Important information for any properties using Elavon Merchant Services.
Elavon have recently upgraded the infrastructure that enables third party payment partners like Caterpay to work with them.
One of the big changes is that previously if you were working with American Express, you needed to source a dedicated MID from AMEX to process their cards, in addition to your Elavon MID. The new platform enables the Elavon MID to process AMEX cards alongside Mastercard and VISA. (Note, you would need to speak with Elavon to have this feature activated).
You will see the new connection in your MMS account under the Merchant Accounts tab. It will have the same Name and Acquirer Bank Details as the old one, with the exception of the letters 'ISO' after it. In our example below, this property was already transacting AMEX cards prior to the switch.
The Merchant ID field however is different, and it is this that we have to reconfigure in Caterbook.
The old connection is being discontinued, and so we have to migrate all legacy Elavon users to the new platform. We will replace your old Caterpay Merchant ID with the new one, meaning future transactions will be processed via this connection.
Our intention is to do this during the week commencing 16 January. We would ask that, for your own peace of mind, you closely monitor both ECOM (web) and MOTO (internal Caterbook) transactions and ensure that they are being authorised successfully, and subsequently settle in your business bank account.
We have been told that any cards that have been verified via the old connection will need to be re-verified if you wish to charge them directly via Caterbook, however....
Should that prove to be problematic, for the foreseeable future you should be able to continue to charge those previously verified cards from within the Merchant Management System - MMS. You can then record those amounts within the booking records in Caterbook as, for example, a "Card PDQ" or "Cash" payment, with a note to say that the payment was processed in the MMS.
First, find the Verify transaction associated with the booking in the Caterbook booking record.
Log in to your MMS account from the bottom left of the menu in Caterbook. From the Merchant Accounts tab (shown in the first image on this page), on the right hand side you can click "View" to select the original legacy connection. Then:
1. Click the Transactions tab at the top.
2. Search for all transactions on the corresponding date shown in Caterbook.
3. Click "Filter Transactions" and then find the Verify you now wish to charge.
4. In the "Action" column over to the far left, "Choose" to COLLECT VERIFY.
Next, in the Virtual Terminal screen that appears, enter the Amount you wish to charge and then scroll down past the stored card details to the very bottom, and click 'Process transaction now'.
You'd then go back to Caterbook, and update the booking record to reflect the payment you have just taken.
If you needed to rebill, or refund a transaction, the process is broadly similar.
** Please remember that this is a change mandated by Elavon, over which we have very little control. All we can do is help make the migration go smoothly.