Shift Finance

Shift Finance is a payment gateway for Australian businesses that processes credit card and alternative payment transactions. Use this integration to accept Shift payments at checkout and on invoice payments, with support for authorization-only or immediate capture workflows.

How to set it up

Where to find it: Admin → Payments → Add Processor → Shift

When you'd use this: When you want to accept payments through Shift's payment gateway for checkout or invoice payments.

What you need first:

• Active Shift merchant account
• API key from Shift
• Your Australian Business Number (ABN)
• Store name and URL configured in CommerceBuild
• Payment processor enabled in your CommerceBuild admin

Set it up:

1. Navigate to Admin → Payments
2. Click Add Processor and select Shift
3. Enter your API key in the apiKey field
4. The system automatically includes your ABN, store name, and store URL in API requests
5. Configure whether you want to capture payments immediately or authorize first and capture later
6. Save the configuration

Configuration options

Field	What it does	Default	Required
apiKey	Your Shift API key for authenticating requests	None	Yes
ABN	Your Australian Business Number, included in the User-Agent header	None	Yes
storeName	Your store name, included in the User-Agent header	None	Yes
storeURL	Your store URL, included in the User-Agent header	None	Yes

Using it day-to-day

At checkout:

1. Customer selects Shift as their payment method
2. The system begins payment authorization and prevents duplicate attempts if the customer refreshes the page
3. If the Shift account has two-factor authentication enabled:
   • Customer is redirected to the Shift portal to complete verification
   • After successful verification, they're returned to your store
   • The payment appears in the order with the authorization reference
4. If the Shift account has two-factor authentication disabled:
   • Payment authorization completes automatically without redirection
   • Payment is confirmed immediately and the customer stays on your store
   • The payment appears in the order with the authorization reference
5. For authorize-only mode, you'll need to manually capture the payment later

For invoice payments:

1. Customer or admin initiates payment on an open invoice
2. The system processes the payment through the configured operation (immediate capture or authorization)
3. The payment reference appears on the invoice
4. For authorize-only mode, manually capture the payment when ready to fulfill

For partial order fulfillment:

1. A customer places an order and Shift authorizes the full amount at checkout
2. You invoice the order for less than the original authorized amount (for example, due to insufficient stock)
3. The system automatically captures the invoiced amount from the authorization
4. The remaining authorized amount is automatically voided to release the hold on the customer's payment method
5. This only applies when using "authorize at checkout, capture on invoice" configuration

Manual operations available:

• Capture a pre-authorized payment: Use the paymentCapture operation to capture an existing authorization
• Capture part of a pre-authorization: Use the paymentAuthCapture operation with the authorization ID to capture a specific amount
• Void an unused authorization: Use the paymentAuthVoid operation to release a pre-authorization (automatically includes the reason "No more captures to be done")

Troubleshooting

• "Payment is being processed" message appears — Another authorization attempt is already in progress. The page will automatically update when processing completes (typically within a few seconds). The system prevents duplicate authorization attempts during this time, so the customer cannot trigger a second authorization while the first one is still processing. If the message persists for more than 2 minutes, refresh the page or contact support.

• Authorization completes but capture fails — The system saves the valid authorization reference even when Shift returns multiple responses during retry attempts. Verify the authorization ID was saved correctly and attempt the capture again. The system correctly saves non-zero authorization references to prevent capture failures.

• Specific Shift error messages at checkout — When a payment can't be processed, the system displays the specific reason from Shift (such as "Total purchase amount exceeds your available balance") rather than a generic error. Customers should check their Shift account balance, payment limits, or contact Shift support based on the specific message shown.

• Invoice attempts to capture twice — The system prevents duplicate capture attempts for the same invoice by checking for existing payment records and queuing concurrent requests. If you see a failed capture marked with "empty amount" or "duplicate-capture rejection" in the gateway logs, the system has already successfully captured the payment on the first attempt and blocked the duplicate. Verify the payment status in Shift's portal to confirm the single successful capture.

• Duplicate orders created from single checkout — If multiple orders appear with the same pre-authorization reference, this indicates a duplicate submission issue. Only one order should be processed per authorization. Contact support to void the duplicate orders.