This article will guide merchants through understanding and using Account Updater.

What is Account Updater (AU)?

AU automatically updates account numbers and expiration dates for cards on file with your Automated Recurring Billing (ARB) subscriptions and Customer Information Manager (CIM) profiles. This helps avoid interruptions to recurring payments and unnecessary declines due to outdated card details.

AU Service Availability

AU service is available only to U.S./North American processing accounts.

Signing Up for Account Updater (AU)

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Click Tools
3. Click Account Updater
4. Click Sign Up Now
5. Enter your Industry/Merchant Category Code (MCC).
6. Review the agreement and fees, then click I Agree.
7. Your registration will take approximately two hours to complete.

Cost and Billing for AU

The cost for using the Account Updater (AU) service varies based on your specific account details and can be viewed afterward following the the steps below:

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Select Account from the main toolbar.
3. Click on Merchant Profile in the main left side menu.
4. Click on Fees to the right of Payment Gateway in the Payment Methods section.

Your account will be debited on the first of the month following the last update, with charges based on per-response from AU. The responses include:

• New Account Number (NAN)
• New Expiration Date (NED)
• Account Closed (ACL)
• Contact Card Holder (CCH)

Choosing Profiles for AU

You can exclude individual payment profiles from being updated by AU either manually in the Merchant Interface or programmatically via API with an updateCustomerPaymentProfileRequest.

Manual Exclusion of a Payment Profile

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Click Tools
3. Click Customer Information Manager.
4. Search for the profile, edit it, and check the box to exclude it from monthly updates.

Automatic Updates with AU

AU runs on a monthly schedule and cannot be manually triggered. All Visa and MasterCard stored payments within your account are submitted for updates unless excluded.

Supported Card Types

Only Visa and MasterCard are supported by AU.

AU Results

AU can return a new account number, new expiration date, advise to contact the cardholder, a notice that the account has been closed, or no response if no changes were reported.

Viewing AU Reports

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Click Reports
3. Click Account Updater Reports
4. Select the month to view and click Run Report.
5. To view more than the first 100 records, use the Download to File option.

AU Reports via API

You can use getAUJobSummary and getAUJobDetails API calls to retrieve AU reports.

Charging an Updated Card

AU updates the original Payment Profile ID, allowing your website to continue using it. If you use Automatic Recurring Billing, the Payment Profile associated with any Active Subscriptions will also be updated.

AU Service Schedule & Updates

AU starts on the 4th of every month and runs in batches till month-end. If you enable AU before the 3rd, you will get updates for the current month. If enabled after the 3rd, updates start from the following month. AU reports are available the following month.

Unchanging Customer Payment Information

AU uses data supplied by the card networks, which are provided by card issuers. If a customer's payment data seems to continually update without changes, the cardholder should contact their issuer for clarification. Cardholders can opt-out of AU service with their issuer, impacting the information AU has on file.

ARB Subscription Statuses & Updates

Only Active or Suspended subscriptions get updated by AU. If an active subscription receives an Account Closed (ACL) or Contact Card Holder (CCH) response, the subscription is suspended.

ACL Responses & Suspended Subscriptions

Subscriptions that received an ACL response and are now suspended will be terminated if not updated with current payment information before the next payment. The one exception to this is if they have Automatic-Retry enabled. If they have Automatic-Retry enabled, the suspended subscription will stay suspended indefinitely until action is taken on the subscription. Once action is taken and the subscription is reactivated, Automatic-retry will attempt to charge the stored payment once a day until the subscription is caught up to the scheduled payments. For more information on Automatic-Retry see support article What is the Automatic Retry system for Automated Recurring Billing. 

ACL Response & CIM Payment Profiles

Payment profiles associated with a Customer Profile that receive an ACL response will be deleted. To reference previous transactions, use the Transaction Search feature.

Discontinue Account Updater (AU) Service

Only an Account Owner can disable this feature. Once you discontinue the AU service, future updates will be stopped for ARB subscriptions or CIM profiles any updates pulled for the current month will be processed and billed.

To discontinue AU:

Only Account Owner users maybe cancel or disable this service, once the service is disabled billing will stop but depending on when cancelled there may be a final fill for the last updates processed for AU.

1. Sign in to the the Merchant Interface.
2. Click Account Updater in the main left side menu.
3. Click the Discontinue the Account Updater Service link at the bottom of the page.
4. Click Yes to discontinue your service.

To re-enable AU:

Only Account Owner users maybe sign up for and enable this service.

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Click Tools
3. Click Account Updater
4. Click Sign Up Now
5. Enter your Industry/Merchant Category Code (MCC).
6. Review the agreement and fees, then click I Agree.
7. Your registration will take approximately two hours to complete.

Developer and Integration Resources:

• API Reference Guide