Developer's Guide

Payflow Pro Developer’s Guide 23
4
Credit Card Transactions
This chapter describes how to plan for implementing credit card processing, presents the core
set of parameters used by all credit card processors, explains how to submit a transaction for
each transaction type supported, and describes other credit card features such as card security.
Credit Card Features
Payflow Pro supports the following transaction types for credit card processing:
z Sale
z Authorization (including Account Verification)
z Voice Authorization
z Delayed Capture
z Credit
z Vo id
z Inquiry
Payflow Pro also supports the following credit card features:
z Recharging to the same credit card (also called reference transactions)
z Securing credit card transactions by means of the Address Verification Service and card
security code validation
About Credit Card Processing
Credit card processing occurs in two steps — a real-time Authorization and a capture
(settlement) of the funds that were authorized. As discussed below, you perform these two
steps either as a single transaction or as two transactions, depending on your business model
For an Authorization, the server sends the transaction information to a credit card processor
who routes the transaction through the financial networks to the cardholder’s issuing bank.
The issuing bank checks whether the card is valid, evaluates whether sufficient credit exists,
checks values such as address verification service and card security codes (discussed below),
and returns a response: Approved, Declined, Referral, or other response values.
You receive the response a few seconds after you submit the transaction to the server. If an
Authorization is approved, the bank temporarily reserves the credit for the amount of the
transaction to prepare to capture (fulfill) the transaction. The hold on funds typically lasts for
about a week.