Level 2/3 Data Support
This feature is a Private Beta Release. Contact support to enable Level 2 and 3 support for your Test and Live site.
Credit card processing operates across three main levels: Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3.
- At Level 1, essential information such as the transaction amount and cardholder details is obligatory for payment processing.
- Moving to Level 2, all Level 1 data is transmitted along with additional details like taxation and customer information.
- Level 3 processing takes a more comprehensive approach by transmitting highly detailed information, including line item prices, tax specifics from invoices, order details, shipping information, and more.
The inclusion of Level 2 and Level 3 data allows businesses to provide additional payment details to issuing banks, processors, and other downstream systems in the payment process. This enhances tracking, monitoring, and risk assessment, making businesses eligible for reduced payment processing fees. Notably, Level 3 data qualifies for the lowest processing fees due to the extensive data sharing compared to Levels 2 and 1.
Note
- Level 3 data is not supported when Multi-decimal Support (MDS) is enabled in Chargebee. To avoid mismatches and ensure subscription updates proceed without errors, we recommend disabling Level 3 data in this scenario.
- Currently, we support sending Level 2 / Level 3 data only for Stripe.
Benefits of Level 2/Level 3 data for Stripe include
- Lower interchange fees: By providing more detailed information about a transaction, Level 2/Level 3 data can help qualify for lower interchange fees from credit card networks, which leads to merchants paying lower processing fees.
- Improved record-keeping: The additional information captured through Level 2/Level 3 data can help businesses keep more detailed and accurate records of their transactions, making it easier to track expenses and revenues.
- Enhanced security: Capturing additional details about a transaction can help prevent fraud and reduce chargebacks, as the additional information can be used to verify the legitimacy of a transaction.
Additional Eligibility Conditions for Lower Processing Fees
- It is eligible only for businesses with the B2B(Business to Business), B2G (Business to Government), and G2G (Government to Government) models only.
- It is eligible only for transactions involving card types like corporate, commercial, purchase cards, fleet cards etc. and card networks like Visa, Network, etc. Check with your payment gateway support team for support for other card networks.
- It is applicable only in the US.
- If the issuing bank finds the additional data inadequate, it may not pass on the benefit of a lower processing fee back to the payment gateways / Payment Service Providers (PSPs).
- It is applicable only for selected Merchant Category Codes (MCCs).
Check with your payment gateway provider for additional conditions if any and for a full list of eligibility conditions to qualify for lower processing fees with Level 2 and Level 3.
Prerequisites
Make sure you complete the following before configuring Level 2 / Level 3 data for Stripe in your Chargebee site:
- Level 3 feature needs to be enabled in Stripe before enabling Level 2 / Level 3 in Chargebee
- Make sure to get Level 2 / Level 3 data enabled for your Chargebee site. Reach out to Chargebee Support to enable it.
Configuring Level 2 / Level 3 Data in Your Chargebee Site
Follow the steps below to configure Level 2 or Level 3 Data in your Chargebee site:
Login to your Chargebee site .
Go to Settings > Configure Chargebee > Payment Gateways.
Click Stripe from the list of added gateways. If you haven't added and configured Stripe, click here to learn how to do that .
Click Manage to set up cards as a payment method.
Enable Send additional data (Level 2 and Level 3).
Click the Choose drop-down menu to select the desired level (Level 2 Data or Level 3 Data)of data as per your requirement.
Click Save.
Click Apply to save changes.
Fields for Level 2 / Level 3 Data
Each level has some defined set of fields that are required to be sent to the payment gateway as additional information. Let us have a look at the list of fields for both Level 2 and Level 3:
| Data Fields |
Level 2 |
Level 3 |
tax_amount |
Total tax amount |
Total amount of tax for the line item |
discount_amount |
Total discount amount |
Discount amount for the line item |
quantity |
A default value of 1 will be sent. |
Quantity of the line item |
description |
default text - "order_summary" |
Description of the line item |
product_details: unit_amount |
Amount before tax |
The unit amount of the line item |
product_details: product_sku or product_code |
product_sku: default text - "order_summary" |
product_code: Product code of the line item |
How Does This Work?
- Once a particular level is enabled, any future payments for an invoice will automatically include the additional data and be sent to the payment gateway for payment processing.
- If the issuing bank recognizes the additional data and it is one of the eligible transactions, then the gateway will pass on the benefit of a lower processing fee for that transaction.
- You need to check with the gateway to confirm the amount that got saved. In the case of Stripe, it may take a week or two to fully get the status of lower fee eligibility.
Note
- In case of multiple invoices attached to one payment (consolidated invoices), the total (aggregate) tax or discount amount value will be passed to Stripe with the transaction.
- In case of multiple payments associated with one invoice, the total or aggregate value of the tax or discount amount for that invoice will be passed to Stripe.
- If only a partial amount is getting collected for an invoice (for example if it was paid partially with credits), then the full details of the invoice amount, and line item details will be sent in Level 2 / Level 3 respectively and the discount field will be used to offset to the partial amount.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Question: In which scenarios, can I enable only Level 2 or Level 3 Data?
Answer: Level 3 data has a more granular data requirement which also includes Level 2 data, so when Level 3 is enabled, there is no need to send Level 2 data separately to a gateway. You can enable one of Level 2 or Level 3 based on the level of information you want to send.
- Question After enabling Level 2 / Level 3, is there any additional configuration needed?
Answer: If you have configured all required settings like taxation and collected all the necessary data from your customers like shipping address, etc. no additional configuration is required.
