HAS BEEN DISABLED SO THE CHANGES MUST BE COMMITTED. Full booking refund will refund the money to the credit card and REDUCE THE TOTAL SALE VALUE OF THE BOOKING BY THE REFUND AMOUNT.. this is a rarely used feature because operators try very hard not to give full refunds in this way.

.. a typical example of when to use the full booking refund would be if a credit card payment was taken on a single card and due to complaint or dissatisfaction the passengers were going to be given a full refund even though they did travel. The booking is not going to be cancelled.

Click on the credit card payment line and click the Refund Payment button and add the Refund Reason...

Specify the refund type .. click No...

The refund process immediately continues to refund the full credit card amount .. click Yes to continue...

Once the transaction has been approved click OK to complete the process...

The refund payment is added to the booking as normal but a negative Px Refund amount equal to the amount of the full booking refund is added into the booking value line which reduces the booking value by the total amount refunded on the credit card.

This reduced the sale value of the booking to $0 without cancelling the booking. This makes the sales reporting correct and the passengers traveled numbers correct while still allowing a full refund to be given to the dissatisfied passengers.

NOTE THAT THE BOOKING MUST NOW BE COMMITTED AS THE Exit Without Commit BUTTON HAS BEEN DEACTIVED BECAUSE THE REFUND HAD BEEN AUTHENTICATED AND THE MONEY IS BACK ON THE PASSENGER CARD AND NO LONGER IN THE OPERATOR’S BANK.

Refunding a Credit Card Payment Made on the Web (Net``Wizard)

With the previous credit card authentication version it was not possible to refund a credit card payment taken on the web. Refunds had to be done through a manual electronic swipe machine first and then entered into the booking as a Reservations/Credit Card payment of negative amount for the value of the refund, and then manually authenticated.

Where a booking exists and a payment exists in the booking all refunds must be done from within the booking.

Follow the standard procedures for Refunding a credit card payment where there is a payment in a booking to be refunded.

Where a DUBIOUS transaction has occurred from a web booking but there is no booking in the system, and the DUBIOUS transaction was requeried and found to be APPROVED it may be necessary to refund the credit card because the passenger cannot be contacted or has already put another booking in the system later that was committed successfully.

Once the decision has been made that this transaction is to be refunded then the refund needs to be done using the CCard Charges feature.

Requerying a DUBIOUS Transaction

A DUBIOUS transaction is one where a valid response has not been received from the authentication servers regarding the status of the transaction.

If a transaction is returned as either APPROVED or DECLINED then the reservations staff are clear as to how to handle the booking (APPROVED – continue with taking the booking as the funds have been received, DECLINED – ask the passenger for another credit card or another payment method as the funds have not been received).

When a transaction is DUBIOUS it is possible that the passenger’s card has been charged but the message coming back over the internet was lost. It is also possible that the passenger’s card has not been charged but, again, the message coming back over the internet was lost.

The normal process with DUBIOUS transactions is NOT to charge the passenger’s card again until the status of the transaction has been confirmed. It is bad business practice to put multiple charges onto cards and then have to refund them. It also makes for confusion with reconciling bookings with many reversals and payments.

A dubious transaction is created when a credit card is being auto authenticated and the transaction fails for any reason (the error message offers a choice of checking the validity of the transaction again which will NOT recharge the card, or saving the transaction as DUBIOUS to be dealt with again later) .

Press YES to check the transaction again...

Press NO to save the transaction as DUBIOUS for action later...

Press OK to save the payment line...

NOTE THAT ONCE A CREDIT CARD PAYMENT (or REFUND) HAS BEEN ATTEMPTED THE Exit Without Commit BUTTON HAS BEEN DISABLED SO THE CHANGES MUST BE COMMITTED BECAUSE IT IS NOT KNOWN IF THE CHARGE HAS GONE THROUGH OR NOT.

The REQUERY can be done again later (if it is suspected that the internet is causing issues at the current time) from within the booking.

Edit the booking to resolve the dubious transaction issue .. note that the credit card is grey indicating that is has not been authenticated successfully yet, not blue which would indicate auto or manual authentication had been successful.

Open the payment .. note that although the payment has not been authenticated it CANNOT be deleted either because, as a DUBIOUS transactions, it is possible that the client credit card has been charged to the bank...

Click on the Query Transaction button to check the transaction status at the Camtech gateway (bank) .. processing message should say checking authentication here as it is NOT doing a new transaction process...

If the transaction did reach the bank the status of the transaction (DECLINED or ACCEPTED) the normal message will be displayed...

Click OK to the Authentication result and the payment is now locked and displayed as normal.

Recharging a DECLINED Transaction

If the authentication result is returned as DECLINED this is a successful transaction where the money is NOT in the bank...

The reservations staff must inform the passenger that the card has been declined and that an alternative card or form of payment will need to be given. Click on OK in the Authenticatioin result screen to go back to the payment screen...

The card details can be changed and the new payment card details authenticated again until the payment is ACCEPTED.

Requerying a DUBIOUS Refund

Refunding a credit card transaction uses exactly the same technology as the original credit card transaction and can therefore also become dubious due to a valid response not being received.

The logic in handling the dubious refund is exactly the same as a normal credit card transaction in that a locked refund payment will be put into the booking with the status of dubious and must be validated as accepted or declined.

A refund transaction is processed as normal by clicking on the Refund Payment button and going through all the steps to processing...

..Refund Comment...

.. Specify refund type...

.. (Partial reversal for this example) ..

.. approve online authentication...

.. processing refund message while awaiting authentication...

An error message is displayed when a valid response is not received regarding the status of the refund transaction...

The refund transaction should be requeried immediately to check if the transaction did go through but the internet connection is just a little slow .. click Yes to requery...

If no response is received the error message will be displayed again. If a valid response cannot be retrieved after a couple tries then the transaction should be saved for checking later .. Click No to continue...

Click OK on the authentication failure result to save the transaction...

This DUBIOUS refund will need to be validated at a later time. This can be done from within the booking by clicking on the Dubious refund payment line.

Managing Credit Card Transactions From the CCard Charges Maintenance Tool

Credit card payments are normally made from within a booking. Payments must normally balance a sale value in a booking to maintain the integrity of the monetary system in ResPax.

There are a number of reasons that it may be necessary to manage a credit card transaction outside of the booking. Where a booking exists the CCard Charges maintenance tool will not allow a refund to be made outside of the booking.

Where there is no booking in the system due to a dubious transaction being recorded from an unsuccessful web booking it may be necessary to both check the status of the credit card charge from the web and refund it when required.

Using the CCard Charges Screen

Click on Maintenance - CCard Charges button... This will open the Credit Card Maintenance screen ..

Use the Search criteria to find credit card charges made today (for example) by clicking on the Charged Between tick and entered a date range … then click on Search...

A list of transactions done during the date range entered will show in the screen .. use the filters to further reduce the list to those transactions of interest .. DUBIOUS (for example) .. then click Search...

Normally, any credit card payment issues need to be resolved from within the booking because the payments have to be balanced in order for the booking to be correct.

Select the transaction to be resolved and right click on the line...

The only choices available when the transaction is attached to a valid booking is to open the booking or requery the transaction.

Open Booking .. this will open the booking and allow requery and resolution within the booking as normal.

Re-Query Transaction .. this queries the Camtech gateway to check if authentication of this transaction did go through to the bank.

If the original transaction was successful the status of the transaction will be set to ACCEPTED (or DECLINED if this was the case) as displayed in the ccard charge screen...

Right-click on the transaction .. now only the Open Booking selection is available as the status of the transaction is known...

Open Booking and edit the payment .. the payment in the booking is now set to be APPROVED (or DECLINED is that is the case) as the status of the transaction has been confirmed...

Requerying a Dubious Transaction Where There is No Booking

The most common reason for a credit card charge to exist where there is no booking is from an unsuccessful web booking as show in the example below.

This is the voucher in NetWizard before committing the booking. Click on Commit Voucher to commit the booking...

Click on OK to accept the confirmation of credit card payment...

The passenger booking on the web gets this message when there is a credit card authentication failure...

The booking is not confirmed...

In ResPax the only record of this unsuccessful attempt at making a booking is in the external charge table that records all attempts at charging a credit card, both from the web and within ResPax.

The External Charge report shows all transaction but can be filtered to show DUBIOUS as these are the only transactions that are of interest...

This report can be filtered to show the DUBIOUS transactions that need to be investigated and resolved.

Web booking that do not have a successful credit card transaction do not get committed to the reservations system .. so it is not possible to open the booking and fix the payments from within the booking.

Open the CCard Charge screen to deal with dubious web credit card charges.

Right click on the transactions to see the choices...

Click on Open Booking to see if a booking exists .. in this case no web booking was committed and so the payment must be resolved outside of the booking...

Click on ReQuery Transaction .. before a decision can be made about how to handle the transaction the status must be confirmed to be either ACCEPTED (or DECLINED) or DOES NOT EXIST...

If the connection to the Camtech gateway is still unavailable an error message will be displayed (there are a number of different messages that may be displayed depending upon the problem – below is one example only)...

.. and the transaction will remain as DUBIOUS because there has been no definite confirmation of the status of the transaction at the bank.

If the transaction did not get to the bank this message will display...

.. and the transaction will be set to a definite DECLINED status and an immediate choice of recharging the card will be offered...

Recharging Declined Transaction Where There Is No Booking

There is only one opportunity to recharge a declined transaction when there is no booking, and this is at the time of requerying the transaction. This is logical because if there is no booking then normally the passenger will not want their card to be charged.

If the card was dubious when the web booking was attempted and then declined when the card was requeried the right action would be to leave the card as declined and contact the passenger to see if they still wish to make a booking.

Click Yes .. and the card will be recharged...

Click No and the card will not be charged. Click Yes and a credit card charge will be processed .. (be aware that the APPROVED transaction will not show in the screen if the filter is set to DUBIOUS – as it was to find the transactions that needed resolution – the filter below was changed to find the Name On Card and is therefore showing all transactions on this date with the card name entered)...

Click No .. and the transaction will remain DECLINED. There is no second opportunity to charge the card as there is no booking attached to the transaction.


Download PDF "how to" documentation

HowTo_NewAutoCreditCard_Feature.pdf

ResPax_Auto_Credit_Card_Reconciliation_V1_0.pdf

r4a howtos managingbookings autocreditcard (last edited 2012-04-18 04:44:27 by tertius)