Payments explained
DPS takes care of the entire transactional process flow from the time you commit to the transaction till the transaction has been approved. Below are some of the more common transaction types.
| Purchase |
| Refund |
| Authorisation |
| Completion |
| Credit Card Tip - EFTPOS only |
| Credit Card Hospitality - EFTPOS only |
| Top-up Authorisation - EFTPOS only |
| Electronic Offline Vouchers - EFTPOS only |
A 'purchase' transaction is the most common transaction type. Successful purchase transactions result in funds being debited from the credit card holder’s account and deposited into the merchant’s electronic merchant facility.
RefundA 'refund' is a transaction type where funds are debited from the merchant’s electronic merchant account and credited to the card holder. Every Payment Express customer also gets access to the Payment Manager (or Payline®); a portal that also has the capability to process refunds using a unique refund matching service.
AuthorisationAn authorisation is the first part of a two stage transactional process.
An authorisation verifies that a card is valid and has sufficient funds to complete this transaction. If approved, the authorised amount is held until it is completed, or an expiry time is reached, which is usually 7 days for Visa and MasterCard and 14 days for American Express transactions.
This transaction type is useful when the merchant needs to ensure that funds are available on a card holders credit card but the actual amount is not yet known or goods / stock levels are unknown and fulfillment of these orders may be unknown at time of purchase.
Only certain banks support pre authorization / completions (sometimes known as ‘tipping’). If you require this setup, please ensure that you are appropriately setup at your bank for this service.
CompletionA ‘completion’ transaction is the second phase to an ‘auth’.
A 'completion' transaction triggers funds to transferred from the credit card holder to the merchant. Completions can be processed for the originally pre authorized amount or for less than this amount (should the merchant be unable to fulfil the entire order). Completions cannot be more than the origninally authorised amount.
The complete transaction must be processed within timeframe that the auth is held for; which is usually 7 days for Visa and MasterCard and 14 days for American Express transactions.
Credit Card Tip TransactionThis transaction is a combination of an Authorisation, which requests approval for a Purchase to proceed and a Purchase completion, which provides notification that the authorised purchase has completed. By utilising this combination of transactions, the merchant is provided with the ability to add a tip to a credit card transaction after having presented the cardholder with the transaction record.
The terminal is to allow the merchant to add and or modify the tip amount or the total transaction amount, while prohibiting the modification of any other transactional data. The terminal is to limit the total amount of the purchase completion to a maximum of 150% of the value of the accepted authorisation i.e. the tip amount cannot exceed 50% of the authorised amount.
The merchant cannot enter a transaction amount less than the original authorised amount.
There is no requirement to limit the number of times a merchant can modify the cardholder tip amount.
This transaction is a combination of an Authorisation, which requests approval for a Purchase to proceed and a Purchase completion, which provides notification that the authorised purchase has completed.
By utilising this combination of transactions, the merchant is provided with the ability to make an authorisation for the anticipated end value that approves the validity of the card and availability of funds. The approval and other transaction details are stored in the memory of the terminal for later use. Use of a parameter to recall the pre-authorised transaction in the terminal creates a completion message without necessarily requiring their customer to present their card again.
Top-up AuthorisationThis transaction is an authorisation transaction which requests approval for extra charges not covered in the original Hospitality authorisation transaction. This transaction will not be stored, as no completion transaction is required. The value of the extra charges is accounted for in the modification of the original Hospitality transaction.
Electronic Offline VouchersThis transaction allows the terminal to authorise transactions in an offline mode. Thus only signature type transactions can be used.