Keeping account statuses up to date in the Payment Portal is a critical part of maintaining accurate data and protecting ourselves, and our merchants, from fraudulent activities. The best way of doing that is to ensure accounts are marked as ‘Cancelled’ as soon as they go through the Retention process. This article outlines the steps required to close an account and additional information relating to cancelled accounts.
<aside> <img src="/icons/unlock_gray.svg" alt="/icons/unlock_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Super Admin Role: Retention
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First locate the merchant from the Merchant List page in the Payment Portal and click on their name to access their account.
For users with the ‘Retention’ permission, a ‘…’ menu should appear on the far right-hand side of the account name.
Clicking on the menu and selecting ‘Cancel account’ will prompt a secondary verification asking if you’re sure you want to cancel the account. Once confirmed, the status will update to ‘Cancelled’ and Payments status will change to ‘Paused’.
If an account was closed by mistake, or needs to be re-opened, the same steps can be followed. Instead of a ‘Cancel account’ option, you will see a ‘Re-Enable account’ link in it’s place. This will re-open the account effectively “uncanceling’ it.
Once an account is cancelled, they are no longer able to process new payments or issue additional refunds. If they have outstanding transactions that they need to complete, they should do so before we close the account or finds others means to reconcile those payments.
Payouts will continue to work like normal and any outstanding funds will be deposited on their normal payout cycle. In addition, all user logins, reporting, and 1099K tax information will continue to be accessible for up to 24 months after closure or as required by law.
All standard email notifications will also cease. The only exceptions are new chargeback alerts from previous transactions which will still be sent to avoid any negative balances on the account. In addition any final monthly statements for merchants on IC+ will also be sent the month after their final date of processing.
Any monthly fees such as FANF, Managed Chargeback, EBT, etc that are typically charged on the 1st of each month will still be charged for the prior month’s activities. In addition, any fines or penalties issued by the card brands for prior activities will still be passed on for up to six months after accounts closure.
Sometimes a merchant may have refunds come in before their account is cancelled or chargebacks may be issued after an account has already cancelled. If possible, the Risk team will attempt to work with the merchant to address any outstanding balances before their account is closed. If an account is cancelled with a negative balance or an account goes negative after cancelling, we will attempt an ACH withdrawal to bring their balance back to $0. If that is unsuccessful, the merchant may be contacted by our Risk team to arrange other payment.