Credit Card Merchant Account Partial Authorizations

Any time the available balance on a cardholder's debit or prepaid card account is lower than the transaction's amount, partial authorizations enable credit card merchant account holders to complete a sale by taking the remaining available balance on the originally presented card, plus another form of payment, such as cash or yet another card. This type of transaction is called a "split tender" sale.

Whenever a prepaid payment card that is also used as a gift card or an incentive type of card, the available balance will be communicated by default to the merchant's point-of-sale (POS) device where it may be printed out on the sales receipt.

How Credit Card Merchant Account Partial Authorizations Work

Following is the step-by-step process of managing a partial authorization request:

1. The cardholder's debit or prepaid card's available balance is lower than the sale's amount.
2. The merchant submits a credit card processing authorization request for the entire transaction's amount (not adding the tip, though) with an indicator for a Partial authorization.
3. Because of the insufficient balance, the card's issuer will send a partial authorization approval back to the merchant.
4. The merchant's POS device identifies the received response code and subtracts the partially approved amount from the entire sale's amount. Bear in mind that if there is a full service setting, the POS machine prints out two receipts - one displaying the partial authorization sale's amount (not including a tip line), and another one showing the residual amount due and the tip line to indicate that the amount is still due.
5. The customer pays the balance due of the transaction's amount using another form of payment.
6. The transaction is finalized and a receipt is printed out, showing the split tender amounts. If, as it is with a Balance Return response, the available card balance is also indicated, however it can be formatted as displayed below to keep cardholder privacy:
   • If the indicated account balance is less than $200, the POS device prints the exact balance on the receipt (i.e., "Balance Remaining: ($69.37").
   • If the displayed remaining account balance is higher than $200, the POS device prints a "Confirmed" indication, rather than the outstanding dollar amounts (that is, "Balance Remaining: Confirmed").

Protect Your Credit Card Merchant Account from Fraud

While requesting the transaction authorization and waiting for the response, use the time to inspect the card's security features. Any sign of tampering with the card may indicate that you are handling a counterfeit card.

If you receive an authorization approval response, yet still suspect possible fraud, you may have to make a Code 10 call to your processor. You will then be routed to the card issuer's own authorization center and one of their representatives will ask you a series of questions to validate the transaction. Then she will instruct you on how to proceed with the transaction.