Restaurant POS

[JonSheppard]

Hello All,

I'm a developer working on a web-based restaurant POS system. This is my first project handling payments that aren't made online, so I have a ton of questions.

My plan is to basically allow waiters to swipe a card (and get submitted to my server via an ssl secured form), the information will be passed to the authorize.net servers through an API for authorization. My system will then print a receipt with an authorization number on it for a customer to sign. Once a customer signs the receipt and declaires a tip, the waiter will go back to the terminal and enter the tip. My server would then communicate with authorize.net again through API processing the payment.

Mainly, My questions are -

Is authorize.net capable of processing credit card payments at a location?

Will I need guests to sign receipts still?

Which type of API would you recommend to accomplish this?

Would each restaurant have to get their own Authorize.Net account?

Is this even possible?

I might even end up doing two seperate transactions, one for the bill and one for the tip. I heard that most restaurants do all their processing over night in one batch, which I might do as well? - What would you recommend on that?

Thank you for any insight that anyone can provide me, I really appreciate it.

Thanks,

Jon

[markoshust]

Does authorize.net have a 'request feature' support request I can send in somewhere? The first issue of being able to capture funds higher than the original auth is very highly needed as there are cloud-based service systems popping up and the need to add gratuity to a check is a requirement. I've figured out how to handle bar tabs :)

Thanks,
Mark

[waldo22]

I really find this to be a frustrating problem.

First of all, I'm fairly sure that stymiee's post from 2011 is incorrect.  As far as I know, there is no way to adjust transactions for a tip, even if you are set up with MCC 5812 (restaurant) or 5814 (Quick-service restaurant).

If there is a way to do this, please link to the appropriate page in the documentation.

What if you run a delivery service?  What if you are a restaurant that delivers?  You're out of luck.

There is no technical reason that I know of that Authorize.net can't allow adjustments to a transaction, even for card-not-present transactions.

This is exactly what is needed by many industries that accept tips.

We are a restaurant delivery service (RDS), but our needs are no different from any restaurant that delivers; Jimmy John's, Domino's Pizza, etc...

We take orders over the phone and online, but we see our customers in-person.

We need to make sure funds are available before we pay for the food.  This means that we must do a CNP authorization beforehand in order to ensure that we get paid.

At the end of the shift, we delayed capture the transactions, but Authorize.net does not allow tip adjustments.  In fact, if you try to capture more than is authorized, it declines the transaction.

This puts us in an unacceptable situation.  Right now we are dealing with this by doing a pre-auth for 25% more than the original total (unless the customer pre-tips, then we authorize for the exact amount).  This is against card industry rules, as far as I know.  If we capture less than the authorized amount, the transaction is downgraded.  If we try to capture more, it is declined.  If a customer tips more, or even adds an item to their order, we have to go in each night and capture the exact amount that was authorized, then run another transaction for the tip.

We could pre-auth the transaction through Authorize.net, then swipe the card for the real transaction at the door with a Card-present machine, but this is not practical, and would cost us $10,000/yr in authorization fees to our merchant account and to Authorize.net.

Does anyone have a better solution to this problem?

Or are you just using another gateway.

-Wes

[ddavidson340]

Wes,

Wondering if you found a solution to the gatuity issue.  We are working on a CP product and need to work through similar issues.   Thank very much

D. Davidson

[TJPride]

If you don't mind using Android instead of IOS (I'm assuming you're using some sort of phone or pad-based payment?), the SDK for Authorize.net on Android supports CIM, which will provide you with the ability to do multiple charges from one credit card entry. CIM is the only option, short of storing the credit card info locally, which puts you in all sorts of security problems.

[waldo22]

@ddavidson,

Unfortunately, no.

The solution appears to be to use a different gateway that supports this feature.

-Wes

[arcasys1]

"If your merchant account is set up properly there is no need to run the card twice. You will be able to add a tip amount to the original transaction simply by referencing the originial transaction."

I did an intensive search on how to add a tip to a card payment using AIM and many answers suggested that this is not possible.

Your answer sounds like there is a way. Where can I find more information about this?

Thank you.

[FredFredrickson]

Has there been any updates to this?

I'm using the pre-auth for additional 25% and my customers get very confused when they check their bank statements.