Usage of Card on File, ~30 days payment request, expiry date of card on file

aleksandarm · September 13, 2022, 8:09am

Hi all,

I have few missing spots of information when it comes to storing card on file.

Here is my usage of it.
When user fills a form he is required to enter his card information using web payments sdk, the token (nonce) is generated and is sent to the backend. We will not make a payment in the first 30 days (or even 60 days) of when the user has entered his information on his card, or there is a possibility that we won’t make payment at all based on customers action. The customer is notified about this and it’s very clear if he will get charged, when entering his card information on UI.
I have found that only Card on File has a possibility to make a payment latter than 7 days.
My questions are:

How long will the card on file be valid for, does it expiry date (different one from the expiration date on the card)?
Since we are generating one-time-use payment token, does that mean that the card will be valid for only one payment and then will be inactive? And if the card becomes inactive does that mean the card is removed from the customer, when will it be removed?
Since the charging of the card will be in ~30 days and we have the amount that needed to be charged, is there a way to display that information on our frontend using square (open a some square pop up that is security compliant and on FE make the payment and complete or decline the payment when the appropriate time comes).
- And what’s the workflow here, if the payment is created and 7 days are passed from the cration and the payment becomes inactive (ref: https://developer.squareup.com/docs/payments-api/take-payments/card-payments/delayed-capture?preview=true) how to reactivate it?
- Is there a possibility to first create payment and after x days (x > 30) to complete the payment.

Thank you for your time, looking forward to hearing from you!

Bryan-Square · September 13, 2022, 4:05pm

When you save a card on file you’re able to charge the card till it expires or gets deactivated. The 7 days that you’re referring to is if you take a payment with a card and have the payment in an AUTHORIZED state. Currently Square can only keep a payment in an AUTHORIZED state for up to 7 days. Anything greater than 7 days you’ll want to save the card on file and charge it at a later date.

For displaying information on your front end you’ll want to use the Cards API and Customers API to get and display any information that’s stored in Square.

aleksandarm · September 14, 2022, 7:31am

Hi Bryan, thank you for your time and your response.
I have one more question .
When we store a card on file and charge it in about 30 days (following this tutorial Create a Card on File and a Payment), does the customer have to authorize the payment that we will create in ~30 days or is the initial authorization when the payment token was generated still valid, meaning no further actions from the customers are needed in order to make the payment.
And can we make multiple payments with different amounts using the card on file that we created from the payment token that we generated initially.

Bryan-Square · September 14, 2022, 4:29pm

Once you save the card on file no further authorization is required. When the time comes to charge the card on file you’ll use the customer_id and card_id in the CreatePayment request to charge the saved card on file. You don’t need to save the token that was used to generate the card on file. The source_id is a one time use token.