2.4.6 Configuring & Troubleshooting with Authorize.net

Created by Danny Wong, Modified on Sun, 9 Aug, 2020 at 1:09 PM by Danny Wong

Initial Setup Video Instructions

Detailed Instructions

To get started, navigate to the Settings menu in MemberPress and select payments.

Click the (+) button and select a new gateway "Authorize.net"
Name it whatever you want. This is the name that your users will see when they go to select how to pay. We recommend "Pay with Credit Card".
Go to your Authorize.net dashboard to obtain the necessary keys: API Login ID, Transaction Key, and Signature Key.
In Authorize.net Account setting select API Credentials & Keys under Security Settings
Copy and paste your API Login ID into the MemberPress settings
Copy and paste the Transaction Key into the MemberPress settings
Copy and paste the Signature Key into the MemberPress settings
Copy the Webhook URL from MemberPress and paste it into your Authorize.net -> Account -> Business Settings -> Webhooks. You'll want to set its status to "Active" and make sure it's configured to send for All Events. Name it whatever you'd like, but we recommend "MemberPress Webhook" so you'll know what it was for.
Note: The Usernames field shown in the video above has been removed and is no longer needed as of MemberPress version 1.3.51.
Now run some tests for both Recurring (ARB) subscriptions and Non-Recurring (AIM) subscriptions to ensure everything is working properly.

Use Sandbox mode only if you have a sandbox.authorize.net account. This will allow you to make sure everything works without actually charging any real cards. To get a Sandbox account you'll first need to signup at developer.authorize.net. If you have been using Sandbox mode and you're going live, be sure to update your API Login ID, Transaction Key, Signature Key, and Webhook URL for your live account as mentioned above.

Use Force SSL if your site has the option of being viewed in http and https. This will automatically switch to https when a user is going to pay so that the transaction is secure.

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Catch Up Payment Type

If a member fails to update their Credit Card and get's behind on payments -- you can use this feature to "catch them up" when they get around to updating their Credit Card info. To find this feature, navigate to MemberPress > Settings > Payments tab, and locate the Catch Up Payment Type setting in your Authorize.net payment gateway settings as seen below:

The options are explained below:

None - Don't use the catch-up feature. The member can update their card info, but will not be billed for any delinquencies. Their next scheduled payment will be taken out normally.
Period - The member is billed for "this" entire billing period. So if they have missed 5 monthly payments, they are only billed the full amount for the 5th period, not the prior 4 missed periods before it.
Proration - The member is billed for the remainder of "this" billing period. So if they have missed 5 monthly payments, and there are still two weeks left in the 5th period, they will be billed immediately for those remaining two weeks.
Full - Charge the member the full amount for their delinquent time. So if they missed 5 monthly payments, they would be charged for all 5 months when updating their card.

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Capabilities of the Authorize.net Gateway

Process One-Time Payments
Process Recurring Payments
Process Refunds
Change Credit Card for Recurring Subscription
Process Free/Paid Trial Periods
Credit Card Expiring Reminders Supported

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Cancelling in Authorize.net

Normally, you will want to cancel subscriptions directly in MemberPress as is outlined here. However, you may need to cancel a subscription directly in your authorize.net account. This would mainly be needed if you deleted the subscription in MemberPress before correctly canceling it. If this or anything else is the case, you can follow these detailed instructions to cancel directly in authorize.net:

Login to your Authorize.net account
Click on Tools -> Recurring Billing
View active subscriptions
Find the user's subscription in that list and click on it's Subscr ID link
Click "Edit Subscription" at the top
Click "Cancel Subscription" at the top
Click "OK" on the pop-up to confirm the cancellation

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Adding Missing Payment

These instructions are to be followed when in your Authorize.net account you see a completed payment, but that payment is not reflected on the MemberPress > Transactions page and/or is not connected to it's subscription on the MemberPress > Subscriptions page *.

Please note that a missing payment is a sign that your Authorize.net integration has not been properly setup per our instructions above. Please double and triple check your setup using our instructions above.

*If you are seeing a Subscription ID on the MemberPress > Subscriptions page for the user that looks like mp-sub-xxxxxxxxxxx then that needs to be fixed before proceeding. Please follow these instructions to fix.

Step 1 - Find the Transaction ID for the Payment in Authorize.net

To begin with, you will need some information in order to find the payment if you are not already aware of it. Things you can use to search for it include:

The subscription ID (if a recurring subscription) as it appears on the MemberPress > Subscriptions page (looks like a string of numbers).
The user's email, which can be found on the WordPress > Users page OR the MemberPress > Members page.
The date the billing happened.

With that information obtained, you can find the transaction ID in Authorize.net by following these steps (These steps come directly from an authorize.net's support page. For the full page provided by them, please click here):

Log into the Merchant Interface at https://account.authorize.net.
Click Transaction Search from the main toolbar.
Click Search for a Transaction in the main left side menu.
Enter one or more search parameters in the fields provided.
Click the Show drop-down to choose how many results per page to display:10 (default), 15, 20, or 25 results.
Click Search to display your Transaction Summary. This will pull up your results:

Copy the Transaction ID that you see under the Trans ID column you see there. This will be used in Step 2 below.

Step 2 - Manually add the Transaction

To manually add the missing payment, you can follow these steps based on the type of payment you received:

A Single One-Time Payment (NOT associated with an existing recurring subscription):

Go to MemberPress -> Transactions.
Select Add new at the top of the page.
Paste in Transaction ID you identified above in Step 1 into Transaction number.
Select the user you would like the transaction to be associated with. You can start typing in the username and available options will pop up.
Select which Membership the transaction should be associated with.
Add the transaction Sub-Total amount. This should be what the user paid you.
Add in any data related to taxes as applicable.
Set the Status of the transaction to Complete.
Set the Gateway to Authorize.net.
Leave the Subscription field blank.
Add the Created Date. The date you set here will be the date at which the user paid you.
Add the Expiration Date. The date you set here will be the date at which the user's payment is set to expire.
Select Create.

If you want to add a transaction to an existing recurring subscription:

Go to MemberPress -> Subscriptions.
Search for the users subscription you would like to add the missing payment to.
Hover over the subscription's unique ID and click on the, "Add Txn," link.
Paste in Transaction ID you identified above in Step 1 into Transaction number.
Select the user you would like the transaction to be associated with. You can start typing in the username and available options will pop up.
Select which Membership the transaction should be associated with.
Add the transaction Sub-Total amount. This should be what the user paid you.
Add in any data related to taxes as applicable.
Set the Status of the transaction to Complete.
Set the Gateway to Authorize.net.
Leave the Subscription field as is (it should have been auto-populated with the correct ID).
Add the Created Date. The date you set here will be the date at which the user paid you.
Add the Expiration Date. The date you set here will be the date at which the user's payment is set to expire.
Select Create.

Step 3 - Verify

After completing these steps, the payment should be correctly added and the user's subscription should be marked as active as highlighted here ( Note: on the MemberPress > Subscription page, the Active column should be set to a green Yes and the Expires on column should reflect the missing payment's expiration date.):

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Troubleshooting Common Issues

Error "Email Required"

If you get an error that the Email field is required. Edit your Payment Form settings in your Authorize.net account and make sure that "Email" is not a required field.

If you have done that, and you continue getting the error, your processor may require an email address, this custom snippet of code will help: https://gist.github.com/cartpauj/220884f8a69704b30c685e2ef3a5166c

The above code can be pasted into a plugin like Code Snippets (run on front-end type snippet).

Error "The merchant login ID or password is invalid or the account is inactive"

If your customers are getting that error while trying to pay for a membership and if login ID and password are entered correctly, you'd need to check whether your Authorize.net account is in the Test (Sandbox) Mode and if it is, make it live.

Please refer to this tutorial or contact Authorize.net support.

Transaction Not Being Received After Recurring Subscription Signup

Recurring Subscriptions are billed through ARB around 2AM PST. As long as you have configured your integration as mentioned in the setup steps above, then your transactions should come through sometime around or just after 2AM PST. MemberPress validates the user's Credit Card before setting up the subscription, so payment failures are uncommon though still possible.

$1 Transaction Being VOIDed Immediately

When a user signs up for a Recurring membership, MemberPress does a $1 AUTH_ONLY transaction through AIM to verify that the credit card is good. That $1 AUTH_ONLY transaction is then voided and the ARB subscription is created. The actual subscription payment should come through around 2AM PST after ARB has processed it.