We’ve gathered up many of the questions we get from people about payment processing, the Intellivative Merchant Portal and the Intellivative API. If you don’t see your question here, please contact us and we’ll be happy to answer any questions you have.
Transaction questions
- If I’m shipping products, which type of transaction should I use?
- What’s the difference between an authorize and a sale transaction?
- What is the difference between a forced sale and a forced authorization?
- What do I do to complete an authorization?
- When should I run a return vs. issue a credit?
- Why can’t I void this transaction?
Intellivative Merchant Portal questions
- Are there instructions for using the merchant portal?
- How do I set up my repeat customers in the Intellivative Merchant Portal?
- What if my customer moved? How do I change their address?
- I forgot my password for logging into the merchant portal. What should I do?
- How do I change my password?
- Why can’t I void this transaction?
- What is the Unshipped Transactions report for?
- What is a “Current Batch”?
- How do I set up my employees so they can process transactions?
Intellivative API questions
- Which URL should I use to post test transactions to the Intellivative system?
- What is this other “XML Test URL” provided with my API test account?
- What type of transaction should I start with?
- When I attempt to post a transaction, my server throws a security exception saying the remote certificate is invalid. What is wrong?
- I’m attempting to post a transaction, and am getting errorcode 1 in the response. What does this mean and what do I do about it?
- How do I know if my transaction is successful?
Transaction questions
Q: If I’m shipping products, which type of transaction should I use?
A. If you are shipping products later and the customer is paying by credit card, at the time of purchase, you would check the card for funds and reserve the funds using an “Authorize” transactions. After you’ve shipped the products, you would complete the transaction with a “Capture” transaction, which “captures” the funds on the card. This process is necessary to comply with card association regulations.
Q: What’s the difference between an Authorize and a Sale transaction?
A. An Authorize transaction checks for and reserves funds on a customer’s credit card, but does not complete the transaction. If the Authorize transaction is not followed fairly soon by a Capture transaction for the order, the funds will be released. A Sale transaction does the Authorize and Capture transaction all in one transaction, so no Capture transaction is needed. Use a Sale transaction when you are delivering the goods or services immediately; an Authorize transaction is more appropriate when you are shipping goods or delivering them on a later date.
Q: What’s the difference between an Forced Authorization and a Forced Sale transaction?
A. “Forced” transactions are used when the response to an Authorization or Sale is “contact call center”. You would then call in to get an authorization code before proceeding with the transaction. You would use the “Forced Authorization” for an Authorization transaction where you’ve obtained a code from the call center or a “Forced Sale” for a Sale transaction where you’ve obtained a code from the call center.
Q: What do I do to complete an authorization?
A. Run a Capture transaction using the same order number used or returned for the Authorization transaction.
Q: When should I run a return vs. issue a credit?
A.You should always run a return against a previous order number if you processed the order with the Intellivative system. The only time you should use a credit transaction is if the original transaction was run using a previous payment processor.
Q: Why can’t I void this transaction?
A. If a transaction has already settled, you will not be able to void it. Run a return instead.
Intellivative Merchant Portal questions
Q: Are there instructions for using the merchant portal?
A.Yes, please see Merchant Portal Help or click on Help from any page in the merchant portal.
Q: How do I set up my repeat customers in the Intellivative Merchant Portal?
A. First, log in to the Merchant Portal, then click on the Admin Tab, then the Customers link in the bar below.
- Click on the Add a Customer button towards the top of the screen.
- Type in the Customer ID Number and the Bill-to name of the customer.
- (Optional) Add billing address and shipping address. To copy the billing address into the shipping address fields, click the Copy Billing Address button located above the shipping address fields.
- Click on the Submit button when complete.
Q: What if my customer moved? How do I change their address?
A. First, log in to the Merchant Portal, then click on the Admin Tab, then the Customers link in the bar below.
- Locate the customer on your customer list.
- Click on the associated Edit icon
in the right-most column.
- Make the needed changes to the billing and/or shipping address.
- Click on the Submit button.
- If your update was successful, the words “Successfully updated” will appear in green letters in the upper right-hand portion of the screen.
Q: I forgot my password for logging into the merchant portal. What should I do?
A. Contact support at (866) 293-4055. They will need to verify your identity, then they can reset your password for you.
Q: How do I change my password?
A. Log into the merchant portal. Click on the Admin tab, then on the Change Password link directly below. Enter your current password, then your new password twice. Click the Submit button.
A. Once credit card transactions have been captured, they must be sent for settlement before they will be paid. This is typically done once a day and is referred to as a “batch”. Intellivative automatically sends batches for settlement at the least busy time of day (in the middle of the night).
Q: What is the Unshipped Transactions report for?
A. The Unshipped Transactions report will list all Authorized transactions that have not yet been Captured. Usually, you use an authorize transaction at the time of order when the goods have not yet been shipped–hence, the name of this report.
Q: How do I set up my employees so they can log into the Merchant Portal and process transactions?
A. First, log into the Merchant Portal. Click on the Admin tab, then on the Manage Users link just below. Click the Add New User button, fill in the form with the information for your employee, then click the Submit button.
Intellivative API questions
Q: Which URL should I use to post test transactions to the Intellivative integration environment?
A. You need to use the API Integration Test URL (https://apiint.intellivative.net:7443/merchantAPI/postXML) to post transactions from your application.
Q: What is this other “XML Test URL” provided with my API test account?
A: The XML Test URL (https://apiint.intellivative.net:7443/merchantAPI/xmlpost.html) is a web page that you can open in your browser to test sample XML calls to the API. This is helpful as you begin your integration since you have an easy way of testing your XML strings. It can be helpful for troubleshooting errors as well.
Note that the XML Test URL is for testing your XML strings only. It should not be used for posting transactions since it is not a post interface. Posting transactions to the XML Test URL will yield invalid results.
Also, when you are testing XML strings, make sure that you copy the proper posting URL into the Posting to: input box at the top of the page, as shown in the screenshot below.
Q: What type of transaction should I start with?
A: We suggest you first attempt a Credit Card Sale transaction. Before you can attempt a Return or Void transaction, you’ll need a response from a Sale transaction.
Q: When I attempt to post a transaction, my server throws a security exception saying the remote certificate is invalid. What is wrong?
A: We use a self-signed cert in the test environment. You need to import the certificate into your environment since it is not issued by a certificate authority. Once you complete your testing and move your integration to production, this won’t be an issue because we use a fully-signed certificate in the production environment.
Q: I’m attempting to post a transaction, and am getting errorcode 1 in the response. What does this mean and what do I do about it?
A: If you are getting this error, you are successfully communicating with our server, but something’s wrong in what you’re sending. First, make sure that you have the content type set to “text/xml”.
If you are still getting an error, try copying the XML you sent in the post into the XML Test URL (https://apiint.intellivative.net:7443/merchantAPI/xmlpost.html) and comparing the results.
If you still can’t track down the problem, contact support at 1 (866) 293-4055 or e-mail support at intellivative.com and they will be able to help you troubleshoot the problem.
Q: How do I know if my transaction is successful?
A: A successful response will include a response code of 0 (indicating that the transaction was approved or accepted) and a response message. Also, no error code or error message will be included, like this:
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<transaction-response><authCode>123456</authCode>
<orderID>C0A86E6F:011CC02A270B:86E8:01417690</orderID> <referenceNum>846392232</referenceNum>
<transactionID>1700</transactionID>
<transactionTimestamp>1222994700</transactionTimestamp>
<responseCode>0</responseCode>
<responseMessage>CAPTURED</responseMessage>
<avsResponseCode>YYY</avsResponseCode>
<cvvResponseCode>M</cvvResponseCode>
<processorCode>A</processorCode>
<processorMessage>APPROVED</processorMessage>
<errorMessage/>
</transaction-response>A response code of 0 indicates an approved transaction. See the table of response codes in the API Integration Guide for other possible response codes.
