A transaction record is created when you process a payment in Salesforce using Chargent. The Response Status field of the transaction record provides a quick look at whether or not the transaction was approved or declined or if there were any errors in sending the payment to your gateway. This page provides a quick look at the considerations and best practices related to the three possible response statuses.
Approved Response Status
When a transaction is approved, it denotes that your gateway provider received and processed the payment. This status displays on successful charges, refunds, voids, and authorizations.
Declined Response Status
Chargent creates a transaction record for all declined charges with a Response Status of “Declined.” To get more details about the reason for the decline, view the information returned from your gateway in the Reason Code and Gateway Response fields on the transaction record. Some reasons a transaction might be declined include the card being expired/inactive, exceeding its limit, the bank deeming the card compromised/stolen, or AVS mismatch.
To resolve declined transactions, follow these steps:
- Contact the customer for updated billing information.
- Attempt the charge again at a later date.
- Send a payment request to the customer.
Soft Declines
Soft declines, also known as soft rejects, are temporary in nature and can often be retried later. They indicate that the customer’s issuing bank authorized the payment but could not proceed for another reason. Soft declines most commonly occur if AVS fails, there is a temporary hold on the account, or the account has insufficient funds. All gateways differ; some do not differentiate between a soft or hard decline.
You can choose to process soft declines by checking the Approve Soft Rejects field on your gateway record. For more information, see Gateway Fields.
Hard Declines
Hard declines refer to declines that cannot be retried. In this case, the issuing bank could not authorize the payment. This can occur if the card was reported stolen, the card was invalid, or the account was closed. In the event of a hard decline, you must request a different payment method from the customer. All gateways differ; some do not differentiate between a soft or hard decline.
Recurring Billing Declines
If a recurring transaction is declined, Chargent updates the Payment Status on the related Chargent Order from “Recurring” to “Error.” If you use Chargent’s Automated Collections feature, Chargent will update the Payment Status field to “Automated Collections”.
To resolve recurring billing declines:
- Contact the customer to gather updated billing information.
- Change the Payment Status back to “Recurring” and click Save.
- If you have processed a charge manually outside of the recurring billing schedule by clicking the Charge button, set the Payment Start Date to the next time the record should be billed to avoid a recurring charge the next time the batch runs.
For more information, see Recurring Billing: Payment Status field is set to ‘Error’.
Error Response Status
Chargent includes validations to ensure correct data inputs before sending a transaction to a Payment Gateway. These error messages typically occur when Chargent can’t perform a function required to send the transaction to your gateway successfully. For example, if billing information is missing or incorrect (where Chargent is certain the gateway will reject it), Chargent will create a transaction with a Response Status of ‘Error’. This could be due to missing credit card information or the amount being set to $0.00 for a charge.
When a Chargent Error successfully creates a Transaction record, the Gateway ID field on the record will be either blank or display “Chargent Error”, and the Response Message and Gateway Response fields will provide additional details about the error.
Common causes for an Error Response Status include:
- The transaction Amount was not greater than $0.00.
- A Card Security Code (CVC) was required but not provided.
- A Credit Card Number was not entered.
- A Credit Card Type was not selected.
- A Payment Method was not selected.
Troubleshooting
If you’re unsure why you received a specific response status, a few additional fields on the transaction record can help you troubleshoot. Please see Understanding Response Codes to learn more.
See our knowledge base for frequently asked questions related to response statuses.
See Also
Understanding Chargent Transactions
Chargent Transaction Fields
Chargent Terminology
