Auth

An Auth (Authorization) transaction is a type of transaction used to verify that the customer has sufficient funds available to cover a potential purchase before Capturing the funds. This Authorization is a temporary hold on the customer’s account to ensure the availability of funds, and does not transfer funds to the Merchant.

In order to capture the funds from an Auth - to complete the transaction and transfer funds to the Merchant - an Auth transaction must eventually be followed up by a Capture transaction.

A typical use case scenario for an Auth transaction would be delayed shipping for eCommerce goods: where an Auth is performed at the time of purchase, and then a Capture request is performed when the product is shipped. The customer is only charged at the time when goods are shipped.

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Auth vs Sale

An Auth transaction only verifies that the customer has sufficient funds available for a potential purchase, while a Sale transaction results in the actual transfer of funds from the customer’s account to the Merchant’s account. While an Auth is just a temporary hold on the customer’s funds to ensure the availability of funds, a Sale transaction is a final transaction that results in an actual payment.

API Request Example

An Auth transaction can be created by calling our POST /v1/transactions API endpoint and providing auth for the value of the type property.

Below is an Auth transaction example with the minimum required request fields, that was routed to Stripe as a processor.

{
    "merchantId": "mid_2zyd88xrnr90xskmjmqpd0x1vj",
    "type": "auth",
    "payment": {
        "number": "4321000000000012",
        "cvv": "123",
        "expiration": "1235"
    },
    "amount": 125
}

{
    "amount": 125,
    "authorization": {
        "approvedAmount": 125,
        "avs": "U",
        "cvv": "M",
        "partial": false,
        "processorCode": "payment_intent",
        "processorMessage": "requires_capture",
        "processorTransactionId": "pi_3MeLvLAzKBz0Hugp0rXImKdc",
        "status": "A"
    },
    "createdOn": "2023-02-22T17:16:11Z",
    "currency": "USD",
    "fee": 0,
    "id": "txn_h1rn8c9nd81y9bkgzax2k2rax",
    "merchantId": "mid_2zyd88xrnr90xskmjmqpd0x1vj",
    "payment": {
        "bin": "432100",
        "brand": "VISA",
        "last4": "0012",
        "type": "CREDIT"
    },
    "plan": {
        "id": "plan_57jaev7pna8nftrkr6xksaastw",
        "name": "Stripe Only Plan"
    },
    "platformId": "pfm_7aj2pxrrcg8zs8x6cxyyrwmyqe",
    "processor": {
        "id": "midCon_6v59stftbs837axmpahj21m8jf",
        "name": "Stripe"
    },
    "type": "auth"
}