How to Select a Payment Processor

2. Stale authorizations. VISA’s authorizations expire after seven days; MasterCard’s after 30. If it takes you longer than that to ship an order or a back order, get a second authorization. Does your service or system do this automatically?

By the way, back-order processing assumes that you charge or deposit the customer’s funds upon shipment. While this is the safest method (and the one used by most direct-commerce merchants for safety’s sake), it’s not technically required, so long as you process and ship orders in a timely fashion (i.e., within 24, 36 or 72 hours).