Description: After a processor change, merchants may have pending authorizations from their old processor that need to be settled which would go to their new processor. Merchants should settle any outstanding authorizations before the processor change occurs; however, this is not always done so they may need to try and settle the existing authorizations with their new processor. This article covers the information needed to close a batch with the authorizations from the old processor and shows how merchants can identify those transactions approved under their previous processor.
Merchants should start by checking with their Merchant Service Provider (MSP) and/or their new processor as to whether authorizations from the old processor will cause any sort of rate variance or downgrade, or if they will be rejected outright causing a suspended batch.
If the MSP or processor advises the authorizations cannot be accepted and you have not yet submitted the batch, void the existing transactions and clone them in Lighthouse Transaction Manager (LTM) to get new authorizations through the new processor. If possible, have the merchant speak with their customers ahead of this to let them know, since this would appear to the customer as a double authorization on their card.
If the submitted batch is suspended due to the authorizations from the old processor, it will need to be determined which transactions were authorized through which processor. To identify if a transaction was processed under another processor you will need to know the date and time of when the merchant "switched over" to the new processor setup with Shift4 then obtain a Detail w/ Auth Summary report from LTM of the current transactions.
The date and time the authorization was obtained should be in the authorization details for this report (shown per transaction). Anything identified prior to the merchant's switchover date will need to be cloned and subsequently voided to prevent issues with the nightly batch closeout so that the transactions can obtain a new authorization code using the new processing account and close without issue.
Important: If the merchant is part of a merchant category that accepts pre-authorization like the Hospitality or Rental industries then they may want to check their batches each night until they can no longer see dates and times prior to their switchover date.
If the batch is a mixture of authorizations from both old and new processors, you will still need to clone the transactions with authorizations from the old processor to get new authorizations from the new processor. The handling of the batch itself will depend on whether the batch was received by the new processor or not.
- If it was not received, submit a batch request, manually void the transactions with authorizations from the old processor, then resubmit the remainder
- If the batch was received in part, force close the batch
Note: Merchants will be instructed to contact Support for assistance with batch request handling and processing.