Most companies that accept multiple credit card types (Amex, Discover, Visa/MC) have setup separate G/L accounts for deposits and expenses by card type in Payment Type Maintenance. Currently when entering a customer’s credit card information, the user is forced to select the correct card type from a drop-down menu. This introduces the element of human error, because if a user selects the wrong card type for a particular card number, the dollars posted to a particular credit card type will be posted to the wrong credit card holding account and expense accrual account. This makes reconciling credit card statements against G/L accounts almost impossible. Now that the beginning part of the customer credit card number is encrypted by default, this makes it impossible to determine visually whether the card type has been assigned correctly based upon the card number.
A Wikipedia article has been written which explains how the credit card type can be easily determined by the number: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_number Since MAS 90 / MAS 200 already checks to determine whether a particular card number is in fact a valid credit card number, it should be relatively easy to take the extra step and provide a visual clue to the user as to what type of credit card they have just entered.
An alternate suggestion is to display the encrypted credit card number in the same format that the Sage Payment Solutions website displays the credit card number. They encrypt the MIDDLE of the card number, exposing the first and last segment of the card number while obscuring the middle segments. This is a much better encryption scheme than MAS 90 / MAS 200 employs, because it allows the user the opportunity to see the beginning of the card number and verify visually that the correct credit card type has been assigned.
by: Jim P. | over a year ago | Financial Management
Comments
This issue with this is you are assuming that there is a one to one relationship to the card number and Payment type. I have customers who have a MOTO account and a Retail account and some that have multiple locations with a MOTO and retail account per each location. In this case I would not want it to automatically pick one of the many payment types to charge all the Visa cards to. Each location has their own segment and each card at each location has its own segment in the GL.
I do understand what you are saying. Setting it this way would limit my customers with Multi sites and multiple accounts.This might be able to be done with scripting in 4.4 if it is something you are looking to have done. Haven't looked into it.
Incorrect validation assumption - Yes we do a check sum validation on the card and yes you can validate the card type by checking the number of digits or the first 4 characters. But no where have we set up a standard for credit card types to perform this test. One customer may setup one payment type WEB for all master card and visa transactions from the web and another CC for brick and mortar transactions since they can be charged different discount rates. There is no way to know what the VISA payment type will be defines as to test it aginst.
My recommendation would be to minimize the options available from the web and only have a "primary clearining kind of payment type" that you would then reconcile and reclass in the correct gl accounts. There is absolutely no way I would ever expect my customers to know the difference between payment types like you are talking about. They are going to know Visa, MC and Discover. If you wish to modify templates to include logo's to do this for you. It should not be that difficult to do. Again, there wouldn't be anyway we could know how to do this for the entire customer base due to the wide ranging differences.
Not sure why you need to break CC type into their own GL's by Payment type. Most companies I've dealt with have 1 bank account dedicated to all their CC deposits, doesn't matter what type they are. CC is just another form of payment, why does it matter if it's coming from WEB store, phone order etc... The are all most likely being processed by the same merchant service company you signed up with to process your credit card orders. Does the company really need to break out their CC fee's by each different discount rate? Merchant CC fee's are an expense, that the IRS really doesn't care about. When they get their merchant services statement aren't they just posting the fees they were charged to a CC fee GL account?