Transaction States

Overview

The transactions page is where you can view all your recent transactions and determine the state of each transaction processed. This article lists each state and provides an explanation for each.

RECEIVED: This transaction has been received, and is ready for authorisation. Cardstream has received the transaction but not done anything with it yet - bar store it in the database - chances are we have actually sent it for authorisation if needs be - but no approval has been received from the Acquirer yet - customers would not normally see this state unless they happen to just view the transactions list while a transaction is 'in flight'

APPROVED: This transaction has been approved by the acquiring bank and is ready to be captured for settlement. Cardstream has received approval for the transaction from the Acquirer and the Acquirer will have reserved the funds so the shopper cannot spend them. If automatic immediate capture is used (as normal) then you won't see this state as it will automatically go straight to 'captured'

DECLINED: This transaction has been declined by the acquiring bank. Cardstream has not received approval for the transaction and will go no further with it - no funds will be reserved or transferred. This is mutually exclusive with the 'approved' state

CAPTURED: This transaction has been approved by the acquiring bank and has been captured ready for settlement. The merchant has indicated that the transaction should be settled as soon as possible - usually first thing the following morning (1am-3am). Unless delayed capture then Cardstream will automatically capture and not wait for the merchant to indicate it.

TENDERED: This transaction has been sent to the acquiring bank for settlement. The transaction has been sent to the Acquirer for settlement. At this point the transaction can no longer be 'cancelled' or re 'captured'.

DEFERRED: The transaction could not be settled but will be retried at the next available instance - usually first thing the next day.

ACCEPTED: This transaction has been accepted for settlement by the acquiring bank and will appear in your merchant bank account. The Acquirer has accepted the transaction and will transfer funds in due course

REJECTED: The Acquirer has rejected the transaction and will not transfer the funds - this is rare.

REFERRED: This transaction has been referred for manual approval by the acquiring bank. Please contact the bank for an authorisation code. The Acquirer didn't approve the transaction and wants the Merchant to ring them before they approved/decline the transaction - if they approve it the Merchant needs to enter the 'authorisation code' provided to get the transaction to move to the 'approved'/'captured' state.

CANCELLED: This transaction has been cancelled and will not be sent for settlement. The Merchant can cancel a transaction at any stage before it gets to the 'tendered' state. If cancelled the transaction will be stopped and no further action taken - i.e. It will not get to the 'tendered' state and be sent for settlement. This is preferable to doing a refund and is the same as 'voiding' a transaction at the terminal due to an error in the data being entered or shopper changing their mind etc.

FINISHED: The transaction has finished but not via the normal pipeline or 'cancelled' state, this could be due to the Merchant request that a transaction abort early (i.e. performing the 3DS functions only) or due to some error that caused the transaction pipeline to abort. 'Finished' would normally equate to an error and so the actual response code and message should be used to see why the transaction finished.

REVERSED: This transaction has been approved by the acquiring bank but cannot be captured. Collection may be performed instead which will perform a new sale transaction. The transaction was sent to the Acquirer for approval and approval was granted but Cardstream decided not to continue with the transaction and asked the Acquirer to reverse the approval and release any held shopper's funds. This would normally be because Cardstream declined the transaction due the approval indicating that the AVS/CV2 details were not as the Merchant required.

REVERSED: This is also currently used by the PREAUTH command as it is used to check the account is valid and has enough funds but not reserve those funds. Similar to account validation. We do this by seeking approval for the funds and then reversing that approval automatically. To actually do an authorisation only which reserves the funds then use a normal SALE with delayed capture.

SETTLING: This transaction has been sent to the acquiring bank for settlement.

REJECTED: This transaction has been rejected for settlement by the acquiring bank, please contact the bank for further details on why the transaction was rejected.

FINISHED: This transaction has been aborted due to it being invalid or due to a gateway error.