When using payment gateways for credit card processing, you may encounter a situation where the attendee’s payment attempt fails. This could be a result of incorrect payment gateway credentials entered by an event manager, or an issue with the credit card itself.
Within Eventsforce, we can often find additional information or reason for the failure within the audit trail for an attendee. The audit trail will display the payment attempts, including transaction details sent from Eventsforce to the payment gateway, and gateway responses sent back to Eventsforce.
Note: Not all payment gateways send a response in the same way. Contact your gateway directly for more information about a specific payment attempt if needed. Also please note that each payment gateway will show different error codes and responses.
Troubleshooting using the audit trail
The audit trail for each attendee is visible in two places; the registration’s basket page and the ‘Payment update’ page. If the registration is cancelled, you must use the ‘Payment update’ page.
To access the audit trail on the basket page:
Go to People > Registrations
Select and open a registration by double clicking the registration OR clicking the ‘Edit’ icon to the right of the registration
The audit trail will begin at the bottom of the basket page, with the oldest actions at the top and the most recent actions at the bottom
To access the audit trail on the payment update screen:
Go to People > Registrations
Locate and select the registration to highlight
Use the ‘Tools’ dropdown and select “Update Payment”
The audit trail will begin at the bottom of the basket page, with the oldest actions at the top and the more recent actions at the bottom
Once you’ve located the audit trail, find the actions that relate to payment attempts. Compare the code to the corresponding gateway response codes listed below to determine the cause of the error.
Common error codes
There are some common errors or response codes you may find returned from the payment gateway. Find the common gateway responses below and what they could mean:
Invalid credentials - this could mean the gateway credentials entered in Eventsforce are not correct (could be a result of the credentials being updated or reset)
AVS Mismatch - the billing details entered for the card does match the billing details associated with the card (for example: the address was entered incorrectly)
Payment gateway error/response codes
You can find common response/error codes to different gateways by following the links below:
Paypal Help Centre (US)
Paypal Help Centre (UK)