Glossary
Payment trace
A payment trace is the view of one payment's full history in order: the merchant's request and its data, the routing rule that fired, each terminal tried with its request, answer and reason code, 3-D Secure steps, callbacks received, status changes, webhooks sent and the merchant's responses, refunds and disputes, and every manual action with its author. It is built from the journal and is what a support agent, a merchant or an auditor opens to answer the question what happened to this payment.
What it answers
Why a payment was declined and by whom; whether the payer completed authentication; which provider finally approved it and what it cost; whether the merchant received the webhook and what it answered; when a refund went out and whether the provider confirmed it; who changed a status by hand and why. Each answer links to the raw record behind it.
Why it matters
Without a trace an investigation is a search across provider dashboards, logs and e-mails; with one it is a page. Merchants ask fewer questions when their cabinet shows the same trace, minus the data they may not see, and disputes are assembled from it in minutes.
On the platform
Tranzify builds the trace from the journal for every payment, payout and refund, shows it in the back office with the provider’s raw request and answer with credentials hidden, gives the merchant cabinet the merchant’s view of it, and keeps it for the journal’s five years.
Updated: 2026-11-08