E-Commerce with Payments Gateway Secure Web Pay

Polaris supports Payments Gateway Secure Web Pay (SWP) for credit card payments from Polaris PowerPAC and Mobile PAC. Payments Gateway SWP is a hosted “redirect and postback” method of providing credit card payments from Polaris PAC applications. An advantage of this method is that much of the responsibility of PCI compliance falls to Payments Gateway, which handles authorization requirements, rather than the library. No credit card information is stored in the Polaris database when payment is made through the Payments Gateway hosted payments site. For more information about Payments Gateway, see:
http://www.paymentsgateway.com/home.aspx

Payments from the staff client or from Polaris ExpressCheck are not supported.

Note:
When the payment processing gateway for the staff client log-in branch is Payments Gateway, the Credit Card Payments Manager is not available from the Utilities menu. At branches where the Credit Card Payments Manager is accessible, store orders and store transactions do not appear for Payments Gateway transactions.

Refunds

With the Payments Gateway hosted solution, refund and void transactions are not integrated in Polaris. Credit card refunds must be handled separately, both through Payment Gateway’s Virtual Terminal management interface and manually from the Polaris patron account in the Polaris staff client. For example, if a replacement charge has been paid via credit card, the refund must be issued manually from the Polaris patron account transaction summary and then again from the Virtual Terminal. Work with Payments Gateway to establish the appropriate staff accounts for handling refunds, then establish the refunds workflow with your staff. Do not allow staff to issue refunds to credit card payments from the Polaris patron account as cash or credit; instead, they must select Refund.

Note:
Voided payments, as when the connection fails, are not recognized in Polaris, and the voided transaction will appear in Polaris as a completed transaction.

Polaris also supports integrated credit card processing, such as PayPal’s Payflow Pro (see E-Commerce with PayPal® Payflow Pro®), which does offer credit card refunds from within Polaris. In systems where some sites use an integrated solution and others use a gateway solution such as Payments Gateway, refunds can only be made in these circumstances:

The staff client log-on branch supports integrated payments and the Online Payments: Configure option in Polaris Administration (Credit Card parameters) is set to allow payments from the staff client for the integrated solution.

The original payment was made using the integrated solution and the Online Payments: Configure option is set to allow payments from the staff client for the integrated solution.

Otherwise, when an attempt is made to refund a credit card payment in Polaris, a message displays indicating that no refund transaction can be created. The credit card is not refunded and the patron account is left as is. This situation might occur if a consortium has implemented both integrated and hosted credit card payment solutions, or a library or consortium has changed from one solution to another and the refund is attempted after the change.

Lost Item Recovery

If a lost-and-paid item is recovered at check-in and the payment was made via credit card, and the library has set the lost-and-paid item recovery options to automatically credit the patron’s account, a “dummy” refund is created instead of a credit. The refund will appear as a refund in the Polaris patron account and a refund transaction created. This transaction is available for reporting in the Refunds to Credit Card Payments report. You can use the report to cross-check transactions logged in the Virtual Terminal. (Note that the refund must also be made from the Virtual Terminal.)

Instead of automatically crediting the patron’s account, you may want to set the lost-and-paid item recovery options to Leave as is. With this setting, the payments remain in the Polaris patron account and the refund or credit can be done from Payments Gateway. Or your library may choose to disable all automatic recovery actions, requiring staff to create manual refunds when a lost-and-paid item is recovered. For more information about setting lost item recovery options, see Setting Lost Item Recovery Defaults.

Payments Gateway Reports

Payments Gateway offers extensive reporting capabilities. After your account is established (see Set up the Payments Gateway SWP account), you can log in and select Transactions to search for specific transactions.

Select Reporting, Origination to see detailed organization-level reports.