Marketplace - Payment Activity Dashboard

The Payment Activity Dashboard is a combination of widgets: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), focused metric tables, graphic displays of your data, data tables that can be quickly exported to a spreadsheet for further analysis. The data displayed on the dashboard is intended to give you insights into order payment trends, payment declines and categories of declines, and geographic views of payment risks, failures and successes.  This dashboard is based on payment date, which is different from a number of other dashboards that you can access.  These metrics are most helpful when viewed over a series of months; you are able to filter the dashboard based on payment date, and also by mail class using the filters to the right of the dashboard. If your business model includes local delivery, such as same day delivery or Buy Online Pickup In Store (BOPIS), you will be able to filter the dashboard to those areas to review a more specific section of your business.

You will see a link to this document in the heading of the dashboard, click on Dashboard Help to access the document.

KPIs

At the top of the dashboard you will see a series of Key Performance Indicators reflecting your overall payment declined rate, the number of orders that had a payment decline, the number of orders processed and the number of orders that had a decline and also a successful payment.  The declined rate combines all payment types & reasons, and although some declined payments are then corrected (for example, an incorrect number entered), you will want to monitor this rate over time as it contributes to lost sales.  The number of orders that had a payment declined can be offset by the orders that failed and were then successful - in the example below roughly 25% of the declined payments were then corrected.

Trending Graphics

Below the KPIs you will see how your declined rate is trending over time - you control the length of time with the filter to the right of the dashboard.  You can see both the % of orders declined as well as the # of orders declined.  You will want to pay attention to both of these metrics, as your rate may very well remain stable, while a robust, or slow month in sales orders could result in higher, or lower numbers of declines.  If you make changes to the type of payments accepted, or to your payment processing, you will be able to monitor the results here. Once you identify anomalies in your trend, you are able to drill deeper into the reasons and geographic areas further down in the dashboard.  You are able to see these trend lines for a specific state by clicking on that state in the maps below. In the graphic below your declines rates you will see the numbers of payments and declined payments by payment type. If you hover over the descriptions in the legend you will see specific types come into focus while the others fade.  Likewise, you are able to click on the descriptions to turn them on and off.  

An additional chart shows the major categories of payment declines, by payment type.  Note that a complete list of payment failures is listed in a data table, however, this particular chart displays only the major categories such as insufficient funds to help you identify patterns that impact your business the most - and it allows you to see those patterns by payment type.  You might have opportunities within a single payment type to make improvements to your overall business.  

Geographic Views

The maps on this dashboard are focused on the Continental U.S. to help you focus where the vast majority of your business transacts.  Activity outside of this area is included in the data tables.

You will see geographic views of the number of orders with payments, and with payment failures; as you hover over the circles inside each area, you will see relevant metrics displayed.  The size of the circles on these maps represents the number of orders - you can easily notice the areas where orders are robust and where they are slim.  The maps are positioned so that you can see both payments and payment failures at the same time. You can expect where you have large numbers of orders that the number of payment failures will also tend to be large in comparison to other geographic areas and vice versa - this is where you will compare the size of the circles. It's also important to understand the percentage of orders that experience payment failure - a high percentage can be an indicator of risk, and even when the actual number of failed payments might be low, a high percentage of failure still needs to be considered. You can see by color code where the percentages of payment failure occurs. Sometimes a high percentage of payment failure is simply a factor of a small number of orders with reasonable failure causes - it is important to understand the numbers involved in the rates so you can determine where efforts should be placed. You will want to look at the metrics inside the circles as you hover - the number of orders that had a failure, % of orders with failure, and number of orders that had a failure and eventually succeeded are all noted here. Remember that some payment failures are due to unavoidable processing errors instead of reasons like insufficient funds - in a different metric table you can see how all of these are allocated in numbers.  Once you identify areas of concern, you are able to export the relevant data from the tables in the dashboard and dig deeper into the specific orders, geographic areas, and other important characteristics.

Risk

You will also see a geographic view where orders associated with risk have been identified.  Again, the size of the circle represents the number of orders in this category, and there is a color coded legend that reflects percentages of orders that have been identified.  As with payment failure metrics, you will want to consider both the number of orders associated with risk, and the percentage of overall orders. There is a chart to the right of the map that reflects all States, even outside of the Continental U.S.; this is otherwise simply a chart form of the data included in the map. When comparing percentages of orders in categories such as this, it is often best to do so with a wide date range to capture meaningful metrics. Once you identify areas of concern from a wide range, you can use the date filter to the right of the dashboard to look at those areas in smaller timeframes, notice patterns and begin to dig deeper into the data.

Below is an explanation of how risk metrics work in FieldStack:

If the system flags an order as Risk, it will be assigned to your eCommerce location.   Once you've evaluated the order you have two options, Cancel the order or Transfer the order to a store for fulfillment.  Transferring the order to a store for fulfillment is all you need to do to let the system know you are satisfied the order is legitimate.    There are several factors, customizable at the client level that determine an order's risk score.   Below is a sample setup:

• Shipping/Billing Address variation:  If the shipping zip code is different than the billing zip code and order is over a certain amount you can have this flag the order as Risk (e.g. +100 risk score)
• Credit Card AVS score - Certain AVS results can trigger a risk score (e.g. an NNN, XXS and XXE  = +100)
• Successfully shipped to address multiple times in the past.  If the customer has more successful orders than cancelled orders and had at least 2 successful orders (-100) .  This could offset a risk score set by another step
• Address matches the address of previously closed account.   If you've closed a reseller's account and they attempt to reopen a new account, this logic could get hit (+100)
• Lots of cancellations - If customer has had at least 2 cancellations and overall have had twice as many cancellations as successful orders (+105)
• Delivery Method - If customer chooses Same Day Delivery we assume they're not fraud (-101)

Focused Metrics

There are tables that reflect your payment activity by type, in total as well as where risk was identified.  Here you will want to look for trends in the numbers and understand both where efforts are needed to mitigate risk and where efforts have been successful or not.  Your overall volumes of business will dictate to some extent the trends of payment activity; be sure to consider this, especially seasonally, as you review these tables.  You might notice certain forms of payment trending up or down, and will want to understand how that will affect your associated expenses like processing fees. You might notice that refunds are trending in a different direction from payments - this warrants further scrutiny in the granular data. 

The next table reflects the number of orders in each category of payment type, and includes payment notes that further describe the activity.  It is here that you will see trends for the major payment decline areas in the earlier trending graphics, along with more minor activity such as processing issues. The table lays out metrics on a monthly basis so you can make comparisons from multiple areas as they trend.

Exporting the Data Tables

The data table at the bottom of the dashboard is a granular listing of what is represented in the dashboard.  The table will react to filters set as you are viewing the dashboard, so you are able to see more details about what is impacting the results. There may be times when you want to look at this data, filtered or not, in a spreadsheet or image.  By left-clicking on the 3 dots at the top right corner of the table widget, choose Download and export an image or file.  The recommended file type for a spreadsheet is CSV.  This functionality allows you to shape and model your data for reporting, and importantly to inform your business decisions.