Accept a card payment

A sale authorizes the card and captures the funds in a single request. Use it when you deliver at the moment of payment — a digital download, a subscription charge, a service that completes right away.

If you ship later, authorize now and capture when you ship instead.

• Your Api-Key and Client-Id — see Authentication
• A processor integration configured for cards

POST /v1/transactions with type set to SALE.

The fields that decide whether this works:

Two mistakes are easy to make here.

• expiry is nested, and its parts are integers. "month": 1, not "expiry_month": "01".
• The name fields are first_name and last_name, inside payment_method. There is no cardholder_name.

{
  "id": "TRANSACTION-01KEW32V6YNV11T33XGDR7TGWC",
  "reference_transaction_id": null,
  "type": "SALE",
  "result": "APPROVED",
  "client_id": "CLIENT-01KFDKXMQ637EKEAY410MSQSXB",
  "client_dba": "Acme Jewelry",
  "integrations": [
    "TSYS"
  ],
  "response_code": "00",
  "response_description": "Approved",
  "batch_id": null,
  "is_settled": false,
  "time_created": "2026-07-15T14:22:05Z",
  "amount": 10000,
  "tip": 0,
  "tax_amount": 500,
  "currency": "USD",
  "payment_method": {
    "type": "CARD",
    "truncated_pan": "****-****-****-5439",
    "payment_token": "CARD_TOKEN-01KFDKXMQ637EKEAY410MSQSXB",
    "expiry": { … },
    "first_name": "John",
    "last_name": "Doe",
    "entry_method": "ECOMMERCE",
    "auth_code": "123456",
    "retrieval_reference_number": "000000603076",
    "card_type": "UNKNOWN",
    "card_brand": "Visa",
    "cvv_result_code": "M",
    "avs_result_code": "Y",
    "avs_response": "Exact Match - Street address and postal code match"
  },
  "recurring": false,
  "initiator": "CUSTOMER",
  "network_transaction_id": "000000004271001",
  "metadata": {
    "order_id": "ORD-10432",
    "sales_channel": "web",
    "customer_reference": "cust-8891"
  }
}

Check result first. APPROVED means the money is yours at the next batch close; DECLINED means the issuer said no; ERROR means the transaction could not be attempted. All three come back as 200.

A few fields deserve attention.

• payment_method.payment_token is a token for this card, issued as a side effect of the transaction. Store it and you never need the number again. See Save and reuse a payment method.
• payment_method.avs_result_code says how much of the billing address matched. Y is a full match, Z postal code only, N neither. See AVS and CVV.
• payment_method.card_type is always UNKNOWN here. The processor does not report it on an authorization. Read the transaction back from GET /v1/transactions/{id} for the real value.
• batch_id is the settlement batch. It is null until the batch settles, so a null value on a new sale is normal.
• payment_method.entry_method echoes the value you sent.

When an operator keys in card details that the cardholder gave over the phone or by mail, set payment_method.entry_method to MOTO. Everything else about the sale is the same.

The CVV is optional on a MOTO sale. Leave it out of a mail order, where the cardholder should not write it down. Without it, cvv_result_code comes back null.

• Authorize and capture separately
• Save and reuse a payment method
• Handle declines