Account Updater Overview

NetForum connects to Vantiv payment gateway that provide account updates. In order for NetForum to retrieve the updated account information from this provider, your organization has to enroll in Vantiv's Automatic Account Updater (AAU) service.

This topic gives you a brief overview of the supported account updater and how NetForum interacts with them.

What Do Account Updaters Do?

In general, account updaters capture changes in credit card information. A client's credit card information can change because the card expires, the client changes names, the company issues a new card number, the card services and features change, etc. If these changes are not captured, your organization could loose the next installment payment, or a membership update could fail. Account updaters from various gateways charge a fee to update credit card information if it changes. For current fee information and to enroll in an account updater service, contact your gateway representative.

What Does NetForum Do?

Once you are enrolled in the gateway's account updater service, NetForum connects to the gateway's API and receives whatever updates the gateway passes to it. If the gateway passes a credit card information update, NetForum updates the following data for each record:

  • Credit Card Number (masked) For example: 41*********8752

  • Credit Card Expiration Date For example: 2014/11 to 2016/11

  • Credit Card Holder Name

  • Token

For Vantiv, if the gateway passes an ACH information update, NetForum updates the following data for each record:

  • Vault Account Number
  • Routing Number
  • ACH Account Number
  • Token

Tip: Sometimes the only information the gateway gives NetForum is a new token value. In that case, NetForum uses the new token in subsequent transactions. The first three fields, Credit Card Number (masked), Credit Card Expiration Date, and Credit Card Holder Name, are cosmetic updates and not required for a successful transaction. NetForum does however, provide this information in iWeb and eWeb, and NetForum uses it in email templates, so it is important that all four fields get updated.

Gateways offer you various options for account updates, for example Vantiv offers two options in your merchant account: Proactive and Reactive. The connection between NetForum and Vantiv does not allow for NetForum to detect what type of Automatic Account Updater you have opted to enroll in. NetForum can simply receive data updates from the gateway and propagate them to the NetForum fields.

What Should I Do?

Contact your payment gateway and ask about account updater if you are interested in these services. Once you enroll with the gateway, see the help topic specific to your gateway for steps on configuring NetForum to receive account updates.