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Use the Payment performance screen to see how your payments went through over a date range. It shows your approval rates, why payments were declined, what you can do about each cause, and where declines happen.

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Where to find it

In the admin sidebar, open Payments and select Performance. It’s the first item in the Payments group. To open the screen, your role needs View only or Full access for Payment Reports. On the Roles screen, Payment Reports is in the Commerce card. Open the card and set access from the Payment Reports area’s menu. The same permission opens Home, Transactions and Subscription Billing.

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What’s on the screen

The page header reads Payment performance. Below it, a row of filters controls every panel on the screen, so all the numbers you see describe the same payments.

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Filters

  • Date range: Yesterday, Last 7 days, Last 30 days (the default), Last 90 days, or Custom range. Last 7 days, Last 30 days and Last 90 days include today. Yesterday is the one most recent full day.
  • Payment flow: All payments (the default), Checkouts, or Subscription renewals.
  • Payment account: All payment accounts (the default), or one payment account. Each account shows its name and its gateway. The list offers the accounts that can take payments in the mode you’re viewing: active accounts, and inactive ones that had payments in the range.
  • Live or test payments: Live payments (the default) or Test payments. While you view test payments, a Showing test data badge appears at the end of the row. Switching between live and test sets Payment account back to All payment accounts, because the accounts differ between the two.
  • Country: if your company has more than one country, a country selector starts at All countries. Your default country is marked (default). With a country selected, only payments recorded for that country are counted, and amounts are in that country’s currency.
When you choose Custom range, a calendar opens. Click a start day and an end day. A range can cover up to 92 days, and days after today can’t be picked. The button next to Date range then shows the days you picked, and you can click it to pick again. Your filters are saved in the page’s web address. You can bookmark a view, or send the link to someone else on your team.

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Payment health

Payment health shows five figures for the range, with the dates and the period they’re compared with, for example compared with the previous 30 days. The comparison period is the same number of days, just before your range. Yesterday is compared with the day before. Under each rate, you see the counts behind it, for example 412 of 450 checkouts, and how far it moved since the comparison period, in percentage points (pts). Approved volume shows its change as a percentage. A rate shows n/a when nothing in the range got an answer. That’s different from 0%, which means every attempt was declined.

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Alerts

Between Payment health and Daily trend, up to four alerts point out what needs your attention, most serious first. Each is labeled by how urgent it is: Act now, Review, Note, or Good news. When there’s nothing to report, no alerts appear.

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Daily trend

Daily trend has two charts for each day in the range:
  • A line chart of Checkout success (solid) and Approval rate (dashed).
  • A bar chart of Approved attempts and Declined attempts.
Point at a day to see its numbers. A day with no answered attempts shows No attempts for its rates. If your range is a single day, you see Pick a longer range to see the trend.

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Why payments were declined

Below the Declines and breakdowns label, Why payments were declined groups your declined attempts by cause, largest first. Each cause shows how many declines it caused and its share of all declines, what it means, and what you can do. It also shows how many happened at checkout and how many on renewals. A badge marks some causes. Not caused by the shopper means the shopper’s card wasn’t the problem. Retries can help means a later attempt with the same card may be approved. To see the gateway’s own wording, click Gateway messages under a cause. It lists up to three of the most frequent messages, with how many declines each one caused. If nothing was declined, the card shows No declines in this range.

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Where payments succeed and fail

Where payments succeed and fail shows your approval rate split five ways. Click a tab to switch:
  • Payment account: each payment account, with its gateway.
  • Card brand: card payments only, such as Visa or Mastercard.
  • Payment method: Card, or the gateway for other payment methods.
  • Checkout vs renewal: Checkout and Subscription renewal.
  • Country: the country recorded on each payment. Payments with no country show as Not recorded.
Each row shows Attempts, Approval rate, Approved volume and Top decline cause, the cause behind most of that row’s declines. Top decline cause shows None when the row had no declines. A tab lists up to 8 rows. If there are more, the rest are added together in an Other row. A rate based on fewer than 20 answered attempts is greyed out, because a few declines can move it a lot. Point at it to see how many attempts it’s based on.

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Checkouts that tried many cards

Checkouts that tried many cards lists checkouts where the shopper tried 3 or more different cards. This card appears only when there’s at least one. It shows up to 10, those with the most cards first. Each row shows the Shopper email, Cards tried, Attempts, Declined, the Outcome and the Last attempt. Approved: review order means one of the cards was eventually approved. Review that order before you ship it. Not approved means none of the cards went through.

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How these numbers are counted

Click How these numbers are counted, at the bottom of the screen, to see how the screen counts:
  • An attempt is one charge request to the bank. Voids, refunds, capturing an earlier authorization, gateway status updates, and 0or0 or 1 card checks aren’t attempts. That’s why the approval rate here can differ from the Transactions page.
  • Approval is the bank’s answer. An authorization counts as approved when the bank approves it, before you capture it.
  • Attempts still waiting for an answer count in the totals, but not in any rate.
  • Days follow your browser’s time zone, which the note names. Amounts are in your company’s currency, or the selected country’s.

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Check how your payments are doing

1

Choose a range

In Date range, choose a range, for example Last 7 days. To check one full day, choose Yesterday.
2

Narrow the view

To look at one part of your payments, choose a Payment flow, a Payment account, or a country.
3

Read the alerts

Check the alerts under Payment health first. Click Show details on an alert to jump to the panel behind it.
4

Find the cause

In Why payments were declined, find the largest causes and follow the action shown for each. In Where payments succeed and fail, check whether one payment account, card brand or country has a lower approval rate than the rest.

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Check a test setup

To confirm that test payments go through before you go live, choose Test payments. The screen then counts only test payments, and the Showing test data badge appears. Choose Live payments to switch back.

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Loading and refreshing

While the screen loads, a placeholder shows where the panels will be. When you change a filter, the current numbers fade until the new ones arrive. The screen reloads its numbers every five minutes while it’s open, so the newest payments in your range appear without a page refresh. The range’s days are set when you open the screen. If you leave it open past midnight, reload the page to move the range forward.

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Frequently asked questions

Checkout success counts each checkout once, even when the shopper tried several times. Approval rate counts every attempt, so each retry that was declined pulls it down. The more your shoppers retry, the bigger the gap between the two.
This screen counts only charge requests to the bank. Voids, refunds, capturing an earlier authorization, gateway status updates, and 0or0 or 1 card checks aren’t counted here, but the Transactions page counts them.
No live payment got an answer in the range, the flow, the payment account or the country you chose. Try a longer range, or set the filters back to All payments, All payment accounts and All countries. If you’re still setting up, choose Test payments to check your test transactions.
If you open a saved link with a payment account that was since removed, you see Payment performance couldn’t load for this payment account. It may have been removed. Try again to show all payment accounts. Click Try again to show all payment accounts instead.
Performance appears in the Payments group only if your role has View only or Full access for Payment Reports, in the Commerce card. If you lose that access while the screen is open, it shows You no longer have access to payment performance. Ask an admin who manages roles to update your role. See Roles.
Processing error declines come from the gateway or the platform, not from your shoppers’ cards. If they keep happening, contact Fluid support.
Email Fluid support at help@fluid.app. The Getting help page lists what to include in your request.