Key use cases
Understanding payment voids, and the reasons for void failures, helps you to:
- Deal with customer complaints and queries more efficiently.
- Build a more robust integration that can effectively flag and handle various payment scenarios.
Core idea
To understand payment voids and void failures, you need to understand the payment authorization process.
Think of a payment authorization request as you asking the cardholder's bank to check that, amongst other things, the cardholder has enough funds in their account to complete the payment. If they have the funds, you would ask the bank to reserve them for you by placing a hold on the funds. This is a payment authorization request.
If the bank accepts the authorization request, the payment is considered authorized. The authorization is valid for a period of time defined by the cardholder's bank. However, this does not move any funds out of the cardholder's account. Funds are only moved out of the cardholder's account when you capture the payment.
You cannot refund a payment that has only been authorized but not captured, because no money movement took place, meaning the funds never left the cardholder's bank.
Instead, if you or the cardholder decide to cancel the payment before it's captured, either party can request that the cardholder's bank void the payment instead, which releases the hold on the funds. For example, if the customer changed their mind about the purchase, or you realise that you no longer have the purchased item in stock.
Unlike a refund, a successful void typically does not show up in the cardholder's transaction history because there was no movement of funds from their account.
You cannot void a payment if you've already captured the funds from the cardholder.
The cardholder's bank may decline your request to void the payment for a variety of reasons. For example, if:
- There are restrictions on the card (response code 20062).
- They suspect fraud (response code 20059).
- They could not find a record of the payment on file (response code 20025).
- The authorization has expired, in which case the hold on the funds is automatically released.
Payment Service Providers (PSPs), like Checkout.com, do not receive any additional information from the cardholder's bank on why they declined a void request. If your void request is declined, you should:
- Get the payment's Acquirer Reference Number (ARN) or Retrieval Reference Number (RRN).
- Reach out to the cardholder with this info and ask them to resolve with their bank. The cardholder's bank can use the ARN or RRN to trace the transaction and confirm the release of funds.
How it works with Checkout.com
To resolve a cardholder issue related to voided payments, use the Dashboard to view the status of a payment and its transaction history. For example, you can see when a payment was authorized, if the cardholder's bank declined to void the authorization, or if a void was attempted against a payment that was already refunded.
- Sign in to the Dashboard.
- Go to Payments > Processing > All payments.
- Select the relevant payment to view the Payment details page. You can use the search bar to find a specific payment by its ID, or the filter tool to find payments with specific properties. For example, payments that have the Authorized or Voided status.
- On the Payment details page, review the Payment timeline to view the payment's transaction history and determine the information to pass to the customer:
- If the payment's status is Authorized and there are Void decline actions in the payment timeline, review the response code displayed to understand why the cardholder's bank declined the authorization void. Provide the cardholder with the ARN or RRN and ask them to contact their bank to resolve the issue. To find the ARN or RRN, expand the Authorization transaction in the Payment timeline.
- If the payment's status is Captured and there are Void decline actions in the payment timeline, the authorization voids failed because the funds were already captured from the cardholder's account. If you have not already done so, perform a refund instead to return funds to the cardholder.
- If the payment's status is Voided, the funds have either already been released in the cardholder's account, or are scheduled to be released, depending on the cardholder's bank's timeline. You can provide the cardholder with the ARN or RRN and ask them to contact their bank for more information on the release of the funds.
Where to go next
To learn how to void a payment, see Void a payment.
To view the definitions for response codes displayed in the Dashboard, see API response codes.