Account Updater

Credit and debit card information frequently changes due to expiration, loss, theft, or other account updates. BlueSnap's Account Updater helps you automatically update card details—such as expiration date changes, account number changes, or account closures—so you do not have to contact each customer individually.

Whether you store shopper card data yourself or use the BlueSnap vault, Account Updater ensures that your shoppers' payment information is current.

Benefits

• Rescue up to 10% of recurring sales
• Prevent interruption of customer service due to non-payment
• Maintain customer satisfaction
• Minimize costs associated with collections and manual account updates

Supported Cards

• American Express
• Discover
• Mastercard
• Visa

How it Works

BlueSnap offers multiple Account Updater services, and which service you use depends on which solutions you use to store card details and manage subscriptions:

• Card storage — BlueSnap vaulted shoppers or store cards on your system.
• Subscriptions — BlueSnap Subscriptions or merchant-managed subscriptions

BlueSnap Vaulted Shoppers & BlueSnap Subscriptions

BlueSnap automatically updates cards for you behind-the-scenes to ensure that they are current before the next charge. This applies if you use one of our Hosted solutions, or if you are use an API solution with BlueSnap vaulted shoppers.

The cards are flagged a week before their next billing date and are sent to Mastercard, Visa, and Discover to automatically update the card information. No action is required by the merchant or customer to continue the subscription, and there is no interruption in service.

BlueSnap Vaulted Shoppers & Merchant-managed Subscriptions

BlueSnap flags your shopper’s credit cards 30 days before they expire and automatically update expiration dates. In addition, BlueSnap sends all cards associated with a declined transaction to check if there is an update to the card. You will be notified through a webhook if a card has been updated so you can resend the transaction.

Your Card Storage & Merchant-managed Subscriptions

Use our API batch Account Updater service to efficiently check for card and account updates for Visa, Mastercard, and Discover. We recommend this workflow to ensure you have all the latest card details before you process a payment:

1. Create a list of cards that you want to check for updates. The API batch Account Updater process takes about seven days to complete, so send cards at least seven days in advance of the scheduled payment.
2. Send a Create Account Updater request that contains all cards you want to have checked for account updates.
3. About seven days after you sent the API batch Account Updater request, send a Retrieve Account Updater request to retrieve the results. The response includes the status of every valid card that was sent. If there was a change to the card, new card details are provided.

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Note

The API batch Account Updater service does not update card information, it only returns up-to-date information about the cards sent in the request. You must update the card details stored in your system.

For comprehensive details, see Account Updater in the developer documentation.

Account Updater Settings

You can adjust your Account Updater settings in the Merchant Portal at Settings > Account Updater Settings. Certain settings will be enabled by default.

• Subscription Account Updater — Enable if you are using BlueSnap Subscriptions. For BlueSnap-managed subscriptions, an account updater request will be made for every card before a recurring charge attempt. For merchant-managed subscriptions, an account updater request will be made for every card that is associated with an active subscription and is due to expire.
• API Account Updater — Enable if you are storing complete credit card details outside of BlueSnap and want to trigger an account updater request with an API call.
• Post-Decline Account Updater — Enable to help manage declined transactions. For every stored card that is declined by the bank, an account updater request will be sent after the declined transaction attempt.
• Card due to Expired Account Updater — Enable for updates if a stored credit card is due to expire soon. This will apply to every stored card, whether it is associated with an active subscription or not.

Account Updater Response Codes

* Account Updater charge applies to these response codes