Operation Outcomes and Auto Compensation
Check what you should expect as the outcome of your requests
Card Present Gateway
If you want to access information about our in-store offering, you may check the API specifications here: In-store Transactions Overview
Cards Connect has four distinct operations that can happen during the life cycle of a transaction. These are Authorisation, Capture, Void, and Refund. Then there's also the Account Status Inquiry (ASI) used for card validation.
Cards Connect has an auto compensation process to ensure that all parties has the same transaction outcome in the case of failures. For example, if Cards Connect receives an unknown error or a timeout from downstream systems (E.g. payment switch) while processing your authorisation request, you may receive an API response with the "Busy Failing" outcome, meanwhile Cards Connect will send the issuer an auto-reversal message for the authorisation to ensure that even if the initial attempt reached the issuer, it will be nullified to align the state of the transaction at the issuer with the outcome you received from Cards Connect. If, for some reason this automated reversal attempt also fails, Cards Connect will continue retrying the reversal for a number of times. If you try to fetch the information on an operation that is in the auto compensation phase, you will receive the corresponding outcome. The operations and the applicable outcomes available to them are explained below:
| Outcome | Operations | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| In Progress | All | An interim outcome that is returned when you try to retrieve the information for an operation or the transaction while the system is still processing the respective operation. |
| Accepted | Capture Void | Capture or Void request passed all the mandatory validations in Cards Connect and now can be treated as successful. |
| Succeeded | All | The operation request was approved by the issuer. |
| Declined | All | The operation request was declined by the issuer. For Authorisation, Refund and ASI, it means your request has been declined by the issuer or the card scheme. You may check the decline responseCode property for the decline reason and act accordingly.For Capture and Void, this might be a temporary or a terminal outcome after the initial "Accepted" response. However, it shouldn't change how your system behaves for the specific operation. On the other hand, since the decline created an ambiguity about the transaction's state, Cards Connect prevents you from making subsequent requests for this transaction. You may want to check the responseCode to see why the operation is declined to see if there's any operational changes to be done to prevent future cases. |
| Busy Failing | Authorisation Refund | The operation request was failed and the Cards Connect is in the progress of reversing the operation. You may treat this outcome as a terminal failure. Busy Failing may transition to Failed if the reversal is successful or it may transition to Busy Failing Delayed if the reversal attempt itself fails too. |
| Busy Failing Delayed | Authorisation Refund | The operation request was failed, along with the initial attempt to reverse the operation. Cards Connect is in the process of retrying the reversal. You may treat this outcome as a terminal failure. Busy Failing Delayed may transition to Failed if the reversal is successful or to Ruined if the reversal attempts are exhausted. |
| In Progress Delayed | Capture Void | Even though the operation was initially accepted by Cards Connect, our attempt to deliver the result to the issuer failed, so, Cards Connect is in the process of retrying the advice. You may continue treating the initial "Accepted" as a success but subsequent operations on the transaction will be rejected. In Progress Delayed may transition to Accepted, Succeeded, or Declined depending on the issuer's answer, or to Ruined if the retry attempts are exhausted without an answer from the issuer. |
| Failed | Authorisation Refund ASI | The operation request was failed by the issuer and the auto compensation process successfully reversed it or in the case of ASI, auto compensation was not required. |
| Ruined | Authorisation Capture Void Refund | For Authorisation and Refund, this outcome means that Cards Connect exhausted configured reversal attempts without having a definitive result from the issuer. Similarly, for Capture and Void, the outcome means that Cards Connect exhausted all the configured retry attempts without a definitive answer from the issuer. |
Effect of Auto Compensation Process on Transactions
In most cases, Cards Connect will quickly recover from the issue and the auto compensation won't affect your operations. Even in the case of a permanent failure represented as a "Ruined" outcome, auto compensation won't require you to reverse an action you might have taken based on the initial response from Cards Connect (E.g. Even if the outcome of a capture that was initially accepted turns to ruined or failed, you don't need to change anything regarding the transaction)
On the other hand, to prevent further ambiguity, if a transaction is in the process of auto compensation or auto compensation couldn't resolve the issue despite all the attempts, Cards Connect won't allow you take further actions on the transaction.
Updated 2 days ago