Initial Decline Routing (IDR) is an optional feature which provides configuration to immediately reattempt a failed checkout payment while the customer is still within the checkout process.

Why reattempt Initial Declines

The goal of this feature is to improve checkout conversion by reattempting the customer on a new payment gateway to capture payment.

If a card declines with a specific Merchant, it could be a configuration setting within that Merchant account causing the decline. By immediately trying on a different merchant, that sale could be salvaged if successful.

Activate Initial Decline Reattempts

Within the Advanced Routing tab, check Reattempt Initial Declined

There are two configuration options with IDR:
1. Reattempt on a specific Merchant - if checked this will only reattempt once to a designated merchant that is selected in the dropdown. It will attempt on that merchant one time.
2. Reattempt within the router a set number of additional attempts - this will put the customer back into the router and reattempt on an available merchant, using router logic.

Reattempt Restrictions

When reattempting initial declines, you may want to add some restrictions so you are not reattempting within the exact same setup that will likely fail again, since it already failed.

For example, if a specific gateway declined a transaction because they are having timeout issues. You want to reattempt but avoid that Gateway and reattempt on a different Gateway - Reattempt Restrictions allow for this.

Setting	Defined
Reattempt Restrictions:	When checked, this will limit the payment router when selecting a merchant account for subsequent attempts for a customer. This applies to both Auto Reattempts as well as manual reattempts over the API.
Reattempt Restriction Type	Select the merchant account field to enforce restrictions. The payment router will skip a merchant account that matches this restriction for subsequent attempts for a customer. Learn more about Reattempt Restriction Type here.
Apply Reattempt Restriction to Route Only	When checked, this restriction will only use payment attempts on merchant accounts within this router. If unchecked, it will look for any payment attempt across all merchant accounts associated to the restriction type.
Allow Previous Merchant	When checked, this will allow a customer’s transaction to be reattempted to the same merchant account after already having a previous attempt on that same merchant account.

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Reattempt Restrictions
Pay attention when using reattempt restrictions, the Round Robin logic looks at the last attempted merchant in the list (ordered based on what you see on your Payment Router) and will continue down the list. If you have reattempt restrictions setup that make additional attempts bounce around on your router, the next new attempt 1 will pick up where the last attempt was left off. This could cause unbalanced distribution.
It is recommended to "Exclude Reattempts" when using reattempt restrictions

Reattempt Restriction Types

Reattempt Restrictions allow for you to set certain parameters in which to skip certain merchants for an initial decline reattempt.

Restriction Type	Defined
Gateway	When selected, an initial reattempt will not occur on the same Gateway as the original initial decline. If there are no additional Gateways available, there will be no reattempt, unless Allow Previous Merchant is checked, then it will reattempt on that same merchant.	Gateway is setup within the Merchant Account
Merchant Primary Category	When selected, an initial reattempt will not occur on a merchant with the same Merchant Primary Category as the original initial decline. If there are no merchants in an alternative Merchant Primary Category available, there will be no reattempt, unless Allow Previous Merchant is checked, then it will reattempt on that same merchant.	Merchant Primary Category is setup within the Merchant Account.
Merchant Secondary Category	When selected, an initial reattempt will not occur on a merchant in the same Merchant Secondary Category as the original initial decline. If there are no merchants in an alternative Merchant Secondary Category available, there will be no reattempt, unless Allow Previous Merchant is checked, then it will reattempt on that same merchant.	Merchant Secondary Category is setup within the Merchant Account.
Processor	When selected, an initial reattempt will not occur on a merchant with the same processor as the original initial decline. If there are no additional Processors available, there will be no reattempt, unless Allow Previous Merchant is checked, then it will reattempt on that same merchant.	Merchant Processor is a text field setup within the Merchant Account.