Reporting

Decline Analysisanchor

While we monitor your decline rates and will notify you if we see anything unusual, you can also proactively keep an eye on these rates. You can do this by first running an advanced search for all declined transactions, and then analyzing the results.

To search for declines:

  1. Log into the Control Panel
  2. Click on Transactions in the navigation bar
  3. Scroll to the Transaction Search section
  4. Under Status, leave only the box next to Processor Declined checked
  5. Adjust the date range as needed
  6. Click the Search button
  7. If you'd like to download a CSV file, click the Download button
note

If you aren’t finding the declines you expected and you’re using card verification, try running a verification search instead.

Analyzing the resultsanchor

The analysis process will be unique to your business, but in general, the more data you collect on customer transactions, the more helpful these results will be. For example, if you pass cardholder names or email addresses with transactions, you can often spot fake ones easily.

Processor responsesanchor

We find the easiest way to spot trends in your downloaded search results is to organize the data by processor response. You can do this by generating a pivot table filtered by Processor Response Text. For more information about what each processor response indicates, see our developer docs.

Keep in mind that repeated transaction attempts with the same payment method can skew your decline rates. You can remove duplicate values from your CSV to get a clearer picture of unique declines.

Bank identification numbersanchor

If you’ve noticed a spike in processor declines for your transactions, you can use the bank identification numbers (BINs) to identify trends in the declined cards.

Generate a pivot table of your decline data, filtered by First Six of Credit Card. You can then look up the BINs in a BIN database to see where they’re coming from. From there, you may be able to pinpoint whether the declines are specific to a card type, location, or possible prohibited transactions.

For example, if you find that 40% of your declines are coming from BINs connected to the same bank, you could contact the bank to see if they have had any processing issues that would explain the declines.

Reducing declinesanchor

You can generally reduce your decline rates due to fraudulent transactions by implementing Braintree’s Fraud Tools. Contact us if you have any questions or concerns.