questions about pre-authorization holds

[fraud master]

like many other merchants, the company I work for does not charge a card until the items are shipped. Sometimes an order will have items shipping from multiple locations so the shipping time frames are different. So say an order has 3 items with 3 diff shipping time frames. The total order is $300, each item being $100 which means the auth will be for $300. So does this mean that when the first item ships the customer actually has $400 funds not available? $100 for the settlement and the $300 auth that is still pending the other two items? If so, is there any way around that? Someone has told me that when one item ships it will deduct from the initial auth but I am not sure if thats true.

[fjpapaleo]

"when the first item ships the customer actually has $400 funds not available?"

No, that's not the case unless you're doing a seperate "sale" for the $100.00 and letting the $300.00 stand untouched. I'm not an expert on this but I don't believe you can capture seperate amounts from one authorization, at least not with authorize.net. In our instances, if you have an authorization for $300.00 and you capture only $100.00, that transaction is done. You can't go back and capture the balnce, you must make another transaction.

[fraud master]

well our system does capture seperate amounts. not familiar with authorize.net, i believe whatever we use is custom made by our company

[Corey Bryant]

If your system captures each separate transaction and does a pre-atuh for eahc one, then your electronic payment gateway (LinkPoint, Verisign's Payflow, Authorizenet.com) you should be able to send that information over the API that said order is completed and please do the post-authorization and complete the sale

-Corey

[chamco]

I think your gateway probably avoids this, and you don't need to worry.
I know that on verisign, delay capture sales (the "mark" of the order following the auth) are sent in a different way than charges, so the system knows that the $100 is part of the auth, not a new charge.

[ispy]

Yea, the authorization for the initial amount would stay the same no matter if you charged another item. You can't manipulate the amount of an authorization or deduct from it. If you charged the $100 for the item which shipped it would become s seperate authorization which would dissapear in a couple days as it turned into a full charge on their card. You would then have to cancel or reauthorize the first $300 authorization, which would lead to more funds being held. When you cancel an authorization it does not really cancel immediately, there can be several days lag until the hold is removed from the customers account. Its easier in these cases to just charge the full amount of the initial authorization of the purchase after the last item ships.