Glossary
Reason code
A reason code is the coded explanation attached to an answer: an authorisation response code says why a payment was declined, insufficient funds, do not honour, lost or stolen card, authentication required; a chargeback reason code says why a cardholder disputes a payment, fraud, goods not received, not as described, duplicate, credit not processed. Codes differ by scheme and are extended by acquirers and providers, so a platform maps them to one classification and keeps the original for support.
Decline codes
The schemes define response codes; issuers choose which to return and often hide the real reason behind a generic one. Codes split into soft reasons, which another attempt may overturn, and hard ones, which must not be retried, and the schemes’ reattempt rules refer to specific codes. Providers add their own codes for risk rules, limits and technical failures.
Chargeback codes
Visa groups them into fraud, authorisation, processing errors and consumer disputes; Mastercard has its own numbering; each code sets the evidence the merchant must present and the time it has. Monitoring programmes count fraud-coded chargebacks separately.
On the platform
Tranzify stores the provider’s original code and text with every answer in the journal, maps codes to soft and hard declines for the cascade in each adapter, shows decline and chargeback reasons per terminal and merchant in the reports, and gives the support team the raw code in the trace.
Updated: 2026-11-08