TABLE OF CONTENTS
Overview
The Vault is a Credit Card Storage Solution for clients that do not meet the requirements for any of our payment processing partners. The Vault is intended only for those clients that cannot sign up for a payment processor due to their property's locality or lack of US banking accounts supported by our Payment Processing Partners.
The Vault allows properties to support online booking through the Booking Engine without a connected payment processor. Clients using The Vault will have access to full credit card information securely stored within the reservation. In order to process credit card payments, clients will need to have an external third-party processing solution. In order to see if you are a good fit for The Vault, please reach out to the Customer Support Team.
Setting Up User Permissions
To allow users to view secure credit card details, navigate to Settings > User Management. For each authorized user, select the permission "Can view credit card data."
As an added layer of security, those users also must have Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) enabled. They will be required to verify their credentials with MFA each time they view a credit card. In order to enable MFA, each user must navigate to Settings > Account Settings and follow the prompts. Learn more about Multi-factor Authentication here.
Capturing Payments with The Vault & your External Processor
Navigate to the reservation record.
In the left panel, find the attached credit card and click the "View" link to reveal credit card details.
Follow the prompts to the user to log in and verify your credentials with the Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) Tool.
The credit card details will be shown in a new browser tab.
Process the payment using your third-party credit card processor.
Once you have captured the payment, immediately close the browser tab or window containing credit card data.
Record the payment in the reservation using the Third Party Credit Card Processor payment type. You may want to include the reference number from your external processor for your records.
Important Information to Consider
In order to maintain PCI compliance, The Vault can only reveal the CVC once. Make sure that you are prepared to enter the information immediately into your external processor when viewing it.
For Best practices with The Vault, we recommend you instate policies to minimize your need to access the retained credit card information and adjust your terms & conditions accordingly.
You may want to charge in full at the time of booking.
For any outstanding balance, you should retain the credit card again at the time of check in, or manually process at check out using your external terminal.
Credit Card Data will be available for 15 months after it is entered into the Vault, after which it will be erased.
The Vault only validates that the credit card information entered has the correct sequence of numbers to be a credit card. It does not validate funds available or if the card number is active.
The Vault is a storage solution and not for processing. This means that if a user tries to charge the credit card on file through ThinkReservations they will get this error message:
Please consult with your in-house PCI Compliance Manager to ensure proper handling of all guest and credit card information.