The Fire and Forget Continuous Authority Service enables you to automatically collect regular recurring payments from any Amex, Visa or Mastercard branded card, without needing to design a system to submit the individual transaction requests to the DPG.

Creating a Fire and Forget Continuous Authority Account

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For each set of payments, a Continuous Authority account is set up on theDPG. This account contains the details of the frequency and value of regular payments. You may also configure each account with a different amount to be used for the first and/or last payment, and these payments can be taken on specific dates.

Collecting Payments

Each day the DPG will look at each of your Fire and Forget Continuous Authority accounts to see if any payments are due. For each payment which is found, a transaction will be generated and sent to your bank for authorisation. You will receive an email notifying you of all transaction generated on that particular day and their results. The DPG will then settle the transactions next working day.

Requirements

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Before you can go live with this service, you will need the following:

• an account with DataCash configured for this Service

• an e-Commerce or Mo/To Merchant ID

• a recurring Transaction capable MID

• the ability to send XML transactions to our servers

• an email address for the DPG to send payment notifications to

Transaction Processing Models

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Using this Service, each transaction can be processed with either the one stage or the two stage processing models. The transactions can also be cancelled and refunded if required. Full details of these models and transaction types are available in the Bank Card page.

There are many different ways in which the Fire and Forget Continuous Authority Service can be implemented. Each account can be set up to create payments in one of these frequencies:

• Weekly - payments will be taken on a particular day of the week

• Monthly - payments taken on a particular day of the month

• Quarterly - payments taken on a particular day every three months

• Annually - payments will be taken on a particular day each year

Using these, the regular payments will be taken from your customer's account. If a particular payment date falls on a non-calender day, the payment will be taken on the next available date. For example: if monthly payments are taken on the 31st of the month, the payment which was due in February would be taken on the next business day, nominally 1-Mar.

As well as the frequency of payments, the number of regular payments to be taken from the account can be specified:

• An undefined number of payments - the customer will have regular payments deducted until further notice

• A set number of payments - a pre-defined number of payments will be taken from the account

 

When specifying a set number of payments, a final payment can also be set for a specific date and value, if required. If an initial payment - for a different value from the regular payments - needs to be taken, this can be specified, along with the date of the payment.

All of these account types can be cancelled before completion if required.

Creating an Account

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Accounts can be set up to create payments which use either the one stage or two stage processing models

Completing the Two Stage Process

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If you are processing the recurring payments as two stage transactions, please remember that you will need to fulfill each transaction before it can be settled.

Cancelling an Account or Payment

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Accounts can be cancelled before completion, and the individual transactions generated from them can also be cancelled if required. Situations in which this could be implemented include:

• The values or timings of the payment need to change - for example, increasing the price in line with inflation. The old account can be cancelled and a new account can be created

• The contract has been cancelled - either by the customer or yourself - and so the account is no longer required

Transaction Type	Effect	Uses
cancel	Cancels the Continuous Authority Account	Prevents any unsettled payments from being settled and prevents any future payments from being taken from the account

Performing Transactions

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Both transaction types require specific information to be provided. In addition to those listed, each requires a client and password - these are security details which identify your account.

Creating An Account

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When setting up an account, the normal transaction and card information should be provided. This is the exactly the same as for the Bank Card Service.

In addition, there are additional pieces of information about the payments which need to be provided:

Unspecified Number of Payments

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To set up an account to bill indefinitely, the following information is required:

• the date of the first regular payment

• the frequency of payments, one of:

  • weekly

  • monthly

  • quarterly

  • annual

• the transaction type - to allow DataCash to use the correct processing model for the payments: either pre or auth

• the value of the regular transactions

• the merchant reference number - to allow you to distinguish the account on the Reporting System

Specified Number of Payments

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If the total number of payments to be taken is known in advance, this can be pre-configured into the account. When setting this type of account up, the information required is exactly the same as that required for an unspecified number of payments, though a single extra piece of information is required:

• the total number of regular payments

Initial Payment

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To set an initial payment to be different from the regular payments, these fields should also be provided:

• the value of the initial payment

• the date of the initial payment

Final Payment

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Using the specified number of payments account type, it is also possible to set the final payment to be of a different amount to the regular payments. The additional information required for this is:

• the value of the final payment

• the date of the final payment

Please note: This option is only available if the total number of regular payments has been specified

Cancelling Accounts

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Both accounts and the transactions generated from them can be cancelled if required. Exactly the same information is needed for both of these as for cancelling a normal Credit and Debit card transaction.

Response Codes

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There are two basic Response types for setting up the account:

• Accepted

• Error

The payments themselves can generate the same responses as for the Bank Card service.

Accepted

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Once a transaction is accepted, your system can complete the normal ordering process. Each day payments are generated from your accounts, the DPG will automatically send you an email detailing the results of all the payments in a standard CSV format attachment. This can be used to automatically update your own systems. You will also be notified of any cards which will expire before the next payment is due.

When payments are taken from an account, the reference number for the payment will be the reference number of the account followed by four characters indicating how many payments have been taken from the account. For example, the first payment on account ABCDEFG will be ABCDEFG-001 and the fourteenth will be ABCDEFG-014.

If you are using a two stage payment model, please remember that the second stage must be completed to debit the card.

Error

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An error indicates that the account could not be set up. A complete list of Response Codes for this service is available here. The Support Centre also contains extensive examples for most error codes. Suggestions are also given to help you prevent them from occurring.

Reporting

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The Recurring Transaction Fire and Forget Accounts are detailed in theRecurring section of the DataCash Reporting system. There are five main pages:

• For Accounts:

  • Account Summary - gives a summary of the accounts

  • Account List - shows specific details of the accounts

  • Account Details - shows full details of each account, with links to view the full details of each payment taken from the account

 

• For Notifications:

  • Notification Summary - gives a summary of the notifications sent

  • Notification List - shows specific details of the notifications sent, with links to the both the original recurring account and the payment for each notification

The payments taken from the accounts are detailed in the Bank Card section of the DataCash Reporting system. There are three main pages:

• Summary - gives a summary of the transactions

• List - shows specific details of the transactions

• Details - shows full details of each transaction

The Support Centre contains full hints and tips to help you get the most out of Reporting.