Downloading Transaction History and Search Results

You can download your transaction history and search results in Authorize.net's Merchant Interface using the Download to File option. This output file contains all fields for the displayed transactions, not just the fields shown on the screen.

Authorize.net recommends periodically downloading your transaction history for your records. We retain the current year and the last two years' worth of data/information, and archive older data yearly (normally between March-May).

In addition to the download feature of the Merchant Interface, we offer a Transaction Reporting API to access your transaction history and details programmatically. If you’re downloading large volumes of transactions or need more flexibility with your reports, you or your developer may want to consider using the Transaction Reporting API calls.

Searching for Transaction History

When searching for transaction history, note that using the full credit card number or bank account number as search criteria only returns results for the past 180 days. However, searching using a wildcard and the last 0-4 digits of the number (e.g., *4355, *355, *55, *5, *) returns results for the past two years. Any other combination, such as a partial number, or a wildcard among the last four digits of the number (e.g., 1425345, 4*355, 43*55, 435*) will only return results from the past 180 days.

Using the Download to File Option

1. Log into the Merchant Interface.
2. Select Transaction Search from the main toolbar.
3. Search by the data or date criteria needed.
4. Select Search at the bottom of the page.
5. On the results page select Download to File. The "Select Download File Type" window will open.
6. Select the download file type from the drop-down list.
7. The Include Column Headings checkbox is selected by default. If you would like to exclude column headings in the file download, click the checkbox to deselect this option.
8. Select Submit to download the file. A pop-up window appears indicating that the request for file download has been submitted. Do NOT close the window while the download file is being prepared. You can minimize the window to continue working while the download file is being prepared. Once the download file has been generated, the File Download dialogue box appears.
9. In the File Download dialogue box, select Save to save the download file to your local system.
10. The Save As dialogue box appears prompting you to select the location where the download file should be saved. Once you have selected the location, click Save.
11. Select Close to close the Download Complete dialogue box.

For security reasons, all sensitive information, such as credit card and bank account numbers are masked in download files, meaning that only eight (8) characters or digits in length are provided; the first four (4) are masked and the last four (4) are visible (e.g., XXXX9876), regardless of the actual full length. Expiration dates are fully masked (e.g., XXXX).

Download File Formats

There are four transaction file download formats; each type is a fixed format:

• Standard/Tab Delimited — Basic transaction details such as payment method, amount, customer billing and shipping information, Address Verification Status, and transaction response. Each field will be separated by a tab character.
• Standard with Card Code/Tab Delimited — Basic transaction details such as payment method, amount, customer billing and shipping information, Address Verification Status, Card Code status and transaction response. Each field will be separated by a tab character.
• Expanded Fields/Comma Separated — Expanded transaction details such as payment method, amount, customer billing and shipping information, Address Verification Status, Card Code, Level 2 Data and with the addition of the reference transaction ID (for refunds). Each field will be separated with a comma.
• Expanded Fields with CAVV Response/Comma Separated — Expanded transaction details such as payment method, amount, customer billing and shipping information, Address Verification Status, Card Code, Level 2 Data, reference transaction ID (for refunds) and with the addition of the reference transaction ID (for refunds) CAVV (Verified By Visa or Mastercard SecureCode) response. Each field will be separated with a comma.
• Expanded Fields with CAVV Response in Excel - Expanded transaction details such as payment method, amount, customer billing and shipping information, Address Verification Status, Card Code, Level 2 Data, reference transaction ID (for refunds) and with the addition of the reference transaction ID (for refunds) CAVV (Verified By Visa or Mastercard SecureCode) response. In Excel file format.

Only characters up to ASCII 128 will be displayed in any download file. All download files are named DownloadYYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.txt. For example, a file that is downloaded on January 5, 2008 at 3:41:30 pm would be named Download20080105-154130.txt.

See attachment for details of the differences between the file formats.