Question

I need to be able to pass identifying information through to Authorize.net’s server so I can use this information when the confirmation comes back for logging purposes. We have information such as IDs for the items we sell on our site, and I’d like to have Authorize.net’s response include this information to plug into our database along with the rest of the transaction data that Authorize.net’s API natively supplies. Sort of like “merchant-private-data” in Google Checkout carts.

The only field I see that doesn’t hold some other specific information in Authorize.net’s API is x_description. My question is does the data in x_description get displayed to the customer at any point? The information I’d like to include is sensitive and not for customer’s eyes. I’ve been over the API documentation provided by Authorize.net and it’s not clear to me what is done with this field.

If this field is not private, is there a better solution to my problem which I am not seeing?

Answer 1

Dig through their list of API fields and see what you can use. If you want to build a list of line items, for example, look at their x_line_item field. If you’re using the AIM/CIM SDK and not telling Authorize.net to e-mail a receipt then I don’t see how the customer would see anything you submit to Authorize.net besides the charge on their credit card. If your customer does receive an e-mail directly from Authorize.net though, they will most likely see everything you submit. But double-check the docs I linked to be sure.