Payment glossary
The following glossary includes the terminology associated with payments within the Cleverbridge platform:
A
Account updater success rate
Orders with updated cards that were converted into successful renewals. This rate is calculated as follows: (paid orders with updated cards/orders with updated cards) * 100.
Attempted transactions
The count of payment attempts recorded during a purchase process specifically for card payments. Calculated by filtering purchase records to include relevant purchase statuses such as "New", "Authorized", "Paid", "Payment Declined", and "Cancelled".
Authorized orders
Orders that are submitted to and approved by a payment service provider/acquirer.
C
Card acceptance rate
The percentage of payment transactions successfully authorized by the Cleverbridge's payment system, that is the ratio of paid orders to the total number of attempted transactions over a period of time.
CC decline rate
Percentage of credit card orders declined by card issuers. The decline rate is calculated by dividing the number of declined orders by the total number of submitted orders.This metric includes all transactions that have been declined at some point and excludes chargebacks, refunds, and transaction-less purchase attempts (Purchase orders). This rate is specific to Visa, Mastercard, and American Express transactions.
CC net revenue
The same definition applies as the one used for Net Revenue but CC Net Revenue is specifically calculated for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
CC paid orders
The same definition applies as the one used for Paid Orders but CC Paid Orders is specifically calculated for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
CC submitted orders
The same definition applies as the one used for Submitted Orders but CC Submitted Orders is specifically calculated for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
Checked expired cards
Orders, where the related credit card expiration date was successfully updated based on Cleverbridge’s in-house BIN (Bank Identification Number) logic. This logic applies only to renewal payments.
Customer
Individual or business purchasing your product or service by placing an order through Cleverbridge. The customer is the end user of this product, as they are not allowed to resell the purchased products or services. A customer is unique per client. If a customer purchases products or services from two different clients, there are 2 separate records of said customer.
Customer currency
Currency in which the customer purchased the product, and consequently reflected on their invoice; alternatively referred to as the payment currency.
Card issuer country
Geographical location of the credit card issuer, referring to the location of the customer bank.
Chargeback
Credit card chargeback, typically referred to as chargeback, occurs when a customer successfully disputes a transaction on their bank report. Unlike a refund, where Cleverbridge proactively returns the amount to the customer, a chargeback involves the customer's bank automatically withdrawing the amount from Cleverbridge's account. Cleverbridge can contest illegitimate claims, but the card organization makes the final decision. Successfully contested chargebacks still contribute to the chargeback ratio.
Clearing interval
Frequency at which your clearing report and Self-Billing Invoice will be generated.
cSP
cSP stands for the Cleverbridge Service Provider model.
D
Dynamic retry
An order retry triggered at an optimal time determined by an AI-based mechanism. The time for a dynamic retry is defined within the period preceding the nearest static retry. This option can shorten the time before an order retry is initiated, and therefore increase the chances of a successful payment, boost the overall retry success rate and minimize involuntary churn.
E
Expiration date checker success rate
Share of orders with successfully updated expiration date using the expiration date checker that was converted into a successful renewal. This rate is calculated as follows: (paid orders with checked expired cards/order with expired cards checked) * 100.
F
Failed authorizations
Revenue or orders missed because of failed credit card authorizations. Failed authorizations can have valid reasons and may not be recoverable.
Fallback currency
Currency to which transactions convert if the Payment Service Provider (PSP) cannot process the original customer currency. Typically set internally, the fallback currency is often US Dollar.
Example If a customer makes a purchase in BRAZIL REAL (payment currency) but the PSP can only handle US Dollar, EURO, and Japanese Yen (presentment currencies), the transaction is submitted to the PSP in US Dollar (fallback currency). Consequently, Cleverbridge receives the funds from the PSP in US Dollar (settlement currency).
M
Merchant of record (MoR)
Entity, such as Cleverbridge, that holds legal title to goods or services and from which the customer purchases these goods or services.
N
Net revenue
Amount of net revenue generated by paid orders based on the exchange rate at the time of the transaction. All discounts and shipping costs are subtracted from the net revenue, while Cleverbridge fees and affiliate commissions are included in the net revenue.
O
Offline payment
Group of payment options that do not involve online transactions like direct debit, wire transfers, and checks. With the order confirmation, the customer receives a link with information on how to make the payment. Ordered products are delivered as soon as Cleverbridge receives payment confirmation from the payment provider.
Online payment
Group of payment options that do not require the customer to submit the payment in an extra step after submitting the order. Online payments include credit, debit cards, and digital wallets. With an online payment option, the product is delivered almost immediately (as soon as the payment is processed which usually does only take a few seconds).
Order
Agreement between a seller and a buyer to exchange goods and/or services for money. An order may contain multiple products and quantities, as well as involve various transactions. Details of multiple charge attempts, processing events, such as refunds, partial refunds, account update requests, credit card verifications are not visible on reports, as Cleverbridge reporting is done at the order level. A preorder authorization is considered an order on the Cleverbridge platform.
Order retry
An attempt to reprocess a failed payment. This can be a payment for an initial and recurring subscription, as well as a one-time purchase. The time between the payment failure and an order retry can be predefined with a schedule or calculated using an AI mechanism.
P
Paid orders
A paid order is a successfully processed order when payment is received, and information about product delivery is dispatched.
The Paid Orders metric covers one-time purchases, initial subscription payments, and recurring subscription payments. This metric encompasses all purchases that have been paid at some point, regardless of any subsequent chargebacks or refunds. Even in cases where there is a reversal of funds back to Cleverbridge, in form of refunds or chargebacks, or a cancellation, the purchase is still considered successful.
Paid orders with checked expired cards
Orders that were converted into renewals because their expiration date was successfully updated.
Paid orders with updated cards
Orders that were converted into renewals because their expiration date was successfully updated.
Paid re-routed orders
Successfully re-routed orders that were converted into renewals.
Paid retried order
A retried order that successfully resulted in a renewal or a paid order.
Passed authentication
The percentage of attempted transactions that have successfully completed the required 3D Secure authentication processes. The metric is calculated with an examination of the card payment transactions and assessment of their payment status and 3DS check results.
Passed fraud checks
The count of payment transactions that have successfully cleared fraud detection mechanisms and have been permitted to proceed. The metric is calculated by examining transaction records and verifying that the payment status does not indicate fraud-related blocks, such as "Order Declined in Manual Review", "Order Auto-Declined by System", "Order Blocked for Export Compliance", or "Declined in Manual Export Compliance Review".
Payment
Exchange of money for goods and services in an acceptable amount to the customer where the payment amount has been agreed upon in advance. The customer can only pay with an accepted payment method. Each payment has an individual payment cost.
Payment cost
Fees Cleverbridge pays to the payment service provider to process the payments for its business. The payment cost contains a fixed transaction cost and a variable percentage cost.
Payment country
Geographical location of the customer during the transaction.
Payment method
Actual payment method used by the customer to complete the purchase, for example, Visa, wire transfer, or SEPA Direct Debit.
Payment option
Set of payment choices displayed to the customer on the checkout page. Available payment options are based on the customer's GeoIP location and include different payment methods and types, for example, a Purchase order (PO) is a payment option we offer our B2B customers. POs are usually paid via the payment method of wire transfer.
Payment region
Grouped region into which multiple countries are consolidated based on the payment country. The following payment regions are available on the Cleverbridge platform: DOMESTIC (Germany), EUROPE, US, and ROW.
Payment service provider (PSP)
Third-party payment service provider for Cleverbridge, such as Adyen, Worldline, Worldpay, Braintree, which consolidates various payment methods into a single trust account. This account is used for collecting and aggregating payments, ultimately facilitating payouts to Cleverbridge as the designated merchant of record (MOR).
Payment status
Payments can have different statuses, such as Paid, Waiting for Payment, Quote, or Test Purchase. These statuses indicate the state of the payment process, such as whether it has been completed, is pending, or is a simulated test order.
Payment success rate
This metric reflects how many accepted and authorized payments are converted to paid orders. Paid orders include one-time purchases, initial subscription payments, and recurring subscription payments. In Payment Analytics, the payment success rate is calculated as the number of paid orders divided by the total number of authorized orders. This metric includes all purchases that were paid at some point. Payment success rate excludes chargebacks and refunds.
Payment type
Multiple payment methods consolidated into a group by the type of payment the customer uses, for example, Credit Card as a payment type that encompasses Visa, Credit Card, Master Card Credit, in short: all credit cards.
Payout currency
Currency in which you receive your payments from Cleverbridge. You can set more than one payout currency.
Payout interval
Frequency at which your payouts will be carried out.
Payout schedule
Schedule indicating the specific dates for the generation of your clearing reports, self-billing invoices, and the execution of your payouts.
Example If you set up your clearing report and payout to occur monthly for a clearing period from January 1st to January 31st. Then, your clearing report will be available on February 2nd, and your payout date is scheduled for February 16th.
Presentment currency
Currency in which the transaction is processed by the payment service provider (PSP). If the customer currency is not available for that PSP, then the fallback currency is used. Some PSPs refer to this as the submittance currency.
Purchase authorization Rate
Percentage of orders that are successfully approved by the card issuer. The authorization rate is calculated as the number of paid orders divided by the total number of submitted orders. It includes all purchases that were paid at some point and excludes purchases without a transaction (Purchase orders). The purchase authorization rate also excludes chargebacks and refunds. This metric is calculated for Visa, Mastercard, and American Express.
A purchase success rate of 100% would indicate that of 100 incoming orders, 100 led to a successful order that at some point switched to a Paid status. A purchase success rate of 50% therefore would mean that of 100 incoming orders, 50 were successfully processed and paid at some point, whereas the other half would have not been successful (like when the customer doesn’t complete the 3D Secure process or their PayPal payment.
R
Re-routed orders
Orders that are routed and delivered to secondary acquirers, because the initial attempt to deliver those orders to primary acquirers failed. An acquirer is a bank or financial institution that processes credit or debit card payments on behalf of Cleverbridge. This tool applies to both initial and recurring subscription payments, as well as one-time purchases.
Re-routing success rate
Share of successfully re-rerouted orders that was converted into renewals. This rate is calculated as follows: (paid re-routed orders/rerouted orders) * 100.
Recovered renewal revenue
Revenue recovered by Cleverbridge revenue retention tools that would otherwise be lost due to failed credit card authorizations. Revenue retention tools include Account Updater, Expiration Date Checker, Dynamic Re-Routing, and Retry Logic.
Refund
Reimbursement of funds to the customer by the reselling entity (Cleverbridge GmbH or Cleverbridge Inc.) or the service provider. It can be full or partial. Customers usually request refunds through customer support or self-service. Details depend on your refund policy.
Renewal recovery rate
Revenue or orders recovered by Cleverbridge revenue retention tools divided by total revenue or missed orders because of failed credit card authorizations. Failed authorizations can have valid reasons and may not be recoverable. This rate is calculated as follows: (recovered renewal revenue / potential revenue loss) * 100.
Retried Order
An order to which at least one order retry (successful or not) has been applied.
Retry success rate
The share of paid retried orders in the total number of order retries. This rate is calculated as follows: (paid retried orders / order retries) * 100.
Revenue retention tool uplift
Represents the percentage increase in revenue or orders achieved by leveraging Cleverbridge’s retention tools such as Account Updater, Expiration Date Checker, Dynamic Re-Routing, and Automatic Retry.
S
Self-Billing invoice
Invoice document generated for accounting purposes, detailing the final payout amount for a specific clearing period.
Static retry
An order retry performed at set time following a predetermined schedule.
Submitted orders
Include successfully created orders for which payment details were received by the payment processor. Submitted orders include all transactions that were successfully submitted at some point. Transactions associated with chargebacks and refunds are excluded.
T
Tax payout currency
Currency in which Cleverbridge pays taxes to the national financial authorities.
Transaction
Record of any event affecting the financial account of an order. It can include payments, but also other events, such as refunds, chargebacks, cancellations, and adjustments requested by the customer.
Transaction status
Transactions can have different statuses, such as Success, Error, Rejected, Pending, or Unknown, which describe the outcome or current state of the transaction process.
U
Updated Cards
Orders where the related credit card information was sent to the credit card companies and requests up-to-date card details, as the renewal takes place soon and the account updater identified outdated credit card information related to that order. This tool applies only to renewal payments.