How do payments by card transactions work?

Our card payment service works as follows:

1. Once the cart is confirmed, your customer has to click on the payment button on your website or app
2. This action creates a Pending card transaction in your Dashboard (Type = Incoming/Method = Card/Status = Pending)
3. This action also opens the payment page of one of our PSPs, where your customer enters his card details (card acceptance network, card number, expiry date, CVV code) and makes the payment
4. The transaction created originally is then updated with the card information (first 4 & last 2 digits of the card, country of issue, etc.), the transaction status is changed, and Lemonway takes its fees.

Card transactions

👉   Main statuses of a transaction

👉   Pre-authorised card transaction

👉   Refund a card transaction

👉   Identify a card refund in my dashboard

👉   My customer says they have been debited but the transaction is not showing as completed

Main statuses of a transaction 

Card transactions can have multiple statuses:

• ✅  Completed: the transaction was successful and the transaction amount is credited to the target payment account, increasing the account balance
• 💬  Pending: the transaction has not been credited to the target payment account, but it could still potentially change to a Completed or Error status
• ⚠️  Cancelled: the transaction has not been credited to the target payment account. The reasons are multiple:
• the client did not finalize the transaction (browser closing, non-registration of the 3DS code, etc.) 
• the PSP indicates a timeout cancellation of the transaction
• 🚫  Error: the transaction is incomplete and failed to be credited to the target payment account. This status indicates that the transfer has been canceled by Lemonway (e.g., incorrect beneficiary information provided by the bank) or on your instructions (chargeable/conditional service).
• ☑️  Validation Pending: only used for card pre-approvals. It may change to a Success status if the pre-authorized card transaction is completed, or remain in a Validation Pending status if the card transaction is not completed within the period of pre-authorization.

Pre-authorized card transaction

Depending on your business model (e.g. boat hire requiring a deposit, final amount of the service unknown at the time of reservation), you may find it helpful to use the card pre-authorization facility.

This does not only check that the card is valid but also and most importantly allows you to freeze the amount of the transaction ❄️ (e.g. deposit) on the credit card for a maximum period of 6 days (144 hours) from the pre-authorization date.

Card pre-authorization means that your customer will have the amount of the pre-authorization frozen (for the specified pre-reservation period) either from the credit card limit for credit cards or deducted from the balance of the bank account to which the card is linked for debit cards.
Pre-authorization appears in your dashboard as a card transaction (Money-In) with a status of Pending.

You can:

• Debit the card (with a guarantee of success unless the card has expired or been blocked) with all or part of the pre-authorized amount -within the pre-reservation period. This will change the status of the pre-authorized transaction from Pending to Success in your dashboard and will amend the pre-reserved amount if the amount actually debited is less than the pre-reserved amount. This will cancel the block on a credit card or replace the amount of the pre-authorization transaction with the amount actually debited from your customer's bank account (debit card)
• Do nothing, which will cancel the block at the end of the pre-reservation period (credit card) or cancel the debit from your customer's account (debit card)

Refund a card transaction

1. From the Dashboard, click Transactions. A menu unfolds.
2. Click All.
3. Search for the transaction ID in the first column.
4. Click the ID number.
5. On the Operation details page, click Refund.
6. Enter the total or partial amount to be refunded, then enter your password for confirmation.
7. Click Send.

Once you confirm the refund transaction, the request is submitted to the PSP. On your dashboard, this transaction shows up as:

• 💬 Pending.
• Following the management of the PSP, the status evolves to ✅ Completed which means that the refund has been processed.
• The status may switch to 🚫 Error PSP. In this case, the refund can not take place. This happens when the credit card is expired or has been reported stolen.

Identify a card refund in my dashboard

A row showing an outgoing card transaction appears to indicate that a refund has been made.

1. From the Dashboard, click Transactions. A menu unfolds.
2. Click All.
3. Click the filter icon in the Category column.
4. Select Refund and click OK.

The Belgian Bancontact payment system does not allow transactions to be refunded. We suggest that you refund such transactions using a different method.

My customer says they have been debited but the transaction is not showing as completed

In very rare cases (a bug in the bank information forwarded to Lemonway), a card transaction that has actually been debited from your customer's account may appear in your dashboard as pending or error.

If this happens, 👉 contact us with the information listed below:

• URL of the relevant platform
• Transaction ID (or transaction date and amount if not available)
• Proof the customer has been debited (bank statement clearly showing the debit)
• Your instructions: change the status of the transaction to successful or refund the transaction