PM Concepts

Contents of this Topic: ShowHide

Overview

The Monsoon Commerce Payment Module introduces a number of new terms and concepts. It also has a different look and feel than the payment system found in the pre V7.1 versions of the program.

Refer to the installation Knowledge Base topic for your version of Stone Edge for information about installing the Payment Module. You can also refer to the Monsoon Commerce Implementation Guide for more information.

What's Changed?

User Interfaces

• The Payment Module is now the standard interface called by all areas of the program to process payments.
• All fields on the Payment tabs of the Manual Orders or Process Orders screens that pertained to processing electronic payments have been removed and replaced by a button that opens the Payment Module. Fields needed for manually logging payments and credits, as well as issuing store credit, remain on those screens.
• The buttons on the Keypad of the Point-of-Sale interface have also been updated to use the Payment Module.

Terminology

• The terms Payment Account a collection of information related to a specific business arrangement between a merchant and a third party used to obtain compensation for products or services. Introduced with MCPM 1.0 and SE Version 7.1. May also be referred to as a Payment Processor Account or Gateway. refers to payment gateway credentials, and Payment Source refers to Manual Orders, Shopping Carts or the POS interface.
• A Payment Account is basically a unique set of credentials used to access a specific account at a payment processor or gateway.  Multiple payment accounts from the same payment processor can be defined in the program. Each Payment Account can be associated with any or all of the Payment Sources with different usage roles, such as Primary, Secondary, or Conditional.
• The Primary account assigned to a payment source is the default payment account that is used to process all transactions from that source unless the user manually overrides that selection and chooses a secondary payment account for a specific transaction. A Secondary account is only used to process payments when manually selected or if it is specified as the Conditional payment account for a specific payment method. If configured, a Conditional payment account always overrides the Primary payment account and is used when a transaction is paid by a specific payment method. For instance, if one of your payment accounts charges less for processing AMEX transactions than your Primary payment account, you can assign that payment account as the Conditional payment account when the payment method is AMEX. All other transactions are still processed by the Primary payment account by default.

• Once a transaction has been processed by a payment account, we do not recommend deleting the account, but rather marking it as a Secondary payment account until all transactions have exceeded your return period. At that time you can mark the account as inactive and it can no longer be used.

System Parameters

• All system parameters formerly used to store payment gateway credentials in older versions of Stone Edge have been moved to the Payment Module. CreditCardProcessor and CreditCardPOSProcessor no longer exist in Stone Edge. See the list of obsolete parameters listed in the appendix of the Implementation Guide.  
• Payment Gateway access credentials are now entered through the Payment Account Assignments screen and subsequently, the Add New Payment Gateway screen, which provides a comprehensive view of the merchant's payment configuration settings. No longer is it necessary to hop from the main System Parameters screen to the workstation or cart-based Special System Parameters screens to make changes to payment account information for different payment sources. The Payment Account Assignment screen is also the place where you assign Payment Accounts to a particular Payment Source or Sources .
• There are other payment gateway-related settings that still require the use of system parameters, however. Consult the Knowledge Base for specific payment gateway information. Review the Credit Card system parameter group as well.

Program Behavior

• The structure of the new payment system provides the flexibility to perform multiple captures for a single authorization (up to the amount of the original authorization), for those gateways which support that feature. This can be beneficial to merchants that ship partially-filled orders. The program will inform the user if a gateway is not capable of performing this function at the time the transaction is submitted for processing. The program also now writes a separate record for each of these transactions (authorization and any captures), whereas the program would previously rewrite the original authorization record with the latest capture information.
• Notes about all payment activity is recorded in each order and the program notifies the user if the Payment Gateway is running in test mode.
• Access to the Payment Module button can be restricted by Stone Edge 's security system, however, the Payment Module requires each user to login with a unique user name (User ID) and password before they can process a payment. An administrator can restrict the types of transactions a given user can perform at the Payment Terminal. Administrators cannot grant a non-administrator account access to the Payment Module's configuration screens. Only administrator accounts can make changes to the Payment Module's configuration. 

Data Migration

• Stone Edge requires any existing store data files to be converted and cleansed by the Data Migration tool provided by Stone Edge Technologies Inc. before the Payment Module can be used. The Data Migration tool ports the existing payment information to the new Payment Module database and cleanses the cardholder data in the SE store data file so that the first six and last four digits of the card data can be seen, but the other positions of the card number are X-filled. It also deletes all obsolete system parameters.
• The migration tool allows you to select the time period from which transactions are selected for migration to the Payment Module's database and whether or not to send customer payment information to the payment gateway's customer information module. Both of these options can seriously impact the amount of time it takes to complete the data migrations, therefore, it is recommended that you only choose a time period that reflects your return period and that you do not elect to record customer data at the payment gateway, unless you absolutely require tokens to process new payments.
• Before the migration utility can be executed, the Payment Module must be installed and some basic configuration steps must be completed. Refer to the Implementation Guide for more details.
• Be sure to keep a backup of the Stone Edge store data file until the migration of all data is completed successfully. At that time the backup must be securely deleted or you are not PCI Payment Card Industry compliant. Also make a backup of the payment module database before beginning the process. If an error is encountered, or you want to change the account mappings, etc, you must start over with the backup copies.

Additional Information

Network Installation of Stone Edge and the Payment Module Version 7.1

Single Workstation Installation of Stone Edge and the Payment Module 7.1

Network Installation of Stone Edge and the Payment Module Version 8.0

Single Workstation Installation of Stone Edge and the Payment Module 8.0

How to Run the Data Migration Utility

Main Menu

Payment Account Assignment

Payment Terminal

Created: 2/7/13

Revised: 12/11/13

Published: 04/13/2016