What Is a Transaction ID, and How Do You Find It?
Whether you’re buying supplies online, transferring funds, or engaging in financial activities, it’s essential to have a reliable way to track your transactions. That’s where transaction IDs come into play.
Transaction IDs are assigned to individual transactions to ensure they can be efficiently identified and tracked.
In this article, we’ll cover what a transaction ID is and how it’s used, best practices for managing transaction IDs, and how to find your transaction ID in Brite Payments.
What is a transaction ID?
A transaction ID (TXID) is a unique identifier assigned to a financial transaction between a customer and a merchant. It helps track and reference specific transactions for record-keeping, dispute resolution, customer support, and more.
The transaction ID serves as a reference key to retrieve data on information such as:
- Payment details
- Transaction status
- Merchant and customer information
- Authorisation and processing data
- Settlement and reconciliation
- Order and delivery information
Transaction IDs usually consist of 12-18 characters, including numbers and letters.
How are transaction IDs used?
Transaction IDs are most commonly used for tracking, reconciliation, and customer support. Here’s how they’re used for these purposes:
- Tracking: TXIDs can be used to track various things, including the status of individual payments – e.g., whether a payment is successful, pending, failed, or has been refunded. They’re also used to identify peak sales periods, popular products, and recurring customers to analyse sales trends over time. Finally, they can be used to identify unusual patterns or duplicates that could indicate fraud.
- Reconciliation: TXIDs can be matched with internal records to reconcile payments. Accounting software and payment platforms also use TXIDs as a reference point to automate the reconciliation process and reduce manual errors.
- Customer support: In customer support, TXIDs are used to locate specific customer transactions quickly and accurately. This helps investigate and resolve payment issues and provide refunds efficiently.
Aside from these purposes, transaction IDs are also used for things like payment verification, fraud detection and prevention, auditing and compliance, merchant settlement, and subscription and recurring billing management.
Best practices for managing transaction IDs
Managing transaction IDs properly is central to ensuring accuracy, security, and efficiency in the transaction process. Here are some best practices for managing transaction IDs:
- Maintain unique and consistent TXIDs: To prevent duplication of confusion, make sure each transaction ID is unique. Follow a consistent format across all systems for easy tracking and reconciliation.
- Store transaction IDs securely: Use encrypted databases to store transaction IDs and protect sensitive financial data, and restrict access to authorised personnel to prevent fraud and unauthorised changes.
- Implement a clear logging and retrieval system: Keep a well-structured transaction log for quick access during disputes or audits. Use searchable fields in your system to locate transactions efficiently.
- Link TXIDs to relevant data: For better tracking, link each transaction ID to key details such as customer name, date, amount, etc. Make sure transaction IDs are included in invoices, receipts, and financial reports for reference.
- Ensure TXIDs are shared securely: When sharing transaction IDs, avoid exposing them in insecure channels like e-mails or text messages. Always use secure portals for transaction-related queries.
- Keep TXIDs for compliance and auditing: To meet regulatory requirements and support financial audits, retain transaction IDs for the required duration. Make sure old transactions aren’t deleted but archived securely.
- Automate TXID management: Use payment management software to automate the generation, storage, and retrieval of transaction IDs. Set up alerts for failed or duplicate transactions.
- Regularly review & optimise the TXID process: Conduct periodic audits of transaction ID usage to identify inefficiencies or security risks. Remember to update internal policies as payment systems evolve.
How to find your transaction ID in Brite Payments
If you need to track a payment in Brite Payments, you can find the transaction ID (TXID) in three ways:
- From a Payment Session – When a customer starts a payment, a session is created. You can check the session details to see if a transaction ID has been generated.
- Using a Merchant Reference – If you assigned a unique reference to the transaction, you can search for it in Brite’s system. If the payment was processed, the transaction ID will be linked to that reference.
- Retrieving Transaction Details – If you already have the transaction ID, you can look up its status, amount, and other details to confirm the payment.
These steps help you quickly verify transactions and resolve any payment issues efficiently. If you would like to find out more information, check out our docs site or get in touch directly.
Want to know more about payments with Brite?
If you would like to know more about Instant Payments and Instant Payouts, then get in touch with the Brite Payments team. As a next-generation payments provider, Brite is at the forefront of modernising payments processes and merchant services.
