This is the latest installment in The Official Merchant Services Blog’s Knowledge Base effort. Well we want to make the payment processing industry’s terms and buzzwords clear. We want to remove any and all confusion merchants might have about how the industry works. Host Merchant Services promises: the company delivers personal service and clarity. So we’re going to take some time to explain how everything works. This ongoing series is where we define industry related terms and slowly build up a knowledge base and as we get more and more of these completed, we’ll collect them in our resource archive for quick and easy access. Today’s terms is Batch.
Batch
A Batch is a group of approved credit card transactions, usually accumulated during one business day.
Batch Deposit
The electronic depositing of a batch file transmitted to the transaction processor for settlement.
Batch Processing
The authorization of transactions offline when immediate approval is not required. Transactions are collected in a batch and sent as one transmission for authorization and/or settlement. Batch processing is generally used with mail order/telephone order (MOTO) transactions.
Close Batch
The end-of-day or end-of-shift process in which the merchant balances and submits transactions for clearing and settlement. This process occurs on a terminal-based capture system. This process is automatic on host-based capture systems at a predetermined time of day. The automatic process is an optional setting.
