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Introduction to FlexCharge
The FlexCharge solution gives shoppers the ability to complete a purchase when their payment is declined.
As a merchant, this will boost your approval rates and help you capture more sales without adding friction to the consumer buying experience.
With FlexCharge, you can recover 30% or more of your declines with transactions run on MIDs owned and managed by FlexCharge.
A few limitations worth mentioning: it only can be enabled at an account level, not campaign level; it supports US-based transactions, no international transactions, and it is not compatible with transactions created from the Place Order Page within your sticky.io platform.
How FlexCharge can benefit your business?
Boosts your approval rates by significantly reducing the number of abandoned carts due to declined payment transactions.
Gives you a clear view of your payment declines and the impact of FlexCharge on your sales through the FlexCharge merchant portal.
Protects your MID as FlexCharge processes these higher risk transactions via its own MID.
How does FlexCharge work?
FlexCharge addresses the majority of your payment declines, not just fraud-related reason codes.
FlexCharge uses machine learning and advanced risk management models to approve declined transactions in real time, with minimal friction for consumers. Consumers simply click “OK” at time of checkout.
Consumers do not need to register or provide any additional information, and they never pay any fees, interest or penalties, just the purchase amount.
FlexCharge offers two distinct flows covering customer-initiated transactions (CIT) and merchant-initiated transactions (MIT).
Example Flow for a Customer-Initiated Transaction
Onboarding to the FlexCharge Service
The steps for onboarding to the FlexCharge service are simple:
Contact your sticky.io Client Success Manager. They will connect you to a FlexCharge representative who will share a contract for the service.
Once signed, FlexCharge will send you an onboarding email. The email will contain a link to schedule a meeting time with the FlexCharge team to continue the onboarding process. The email will also login credentials to your sandbox merchant portal.
It is necessary that your development representative attend this call.
To proceed, FlexCharge and sticky.io will require the following pieces of information:
Descriptors
URL / Websites
Contact information for your account
After the meeting, your technical team will need to implement the SenseJS library and the FlexCharge widget. Follow FlexCharge's instructions in the FlexCharge merchant portal for integrating the SenseJS library and widget onto your site.
The snippet is unique to your instance and MUST be pulled directly from your FlexCharge instance.
FlexCharge's help center documentation can be referenced here
Your sticky.io representative will configure FlexCharge as a gateway provider within sticky.io.
FlexCharge will provide you the necessary API keys, tokenization keys and Merchant IDs to configure in our system as a part of your new provider profile.
Once configured, return to your provider profile and copy the webhook URL to your clipboard. A sample URL is pictured below, but will be unique to your instance.
With that URL, return to your FlexCharge dashboard and within the Developers menu, click into Webhooks.
Click Create within the Endpoints box.
Copy the URL into the appropriate box and then, click the order.completed event from the listed Available Events to subscribe to this event. Click Save and repeat the process for the payment.chargeback.received and order.refunded events.
sticky.io will run test transactions on your behalf to ensure your integration is functioning smoothly.
FlexCharge Configuration
Below are the steps on how to configure the FlexCharge service in a way that works best for your business. The FlexCharge Profile page within the Sticky dashboard provides the ability to turn on FlexCharge at the campaign level for just MIT, just CIT, or both.
Setup:
After you have been upgraded to FlexCharge’s latest version, you will notice a new menu option in your Sticky dashboard. You will click on Services on the top menu bar and then select “FlexCharge.”
This will take you to the FlexCharge Configurations screen. From this page you will be able to:
Assign your FlexCharge profile(s) to the campaign(s) of your choosing
Assign site descriptors for each Campaign
Assign to all campaigns
View all linked campaigns
Delete FlexCharge: Campaign associations
Adding a FlexCharge Configuration:
Once onboarded with FlexCharge and on the FlexCharge Configuration page, you can associate your FlexCharge profile with the campaigns of your choice by following these steps:
1 - Select "Add FlexCharge".
2 - Select a FlexCharge profile.
3 - Select the campaign you want FlexCharge active on.
4 - Select the Site ID you want associated with that Campaign. This is what the end customer will see on their credit/debit card statement. The Site IDs are populated from what you have in your FlexCharge dashboard.
5 - Click on the “+” button to add it. A message will appear at the bottom to let you know when it was successfully added.
6 - Press save to preserve your preferences.
Note:
If you are assigning campaigns individually, then you will easily be able to see which campaigns you have already linked by the green check mark in the drop down. You can also see what campaigns you have already added by selecting the “View Linked Campaigns” button
Assigning FlexCharge to All Campaigns
There are two ways to assign FlexCharge to campaigns:
1) Selecting campaigns individually as you saw above, or
2) Assigning to all campaigns
To assign to all campaigns just select the “Assign to All Campaigns” button.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If you assign to all campaigns, then any new campaigns you create will automatically be assigned to that FlexCharge configuration.
If you assigned campaigns individually and you want FlexCharge on new campaigns you create then you will have to come back to add them manually to the FlexCharge configuration you set up after creating the campaign.
Editing a Configuration:
If you want to edit an existing configuration, hover over the 3 dots to the right of the line item, and select “Edit”
From here you can delete Campaigns, edit Site IDs, or add more configurations.
Deleting a Configuration:
In order to delete a FlexCharge configuration, you can select the 3 dots to the right of the line item you want to delete and then select “Delete.” A modal will appear for you to confirm this action. Select “Yes” to delete that FlexCharge Configuration.
Canceling a Subscription
In the case you need to cancel a subscription and that subscription is Pending with FlexCharge, when you cancel the subscription by clicking the “Stop Recurring” button in Sticky, the order will automatically be canceled in your FlexCharge dashboard. This ensures that Sticky and FlexCharge’s dashboard are in sync.
What a transaction in the FlexCharge dashboard will look like after being canceled in the sticky.io Platform:
Frequently Asked Questions
Is credit card data handled securely when processed through FlexCharge?
Customer credit card data is encrypted and tokenized before sharing with FlexCharge. All credit card information is handled in a PCI-compliant fashion.
Does FlexCharge handle raw CC data?
No. Credit Card data is encrypted and tokenized before being shared with FlexCharge. Both FlexCharge and sticky.io are PCI-level 1 compliant.
How do I get paid out from FlexCharge?
You’ll be paid out once a month, towards the end of each calendar month. FlexCharge charges consumers directly for the amounts owed on their transactions. Within the merchant portal, you can see information about your payouts within the Settlements tab.
How does FlexCharge handle sales tax on orders?
It is the retailer’s responsibility to determine any taxes applied to the purchase and ensure they are included in the total. Flexcharge is not responsible for collecting or reporting taxes on any transactions.
How are fees calculated?
Fees are spelled out in your contract, but they are deducted directly from the payouts you receive from Flexcharge. Fees can be applied to refunds, such as late return fees, and chargebacks as defined in the contract.
Does FlexCharge work on initial transactions or rebills?
FlexCharge works for initials or customer-initiated transactions and also for rebills or merchant-initiated transactions.
Does FlexCharge work with orders that are not placed online? Our orders are placed through a call center and connects to sticky via API.
For failed MIT transactions, the FlexCharge service operates in the background, trying to re-process the failed payment transactions. For some specific error codes that cannot be solved in the background, FlexCharge will contact the customer via email and/or SMS, asking for additional details such as a different payment method.
What is seen by the customer on their CC statement — is it still a descriptor of our business or would it only show Flexcharge?
The descriptor is customizable and will match your business.
Who takes the risk of non-payment?
As FlexCharge we take the liability for credit and fraud risk for the transactions that are accepted via our service. You will be settled irrespective of whether FlexCharge has been able to charge the customer or not.
Can I create multiple FlexCharge profiles?
You can create multiple FlexCharge profiles, however, the profiles cannot have the same Merchant ID. You should create multiple FlexCharge profiles if you want FlexCharge enabled on some campaigns but not all, or FlexCharge enabled for just MIT or just CIT on certain campaigns.
Can I assign just MIT or just CIT at the campaign level?
Yes, you can do this on FlexCharge Provider Profile set up page.
What is the Site ID field on the FlexCharge Profile Configuration Modal?
The site ID field is the description of what will show up on the merchants' customers' credit card statement. Having unique site IDs for various businesses can help merchants reduce chargeback rates.
How come FlexCharge isn’t triggering on certain Transactions?
It may be that you have not added FlexCharge to that campaign - you can add that campaign to FlexCharge via the FlexCharge Configuration screen.
If I create a new Campaign will it automatically be assigned to FlexCharge?
New campaigns will be automatically assigned to FlexCharge ONLY if you selected “Assign to all Campaigns” during your FlexCharge profile configuration set up.
I was upgraded to FlexCharge V2 and I am not seeing all of my campaigns in the FlexCharge configuration UI. Why is this happening?
If you are not seeing all of your campaigns, it is likely an issue with permissions. To modify your permissions, please follow these steps:
Navigate to Settings > Accounts and Permissions
Find your name in the list of users
Click on the gear icon next to your name in the Features column
In the Summary box, click on Edit Permissions within the Campaign Permissions field
Select the campaigns you want to add to FlexCharge
If issues arise, contact your account administrator or reach our to your sticky.io Representative.