This article will guide merchants through understanding and configuring and using Customer Information Manager (CIM).

Transition from Classic to New Customer Information Manager (CIM) Merchant Interface

When creating a customer profile, you must provide a name and an email address. If the customer profile is for a person, a first and last name is required; if the profile is for a business, the company name is required. Note that the name and email requirement is only for new customer profiles. Legacy customer profiles from classic Authorize.net do not require a name and email address.

What is Customer Information Manager (CIM)?

The Customer Information Manager (CIM) is a service provided by Authorize.net that allows merchants to securely store customer payment information on their servers, simplifying PCI DSS compliance. It offers several features that make transactions and recurring billing more efficient:

• Simplify PCI Compliance: CIM helps in protecting your customers' confidential information and ensuring PCI compliance.
• Store Customer Data: CIM allows returning customers to avoid re-entering their personal data every time they visit your website.
• Provide Payment Flexibility: Your customers can store multiple payment methods for repeat purchases.
• Save Multiple Shipping Locations: Customers can also save multiple shipping locations using CIM.

CIM supports customer profiles that include billing, payment, and shipping information. Each profile is stored on secure servers and assigned an ID that is used in place of all customer information. Each customer profile can include up to 10 payment profiles and up to 100 shipping profiles. You can manage customer profiles and issue transactions manually from within the Merchant Interface, or integrate your website or other application using an Application Programming Interface (API). Additionally, in the Merchant Interface, you can view and search for customer profiles as well as review a profile's transaction history.

How to add a customer profile?

To create a new customer, payment, or shipping profile in the Merchant Interface:

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Be on or switched into the New Merchant Interface (2.0)
3. Click Customers - Add New Customers in the left navigation.
4. Fill in and complete the customers information, payment method(s) and shipping address(es).
   1. When creating a new customer profile, you can enter the customer profile information as well as payment and shipping information. If you are adding an additional payment or shipping profile to an existing customer profile, click Add Payment Profile or Add Shipping Profile, and then enter the required information.
5. Click Save to complete the profile creation.

When creating a payment profile, if you don't select "Perform credit card authorization before saving data," a $1.00 Test Mode transaction will be initiated to ensure the credit card information is correctly formatted. This Test Mode transaction won't appear on the customer's credit card statement, but it will send a transaction receipt email to the merchant. Please note, this test transaction only confirms the credit card information format, not its validity. To validate the card, make sure to check "Perform credit card authorization before saving data."

How to charge a stored customers profile?

Once customers information has been stored in customer, shipping and payment profiles they can be used to submit transactions:

First, locate the CIM profile:

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Be on or switched into the New Merchant Interface (2.0)
3. Click Customers - Manage Customers in the left navigation.
4. Search for the customer profile using the quick search or search filter.
5. Select the Profile ID of the profile you are searching for.

To charge the CIM Payment Profile:

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Be on or switched into the New Merchant Interface (2.0)
3. Click Customers - Manage Customers in the left navigation.
4. Search for the customer profile using the quick search or search filter.
5. Under action select Accept payment
   1. Click Payment Methods
   2. Click the three dots under action and select Accept Payment
   3. Accept Payment form will then load with the customers information.
   4. Complete the remaining information (amount and order information)
   5. Click Charge to submit the transaction.
6. Or click on the Profile ID
   1. Click Payment Methods
   2. Click the three dots under action and select Accept Payment
   3. Accept Payment form will then load with the customers information.
   4. Complete the remaining information (amount and order information)
   5. Click Charge to submit the transaction.
7. Transaction will then be submitted and response will be provided if it was successful or not.

Information on how to charge a CIM Payment Profile via the Authorize.net API can be found on the Developer Center.

How to edit or delete a customer's profile?

Once you have successfully created a Customer Information Manager (CIM) customer, payment or shipping profile, you can then edit the details of that profile or delete it entirely at any time.

To edit existing CIM profiles:

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Be on or switched into the New Merchant Interface (2.0)
3. Click Customers - Manage Customers in the left navigation.
4. Search for and find the profile you want to edit and click on the Profile ID.
5. Click Manage Profile and then Edit customer profile.
6. Edit/Update the customers information and payment or shipping profiles as needed.
7. Click Save to complete the update.

There are two ways to delete CIM profiles. You may delete an entire customer profile and any associated payment or shipping profiles from the main Customer Information Manager page by clicking the profile and clicking Delete Profile. Or you can go into each individual profile and delete it.

To delete individual CIM profiles:

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Be on or switched into the New Merchant Interface (2.0)
3. Click Customers - Manage Customers in the left navigation.
4. Click the Profile ID of the profile you intend to delete.
5. To delete the main customer profile, including all associated payment and shipping profiles, click Delete under Manage Profile.
6. To delete a payment or shipping profile, click the Payment methods or Shipping Addresses tabs and click the three dots under actions and click delete.
7. Click Delete to continue with the delete or click Cancel if you want to cancel the action.

Once a Profile (including Payment or Shipping profiles) is deleted the information it contained can no longer be retrieved. Please pay special attention to profiles marked as linked to a subscription or invoice as deleting these profiles will prevent further usage of them through Automated Recurring Billing (ARB) or Invoicing; deletion is permanent.

• For ARB this includes any further runs with the previous customer card data causing subscriptions to fail.
  • You can identify these profiles by the Description: Profile created by Subscription: [Subscription ID]
• For Invoicing this includes if any invoices have not been paid or fully paid, once the profile is delete it will prevent that invoice from being completed and a new one will need to be created for any remaining payment.
  • You can identify these profiles by the Description: ANET customer profile for Invoicing

Guest Profiles

Authorize.net's Customer Information Manager (CIM) allows users to create guest profiles for customers who need to temporarily store payment information for one-time charges. This is currently only supported using the CIM API and not through the Merchant Interface.

Integrating and using the CIM API

For information on using CIM API, see: Developer Center - Customer Profiles API Guide.

Discontinue Customer Information Manager (CIM) Service

Only an Account Owner can disable this feature. Once you discontinue the CIM Service, the payment gateway will store any customer payment profiles for up to a year before purging them from our system as a security precaution. If you have created a profile and wish to access it again, simply sign up for CIM again before a year and your profiles should be available.

To discontinue CIM:

Only Account Owner users maybe cancel or disable this service, once the service is disabled billing will stop.

1. Sign in to the the Merchant Interface.
2. Click Customer Information Manager from the left side menu.
3. Click the Discontinue Customer Information Manager link at the bottom of the page.
4. Click Yes to discontinue your service.

To re-enable CIM:

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

1. Sign in to the Merchant Interface.
2. Click Customer Information Manager in the main left side menu.
3. Click Sign Up. The Customer Information Manager Service Addendum page appears and fees will be displayed.
4. Click the checkbox labeled I have read and understand the Terms of Service.
5. Click I Agree.

Developer and Integration Resources:

• Developer Documentation
• API Reference Guide

Using Customer Information Manager (CIM) FAQs

• How can I export customer profiles?
  • Please contact Authorize.net Client Services to go over information and options related to data export.
  • For information on downloading customer profiles see: How can I download my Customer Information Manager (CIM) profiles?