Overview – Concepts
Integrated payment processing (credit cards, debit cards, etc.) in Artisan POS is normally seamless and straightforward to use, once it’s all set up. However, when Internet, local network (LAN), PIN pad, or software communication errors or outages occur while processing a payment, it can get a bit more complicated. Artisan uses a number of techniques to help you handle, and in some cases, recover from, communication errors. Some of these will involve additional user interaction.
Communication errors are, unfortunately, part of life, and no payment processing system is immune to them; therefore, it’s crucial for you to understand why these issues occur in the first place, so you can minimize their impact.
This article describes the screens and dialogs that your staff may encounter when dealing with payment processing communication errors. It’s important to understand how these work, so you can avoid duplicate and/or missed charges.
Introducing New Tools in 4.9.175
As of version 4.9.175, Artisan POS helps you deal with these communication errors more smoothly, especially if you’re using Datacap DC Direct payment processing.
If you’re upgrading from an Artisan POS version older than 4.9.175, we recommend that you review these procedures before (or soon after) you upgrade, so you know what to expect. Many of the details have changed.
The rest of this article assumes you’re using Artisan 4.9.175 or later.
Payment Status Menu
In general, you will now be presented with the following Payment Status Menu whenever Artisan POS doesn’t receive a response from the PIN Pad (or payment processing software like NETePay or Paygistix Client), or receives a response indicating a Communications Error further up the line. In such cases, Artisan can’t tell whether or not the transaction went through successfully.
There are three possible realities.
- The PIN Pad or Processing Software never received the request.
- The PIN Pad or Processing Software received the request and the payment was successfully processed, but the response didn’t get through.
- The PIN Pad or Processing Software received the request and the payment was not processed, and the error response didn’t get through.
All of these are reported as communications errors. In many cases, Artisan POS can’t determine which of these cases actually occurred, so it requires assistance from a user. In earlier versions of Artisan POS, there was no way for the user to indicate which of these realities had occurred, and Artisan POS had to assume that the transaction had not been processed. Unfortunately, this often resulted in duplicate charges, as users would run the card again, even though it might have already been processed.
The only way to know for sure what happened was to contact the processor via your Processing Portal or by phone and determine the actual status of the transaction.
Understanding the Options
Before picking a choice from the Payment Status Menu, it’s critical that you check your merchant account portal, or otherwise contact your merchant account provider (sometimes known as your “processor”), to determine the actual status.
There are five choices in the menu. Choose the one that best describes the status of the transaction.
- Transaction Was Approved
You know that the transaction was successful because you checked your portal, phoned the processor, or confirmed with an app on the customer’s phone. - Transaction Was Declined
You know that the transaction was denied for any number of reasons because you checked your portal or phoned the processor. - Transaction Was Voided
You voided the transaction through your portal or by phoning the processor. - Failed Or Not Submitted
You confirmed that the processor had never received the transaction because you checked with your portal, or you phoned the processor. - Unknown
You are unable to log into the portal, or you don’t know or don’t have time to find out what really happened. This option maintains the same behavior as before, and it will not allow you to save the sale until you add another payment. After processing the transaction again, you should confirm with your processor and then void any duplicates.
If you choose Approved or Unknown, you’ll be asked to confirm that you’re really sure.
If you chose Approved, you’ll also be prompted to enter the Approval Code for the transaction. In most cases, the Approval Code will be available from your payment portal, though you may have to dig into the transaction details.
If you were unable to obtain the Approval Code (a.k.a. Auth Code), you can leave it blank and Artisan will use “**OK**”, after an additional confirmation.
Identifying Manually-Verified Payments
If you look in the details of a Payment Log (“CC Log”) entry, you can tell that it was manually verified with the Payment Status Menu by looking at the Response Summary. It will start with “Verified Externally”, the name of the user who authorized this verification (which might be different than the cashier who was processing the payment), and the name of the specific status that was selected in the menu.
If “Unknown” was chosen, the Response Summary will show the actual error, but the status (in “Action / Status”) will show as “(None)”.
Automatic Queries
Some processing methods (see below) support payment processing queries. Artisan POS will use these after a communications error to automatically check if the transaction has been processed, distinguishing between the three “realities” above, without having to ask the user. Unless the query itself also has a communication failure (after four tries), you won’t see the Payment Status menu in these cases.
Does My Processing Method Support Queries?
Review your Payment Processing Settings to confirm which processing method you’re currently using. In Artisan POS, on a sales station that accepts payment cards, click Tools, then Program Options, and select Business & Financial, followed by Payment Processing Settings, as shown below.
Now, look at the Payment Processing Method.
Queries will be used (if needed) if the Processing Method is WildsPay, Edge HostPay (deprecated), Innovo Gateway (also deprecated), or DC Direct. They will also be used with other Datacap processing methods (NETePay and TranCloud) if they’re in “Hosted Bridge“ mode (which communicates with the Datacap gateway rather than directly to payment processors like TSYS and First Data), which will have letters in the Merchant ID and will show an “API Key” field. Queries are also used with TranCloud “Classic“ (that is, not Hosted) unless using a Direct Connection, as indicated by an “@” after the Device ID in the “TranCloud Device ID” field.
If you’re using a processing method that does not support queries, or if several query attempts all also fail, then you’ll be presented with the Payment Status Menu (unless it’s completely disabled by the security settings below).
Configuring Datacap API Keys
If you’re using one of the Datacap methods mentioned above, you’ll need to initially set up your API Key in your Payment Processing Settings. See this article for details:
Security Controls for Manual Verifications
Suppose you feel that you can’t depend on your staff to answer this question correctly, perhaps because they don’t have access to your merchant account portal. In that case, you can use the Financial Task Setting for “Manually Verifying Credit Card Payment Status” to control which user levels can authorize selection of specific payment statuses from the menu (or confirm voids). Leaving the payment status as Unknown does not require authorization.
The payment processing log will clearly show which transactions were verified externally, with a Response Summary like, “Externally Verified by David: Transaction Was Approved”, which lists the selected status and the user who authorized that status choice. (The “Clerk” field, as usual, lists the cashier who initiated the payment.)
To disable the Payment Status Menu entirely, you can set the above task setting to “Not Allowed”. In that case, the menu will not be presented, and the status will be Unknown (displayed as “(none)” in the Payment Log). You also won’t get the “void confirmation” dialog.
Avoiding Communication Errors in the First Place
It is neither normal nor acceptable to have frequent errors. Recently, we have seen an uptick in these occurrences, which have usually been resolved by ensuring the following points.
- It is best, but not always possible, to have a reliable Internet Service
- Quality Internal Networking that meets or exceeds current standards
- Updated PIN Pad Devices & Software
- Updated Artisan POS
Intermittent Failures vs. Full Internet Outages
The techniques above are designed to handle intermittent communications failures. Sometimes, though, your Internet connection goes out for an extended period (planned or unplanned). You should prepare for this possibility and have a backup plan for processing payments. Here are a few options to consider:
- A stand-alone backup PIN Pad terminal with cellular service.
- A payment processing app on your phone, provided by your processor or by a third party.
- Backup Internet service using a cellular hotspot (or satellite).
- Use a web browser on your phone or cellular tablet to a virtual terminal website provided by your payment processor or payment gateway. You’ll probably have to manually enter credit card numbers and other transaction details.
- Offline Mode: With some processing methods, such as certain Datacap configurations, you can put Artisan into an offline payment processing mode. This stores the credit card details securely in your PIN Pad or other secure local storage (outside of Artisan) and allows you to process them later when your Internet service is back up. Artisan will finalize sales as if the payments went through and were approved. You do run the risk that once service is restored, some of the charges may not go through. However, some retailers deem these risks acceptable; especially those with relatively high-volume, low-ticket sales.
- Write down the credit card details to be processed later, and put sales On Hold until then. Be sure to follow PCI DSS security guidelines for securely handling (and disposing of) sensitive credit card information. As with Offline Mode, you also risk some of the credit cards not going through.