Using Plastic when Authorized amount is different than Captured amount

[Cable]

I want to be sure I'm using the correct procedure with Plastic when the captured amount is different than the authorized amount.

Background: We're a wholesale plant nursery using FileMaker Web Direct for the customer portal on our website. In there, customers can place orders. I was asked to add the ability for customers to be able to pay for their orders with a credit card in the portal. The catch is, the final amount on their order will not necessarily match the amount when the order is placed. In fact, it almost never will. Sometimes the plant ordered has a problem (trimmed, caught a disease, got bugs) and can't be shipped so we check with the customer to see if they'll take a substitution. But, the main issue is freight. When we take the order we do not know how much it will cost to ship to the customer. Freight rates change daily and the total shipping rate can be shared if there is more than one customer on that truck (most truckloads do not go to just one customer).

So the request from sales is to have the customer enter their credit card information and authorized with the current order amount plus an estimated freight rate. Then, the card would be charged the actual amount at the time of invoicing. They do not want the customer to log back in to pay the final amount. Current process is that the customer is notified of the final amount and says "yes" or "no" verbally or thru email.

Our credit card processing vendor said the way to do this is to authorize an amount, then cancel the authorized amount and charge the actual amount.

When reading the documentation for Plastic, I see that you can use authMode=AUTH_ONLY and then CCProcessAuthorizedPayment while referencing the previousTransactionId. It also notes, "The dollarAmount is not required to process the authorized payment. "

My question is, can I do the CCProcessAuthorizedPayment step with a different dollarAmount than the AUTH_ONLY step to accomplish this goal? If not, do I need to do something to cancel the AUTH_ONLY or does it "timeout" after awhile?

[ryan360Works]

Hi Cable,

The dollarAmount in CCProcessAuthorizedPayment needs to be less than or equal to the chargeAmount passed into CCProcessPayment. 

edit: A bit more clarification, this is imposed at the gateway level so it may be that your gateway will allow the dollarAmount to be higher than the chargeAmount however it is usually the case that it needs to be less than or equal to. I would check with your gateway to see what they allow. 

Edited May 26, 2020 by ryan360Works
clarification

[Cable]

Ok, thank you for the explanation. Do I need to void an authorization if it is no longer needed?

[Cable]

17 hours ago, ryan360Works said:

Hi Cable,

The dollarAmount in CCProcessAuthorizedPayment needs to be less than or equal to the chargeAmount passed into CCProcessPayment. 

edit: A bit more clarification, this is imposed at the gateway level so it may be that your gateway will allow the dollarAmount to be higher than the chargeAmount however it is usually the case that it needs to be less than or equal to. I would check with your gateway to see what they allow. 

Based on your comment I did some testing and it turns out Paytrace does allow for a 30% increase.

"Capture Amount can not exceed 30% of the original authorized amount."