Developer's Guide

Submitting Purchasing Card Level 2 and Level 3 Transactions
About American Express Purchasing Card Transactions - Phoenix Processor
C
100 Payflow Pro Developer’s Guide
Level 2 and Level 3 data is generally considered non-financial data. Lack of adequate data
may cause a transaction to be downgraded.
PayPal generally requires up to Level 2 information in an Authorization transaction followed
by additional Level 3 data in the associated Delayed Capture transaction. A Sale transaction
should include all Level 3 data since it is authorized and later settled.
Accepted BIN Ranges
Visa, MasterCard, and American Express publish specific Bank Identification Number (BIN)
ranges for purchasing cards. Sometimes the determination of whether a card is a purchasing
card is left to the processor (for example, TSYS Acquiring Solutions
1
). In other cases, the
Payflow payments gateway makes the determination based on the BIN range (for example,
FDMS South and American Express).
BIN ranges accepted for American Express Level 2 and Level 3 transactions are listed on
page 102.
About American Express Purchasing Card Transactions -
Phoenix Processor
The information in this section applies to transactions processed by the American Express
Phoenix Processor, not necessarily to all American Express cards. Level 2 and Level 3
purchasing card rules may differ for American Express card transactions processed by other
processors such as Paymentech or First Data Nashville.
Level 2 Additional data regarding sales tax, customer code, purchase order number,
invoice number are captured at the point of sale. In most cases, this
information is combined with the merchant’s tax ID number, state, and postal
code data and is then passed through during settlement. For some processors
and banks, however, a Level 2 authorization may include some of this data.
Level 3 Significant additional information such as line items, product codes, item
descriptions, unit price, unit quantities, and ship-to postal data are added to the
Level 2 data to provide optimal reporting to buyers and sellers. Settlement
transactions typically carry Level 3 data.
1. Formerly Vital Processing Services
TABLE C.1 Transaction levels
Level Description