For partners servicing the restaurant industry, Shift4's recommended flow for the following stages of transaction processing should be as listed below:
Initial and Incremental Authorizations while the guest is in house (for example, pre authorization, initial authorization, and running tabs). Use the Authorization endpoint.
- If the authorization results in a decline response, you will need to obtain a different form of payment, or you can finalize the transaction for the amount for which you have obtained authorization using the Manual Sale endpoint.
Check Finalization with/without tips
- For merchants who do not accept tips, or who do not wish to authorize tips that exceed typical card brand allowances of 20% over the check total: Use the Manual Sale endpoint.
Finalizing a check with a tip amount that exceeds the tolerance amount allowed by the card brands, without obtaining authorization, could put merchants at risk of customer initiated chargebacks, resulting in loss of funding for the tip amount. In practice, this is rare.
- For merchants that wish to authorize for tips that exceed the typical 20% tolerances allowed by the card brands, use the Capture endpoint.
- If the Capture results in a declines response, you have two options: