Technical Note: 20060322022

Mercury Payment Systems EFT through DSIClientX (USA)

(Maitre'D 2003, from Service Pack 11 and later versions of 2003)
(Maitre'D 2005, from Service Pack 3 and later versions of Maitre'D)

Overview

Maitre'D is interfaced to Mercury Payment System's platform for Internet Protocol credit card processing. This provides merchants with 2-3 second processing of all credit cards and pin based debit. Mercury has redundant servers that provide the processing without any additional hardware required.

Sales Support

Mercury will help you with installation related questions via email or phone 800-846-4472. Mercury can also provide sales materials, video presentation CD, etc.

In order to process credit / debit card transactions using Mercury Payment Systems:

Connecting to the Internet

MPS recommends the use of a broadband router to connect the EFT machine to the Internet. The router provided by the DSL / Cable provider does not usually provide any blocking of incoming traffic which could be harmful to the POS network. Contact MPS or Datacap for documentation on the setup and installation of a MultiTech Routefinder 550VPN. This kind of device will also provide dial backup in case of a failure of the primary DSL or Cable connection and it can be used to maintain an always-on dial up connection.

Required software

Note: Windows XP Pro (SP2) is required.

Type:

Host Based

From Posera:

From Datacap:

Datacap contact:
Stephanie Heim 215-997-8989

Installing the DSIClientX control

The DSIClientX control is not included in Maitre'D installation. This application is an XML ActiveX client controlled software that sends encrypted payment authorization requests via a local area network or Internet to Datacap's dial and Internet payment servers.

 

The DSIClientX control must be installed on your Maitre'D Back-Office PC and on every workstations that will process Debit Cards with a PIN Pad. The control is available as a free 5mb self installing executable from http://www.datacapepay.com/
It may be installed before or after Maitre'D and takes just a minute to install (requires a reboot).

DO NOT TRY TO SKIP THIS STEP !!!!!

PIN Pad for Debit Card Transactions

With this software you have the choice between three Verifone PIN Pads.

Verifone 1000:

This PIN Pad comes with a small box called a Peripherical Device Controller. This device is plugged to a serial com port on your workstation and also plugged into the power supply outlet.

Verifone 2000:

This PIN Pad includes the Peripherical Device Controller and is directly plugged to a serial com port on your workstation.

Verifone SC 5000:

This PIN Pad includes the Peripherical Device Controller and is directly plugged to a serial com port on your workstation.
Note: The PIN Pad must be set by Datacap with the 2000 emulation.

Maitre'D Configuration

Electronic Funds Transfer / View / Option / Interface

The Electronic Fund Transfer (EFT) module must be installed on the Maitre'D license. The following describes all required and optional fields used for this setup.

Interface:

Datapac &endash; DSIClientX

Protocol:

Generic (USA and Canada)

Password:

Blank

IP Address:

X1.Mercury.com; x2.Mercury.com

Note: MPS will provide you with a list of servers &endash; there is more than one for redundancy and failover.

Process Control:

Disabled

Electronic Funds Transfer / View / Option / Identification

Merchant Number:

Mercury Payment Systems will provide the merchant with a merchant number of the format 88430002543=nickname

Use Pre-Authorization:

If you enable this option, the Back-Office will make a pre-authorization on the credit card. (Do not check this option if you are a Fast-Food restaurant)

Pre-Authorization:

DO NOT ADD AN ESTIMATED TIP PERCENTAGE. Restaurant estimated-tip authorization rules for restaurant credit card is to get authorization for the transaction amount presented to the cardholder, with NO amount added for an estimated tip. These rules prohibit merchants other than lodging and car rental merchants from requesting an authorization for an estimated amount. For restaurant merchants, a tip can be added to the transaction after authorization, and will be settled and funded for the total amount of the purchase, including the tip. Typically, restaurants are protected on charge-backs up to 120% of the authorized amount, which should not be an issue unless the tip on a charged-back transaction was over 20%. Not complying with this requirement can result in fines and penalties, as well as those transactions being subject to higher interchange costs related to non-qualifying transactions.
Note: Lodging and car rental merchants may do a pre-authorization for an amount greater than the totals of the check.

Maximum Overflow:

Enter the amount of maximum overflow. If a customer enters an amount on the credit card receipt that is greater than the check total, the maximum overflow is the percentage of the check total that the customer's payment cannot exceed. If the employee enters a credit card payment amount that exceeds the maximum overflow percentage, the system does not accept the payment, and you would have to re-authorize the transaction, including the tip. Typically you would set this field to 20% because merchants are usually protected on charge-backs up to 120% of the authorized amount.
Note: If this field is set to 0.00%, no verification is made about maximum overflow and you can enter any amount greater than the check total.

Electronic Funds Transfer / View / Option / Operation

POS Refresh:

For optimal credit card performance in EFT IP processing the value should be 5 seconds or more. This is the number of seconds the workstation will wait before making the first inquiry to the Back-Office to find out if a request was answered.

End of Day:

If you enable this option, the End of Day will be permitted even if the credit cards batch is still open. Otherwise, you will need to close the open batch before you run the End of Day process.

Note: Remaining information is as per your client's desired configuration and local authorities.

Are you Ready?

Look at the server log from View / Server Log

The response at the bottom that reads "3 servers active". You are ready to process!
If you see a message that "0 servers active" you know you have a problem either with internet connectivity, the installation of the DSIClientX, spelling of server names, DNS, etc.

How to do demonstrations with the Test Account (494901)

If you set the merchant number to 494901 your transactions will run on the test account. On this account, your credit card will not be charged. The transactions should show up in Mercury's web site (www.Mercurypay.com) within 2 minutes (Login with userid=jerry, password=jerry). You can use this to test before a real install, demonstrate during a sales call or for diagnostic purposes.

Available options at the Back-Office PC

Electronic Funds Transfer / File

Close Batch:

This will close the current batch and allow to print it.

Electronic Funds Transfer / Transaction

Return Transaction:

Enter the proper information with the credit card number for a refund.
Note: Every report will be available at the following address: www.Mercurypay.com then select merchant Login.

P.O.S. Control / Payment / Media type

Each credit card media type that is managed by the EFT interface must be defined.

Description:

Type in a description for this type of credit card. The Back-Office prints this description on reports and readings, and displays it on the workstations when employees select a payment type.

Payment Type:

Charge.

Payment Surplus:

Tip Entry, as credit card companies do not allow cash advances.

Folio:

Enabled.

Included in Report:

If you enable this option, the transactions closed with this payment type will be included in the Credit Card report. Otherwise, they will only be included in the Summary of Payments report.

P.O.S. Control / Payment / Card Property

EFT Category:

Select the payment category code to use with EFT.

Electronic Fund Transfer:

If this payment medium uses Electronic Funds transfer, you must select this option.

Hide card number:

This option can not be disabled with CISP compliant protocols. It always masks the first digits of the credit card number and only shows the last four digits on the EFT voucher.

Validation:

If you enable this option, the Back-Office verifies if the credit card number entered agrees with certain digits that are always present in credit card account numbers. If you disable this option, the Back-Office does not validate the credit card number. You can override this option from the workstation by entering a minus sign after the card number.

Expiration:

Enabled. The expiration date of a credit card has to be entered in the format MM / YY.

Number of digits:

Some credit card companies have credit card numbers that may vary in their total number of digits. For example, Visa cards may have either 13 or 16-digit numbers, whereas other cards have a set number of digits, for example, Master Card cards that have 16 digits and American Express cards that have 15. Two fields should be filled in order to validate the credit card number's length. Type the credit card's appropriate number of digits in the first field then type 0 in the second field to specify that this is a fixed number of digits (zero is the default for the second field). Conversely, you will need to enter a number of digits in each field for cards, such as Visa, that have two possible card number lengths. Type in 0 in both fields for credit card numbers with varying lengths, which will remove the need to validate the number of digits.

Starting With:

Type in the first digits of the credit card. Some credit card numbers always begin with the same digits. These digits can be used for validation. For example: For Visa payment type's "Starting with" field, type in 4. For Master Card, type in 5, and for American Express, type in 34 or 37. If both fields are blank, the first digit is not selected.

EFT options must be assigned to the employee configurations.

P.O.S. Control / Employees / Configuration / Invoice / Tax-Service

Print Tip on EFT Receipt:

Enable this option to print the tip and total lines on the EFT credit card voucher.

P.O.S. Control / Employees / Configuration / Invoice / Payment

EFT Reprint:

Enable this option to allow the employee to print duplicate EFT vouchers.

P.O.S. Control / Employees / Configuration / Functions / Special

EFT Refund:

Enable to allow these employees to perform credit cards refunds at the workstation. (DSIClientX)

P.O.S. Control / Employees / Configuration / Payment

Payment:

Enable all EFT media type that this employee configuration is allowed to select on the POS.

Debit Configuration

For Pin based debit you will need to install a PIN Pad at each register that will have the capability. You will need to install the Ver2000x.ocx at each register also, and configure the debit reader in Maitre'D.

Configuration of the PIN Pad in Maitre'D Back-Office

P.O.S. Control / Workstation / Device / PIN Pad

Note: You will need to follow these steps for each workstation.

Type:

Serial

Port:

Select the port where you have connected the Verifone PIN Pad.

Driver:

Select Verifone PIN Pad 1000 or 2000.
Note: For the SC 5000 model, select Verifone PIN Pad 2000.

Idle message:

You can display a 16 characters message on the PIN Pad before performing a transaction

For example: Welcome!
The PIN Pads must be encrypted correctly &endash; contact Mercury for details on obtaining new pads and re-encrypting existing pads.

Available options at the workstation

Regular Transaction:

Pre-authorizations will allow to add tips and then finalize the transactions.

Modify the Media Type:

In case of a mistake you use the last 4 digits of the check, and then touch the close button. You will see your CC transaction in red, touch the transaction, you will see an option to Void Current Credit Authorization Status or Modify Check Amounts, and then you could modify your media to cash or any other form of payment.

Refund:

If you want to do a refund a transaction you can do a table 0 void, and then select the media type. Maitre'D gives you the option to do a refund, and then it will print a receipt to give to the customer.

Installation Troubleshooting FAQs

Question: What steps should I go through if credit card processing is not working?

When you are installing a new POS with Mercury's credit system, there are several steps to go through if you have problems with the credit module.

1) Verify that the machine acting as a credit card server can ping x1.Mercurypay.com and x2.Mercurypay.com. (get a DOS box and type ping x1.Mercurypay.com)

If not, try to ping by number: 65.82.159.222. Try to ping www.yahoo.com. If you can not ping either of these, the server machine is not correctly connected to the internet.
If you can ping by number and not by name, you have a DNS problem. Make sure you have a DNS server specified in the TCP/IP settings. You may need to get help from your ISP if you do not know what DNS server address to use.

2) If you can ping, you next need to determine whether the problem lies in the POS or in the credit card communications through the DSIClientX control.

Payment processing requires that the server be able to connect using TCP sockets (winsock) through outgoing ports 1024-5000 to destination port 9000. If there is a firewall, policies may have to be implemented to allow this traffic through.
There should be a test program installed automatically under the Start / Programs / Software from Datacap / DsliclientX.exe. If so, use this utility program to try to run a credit card transaction. Once started, use File / Setup to set the
Merchant number to 494901
IP address 65.82.159.222
Then try a manual test transaction for $1.00 to
Card Number 5499990123456781 Expr 0908 (do not use this number on a live merchant account)
If this works you know the DSIClientX software is installed correctly. The problem lies in the POS configuration. Check to make sure you have properly configured the POS for server names, processing type, etc.
If the DSIClientX.exe test program fails or you can not find the DSIClientX program, you can download a clean copy of the DSIClientX from www.datacapsystems.com / DSIClientX /
If the test program still does not succeed, you likely have a firewall issue. If there is no firewall, it is still possible that your ISP is filtering traffic.

3) If the DSIClientX utility works, the POS program should work.

Check to see that it is configured to use Mercury, check the server addresses, merchant number, etc (make sure you have the text portion of the merchant number also, with no leading or trailing blanks). You can try to run a transaction to the test account 494901 instead of the merchant's account (just in case there is a problem with the merchant's account).

4) Call your software developer for information on what might be wrong.

At least you'll have more information on what does and does not work to make it easier to solve the problem.

Question: Visa / Master Card works but American Express (Discover, Diners, etc) does not work

Some POS systems have to be told which card types the merchant is accepting. They will filter out all other types.
Check with Mercury (800-846-4472 x3) that the merchant is signed up to accept the card types. It is not uncommon for merchants to forget which card types they have signed up for. We can add whatever card types they need.

Question: I get a message "Invalid Merchant No" or "Merchant Not Found"

Make sure you have typed the merchant number just as received from Mercury. This usually includes some text and an equal sign like "34092834098=Potsies".
If you have entered it right and you still get the message, call Mercury &endash; 800-846-4472.

Question: What does the message "Must Settle Now" mean?

It means you must settle your batch. You should close your batch daily. It will save you money and keep you from receiving this annoying error message while you're in the middle of the rush hour. Close your batch once a day!
 
If you are a retailer and believe that your batches should be closing automatically, call MPS and they will check how your account is set up.
 
To provide automated settlement for a merchant, Mercury needs to create a merchant account that is configured for Time Initiated batch close. For USA accounts, the Time Initiated Credit is closed at 2:00 AM EST. This time can not be changed and it is the only time available.

Question: How do I tell if it worked?

If the transaction works, the POS will return an approval, there will be a six digit authorization number and a sequential reference number. You can view the transaction on Mercury's web site using the User ID / Password supplied to the Merchant at sign up.