Credit Card Processing

Credit Card Processing

STX can process credit cards and debit cards directly through the program, with the help of a high-speed Internet connection.


You must have a First Data merchant account and must also be licensed for the STX credit card processing module before you will be allowed to process credit cards electronically through STX.

Whether you wish to process your payments using a single merchant account for the entire company, individual employee merchant accounts, or an online merchant account for use with Online Services, STX can accommodate your needs.

Receipt Printer and Printing Receipts

In order to use a receipt printer with credit card processing, you must first have a receipt printer installed and set up on the computer. Once the receipt printer is set up on the computer, go to STX: Preferences: Receipts. The following screen will appear.

Select the receipt printer from the Receipt Printer popup menu. Check the box Default Client Visit to Print Receipt if you would like a 3 rd and final receipt to print each time a ticket transaction is closed. This final receipt details all purchases/refunds from the ticket transaction.   

You may uncheck Default Client Visit to Print Receipts to disable automatic printing of the final receipt, unless you specifically check the "Print Receipt" box before closing a ticket transaction. Close the STX Preferences window when the desired options are set.

The credit card industry has created new rules that require all merchants processing credit cards to be certified annually. Part of that process involved STX becoming certified as a condition of your business being certified.

One of the new conditions for certification is the requirement that duplicate receipts be printed. You have probably seen these duplicate receipts in the past if you have used a credit card at a restaurant. The first 2 receipts printed during the ticket transaction will only print when a credit card is selected as the payment type. PCI compliance rules require that both receipts be printed and this cannot be disabled.

If you wish to print a Tip Receipt prior to actually processing the credit card payment, click the Print Tip Receipt icon in the toolbar of the ticket transaction.  


Turning on Electronic Payments     

  1. Go to Setup: Finance: Payment Types.
  2. Highlight each Credit Card payment type and check the box labeled Process Payments Electronically .
  3. This will automatically check the Uses Reference Field box. Leave them both checked.


Processing Credit Card Payments

You are now ready to process your credit cards electronically through Transactions in STX. 

  1. Enter your tickets as you normally would. The Payments tab of the ticket is where the processing occurs.
  2. Once you click on the credit card icon of your choice on the Payments panel, the following screen will appear: Swipe card or type.  
  3. Because the cursor is already active in the Credit Card Number field, you can now swipe the credit card, or type the numbers in manually. 
    1. If you are manually entering the credit card, be sure the date entered in the Expiration Date field is formatted to 2 digits for the month and 4 digits for the year, with a space between the month and year (format shown to the right of the Expiration Date field.)
    2. The Balance Due amount of the entire transaction will automatically appear in the Amount field. 
NOTE: Your merchant agreement probably provides for a higher discount rate for manually entered credit card information, which means less money deposited into your account. You should swipe credit cards whenever possible.

A Note About Refunds:  If you are issuing a credit back to the client after entering a refund on the ticket transaction, the Amount field will show $0.00.
You will change the Amount field to a negative number by putting a dash (-) in front of the amount being issued as a credit; in this case it is $-70.00. After clicking the Authorize button, the Charge button will say Credit.

Once the credit card information has been swiped or entered, you will choose which merchant account is to be used for this transaction. Use the Merchant popup menu to select the account to use. If this is for the company, leave the popup menu set to Company.

Note:  The employee name will appear ONLY if the employee was selected on any of the other tabs on the ticket transaction. In this case, Barb performed some services on the Services tab, and therefore Barb’s name appears in the Merchant popup as an option to choose.


Authorize for printing Tip Receipts

  1. To print Tip Receipts each time a credit card is processed, go to Setup: General: Merchant and check the box labeled Receipts Include: Tip Line for Electronic Payments.
  2. Once you have selected the appropriate Merchant account, click the Authorize button if you accept tips on credit cards. Two tip receipts will print for the customer to sign. 
  3. Hand these receipts to the customer and wait for a signature, and, if applicable, a tip amount. The customer should give one of the two signed receipts back to you.
NOTE: It is recommended you do not give the credit card back to the client at this time. It is a good idea to wait until the charge has actually been approved before handing the card back with the final receipt.
      4. If the signed receipt has a tip added, in this case a $10.00 tip was added to the $70.00 total, be sure to change the Amount field before clicking the Charge button.
   5. If you would like to cancel the processing of this credit card, click Cancel .  
   6. Click the Charge button, and once it is approved, the following screen will appear.
    7. Click OK.

Once the charged amount goes through, an authorization code will automatically appear in the Reference # field of the Payments tab. If there was a tip added to the amount being charged, the new amount will be reflected.

If you are finished with the ticket transaction, click Save and close the ticket window. Upon closing the ticket transaction, a final receipt will print. Hand this receipt, along with the credit card, back to the client.

This final receipt is theirs to keep. If you do not wish to have the final receipt printed each time a ticket transaction is closed, go to the STX menu and select the Preferences option. On the Receipts tab, uncheck the box labeled Default Client Visit to Print Receipt .

CONGRATULATIONS! You have just processed a credit card payment electronically through STX.

Please see the following FAQ section for important information about processing credit cards electronically through STX.

The information contained in the following section is vital to maintaining successful credit card processing.


Frequently Asked Questions  

Q : Do I need to install a driver or any kind of software for the magnetic USB swipe reader?

A : No. As long as you have the swipe reader connected to a USB port on the computer, or to a self-powered USB hub, it will act as an extension of your keyboard and will read the credit card.

Q : How can I tell if I am connecting to the Merchant services server or not, and that the money is going into my account?

A : You will first need to make sure you are connected to the Internet on the computer processing the credit cards. Launch any Internet browser, such as Safari, and if it connects to the starting page, then you know you are connected to the Internet.
For test transactions to verify if the money is going into your account or not, contact your First Data rep.

Q : We did a refund for a client a few days ago, and the client still hasn’t seen the credit come through her credit card company. How long does this usually take?

A : This could usually take 3 to 5 business days. In most cases, the credited amount should appear fairly quickly. However, it is the responsibility of the client’s credit card bank, or debit bank, to process the credit, deposit the amount back into the client’s account, and have it show on the books for the client to see.

Q : I have already processed the credit card and my client decides to add a product purchase. How do I add the product purchase onto the ticket transaction I just paid for?

A : You do NOT ever want to add something to a ticket transaction that has already been paid. If the client decides to add something to their purchase, whether it is products, gift certificates or gift cards, a tip, or maybe even a refund, you will ALWAYS start a brand-new ticket transaction for them. Why? Here are 2 examples that will help explain.

#1. You go to Home Depot to buy some stuff. They ring it all up and charge your credit card. All of a sudden, you realize you needed something else added. Rather than adjusting the transaction they just rang through, they will start a brand new transaction to take care of whatever needs to be added.

#2. You go to Home Depot to buy some stuff. They ring it all up and charge your credit card. All of a sudden, you realize you purchased the wrong item, or the sales clerk realizes you were charged the wrong amount for an item. They do not go back and adjust what was just rung through. They create a new transaction to reflect the refund, or what have you. Everything is treated as a separate transaction. You will do the same with STX. 

Q : I have processed a credit card, but I can’t find a ticket transaction, or any other record of the charge in STX. What could have happened to it?

A : It is imperative a ticket transaction be SAVED once the credit card approval code shows on the payment tab. If the credit card is approved, and the ticket transaction is then closed without saving it, the charge has already gone through but STX now has no record of the charge at all.

If you can’t save the ticket transaction because of an error, please contact our highly knowledgeable support team by emailing support@stxsoftware.com or by calling 800.766.4778.

Q : A client says they were double-charged for something, but I can only find a single-charge in STX for the client. Why can’t I see both charges in STX?

A : If it is an exact double-charge amount, like a total of $250 was charged twice to the same credit card, then more than likely the ticket transaction was NOT saved in STX once the first $250 charge went through and was approved. If the ticket transaction is not saved after the credit card approval code shows on the payment tab, the charge would have gone through twice, but will only show once in STX.

If this is what happened, and someone re-opened the same unsaved ticket and processed the credit card again, then your merchant account will show the charge twice, where STX only has the single ticket to relate the payment to.

If you happen to notice the double-charge within the same day, contact your First Data rep for information on how to void the duplicate transaction. However, if the double-charge happened on a previous day, you will need to do a refund for the duplicate transaction.

Q : I just plugged in my credit card swiper and it doesn’t work. What should I do?

A : Keep the card swiper plugged in and go to the Apple menu to System Preferences.
-         Click the icon for Keyboard  & Mouse.
-         Click the option for Change Keyboard Type .
-         Press Continue .
-         Press the letter Z on the keyboard.
-         Click Skip .
-         Set the keyboard type to ANSI (US) and click Done .

If setting the keyboard type does not affect the ability to swipe credit cards, open TextEdit application to test the swiper.

TextEdit  is found in the Applications folder within the Hard Drive. Once TextEdit is open, swipe a credit card to make sure credit card information is placed on the TextEdit document.

If so, the swiper is working fine. If not, please contact MagTek technical support by calling 651.415.6800, and let them know the swiper is not swiping anything into the TextEdit application.

Guidelines, Rules and Recommendations

Here is a scenario that has happened in the past, where the client was charged twice, but each time it was a different amount. The client owed $35.00 for services, and wanted to give a $7.00 tip. Here is what happened.
- Click Visa payment
- Drop down sheet appear
- Swipe Lucy's card
- Click Charge for the $35
- Charge Approved (and counted with First Data
- Realize the $7 tip was left off
- Close the ticket without saving
- Reopen the ticket and go to the Payments tab
- Click Visa payment again
- Drop down sheet appears
- Swipe (or manually enter) Lucy's card
- Click Charge AFTER the amount is changed to $42
- Charge Approved (and counted with First Data)

Now the client has been charged twice as far as your merchant account is concerned. Because the ticket was never saved in STX for the $35.00 amount, STX is only going to see the last amount that was saved, which was the $42.00.

If a tip is left off of the original transaction, and one amount has already been approved, simply create a new ticket for the client, and go to the payments tab. Click the Visa payment, swipe the card, but in the amount field enter only the tip amount. In this case it would have been the $7. Everything will still balance in the end, the tip would show as a separate charge, and the client would have been charged the correct amount overall.

Once a transaction has been charged using STX, you do NOT want to go back to that original ticket and change anything. It is always best to save the first ticket and create a new ticket.

Overpayment

Open a brand new client visit ticket transaction and enter the client’s name. You will need to refund the service/products, which were sold on the first ticket by going to the Refunds tab. On the Payments tab, click the cc payment type that was originally used to do the charging and swipe the card. Enter the negative amount to be applied back to the client’s credit card, and then click the Credit button.

As long as the amount showing in the drop-down sheet where the card is swiped is a negative number, the Charge button will show the word Credit instead.

Underpayment

Open a brand new client visit ticket transaction and enter the client’s name. You will need to sell the service/products, which were sold on the first ticket, and then modifying the price/net amount to reflect what the client still owes. On the Payments tab, click the cc payment type and swipe the card. There will be 2 transactions for the same client, but ultimately will add to the right amount.

Using Same Credit Card Type

If a client has 2 Visa credit cards they wish to use to pay for the ticket, you will need to split the amount between 2 separate tickets. On the first ticket, click the Visa payment type and swipe the card. Change the amount to reflect what the client wishes to have charged to the card.

The first ticket will show as part paid. Open a brand new client visit transaction and enter the client’s name. Go to the Include Tickets tab and check the same client’s ticket. The balance will be added to the new ticket. On the Payments tab, click the Visa payment type and swipe the 2 nd Visa card. The full amount is now split between the 2 Visa credit cards.