Why your on-line bank statement will indicate a higher dollar amount shortly after a Credit Card transaction at The Vanilla Bean Café…
When a credit card is ‘swiped’ for authorization the money is temporarily ‘held’ by your bank until the transaction is finalized. Restaurants differ from most establishments in that the amount that is authorized is not the amount that will be finalized. This is because of the cultural practice of tipping servers.
So… What the credit card companies do to remedy this is to ad a percentage to the authorized amount. For example, if the transaction total is $25.00, the credit card may be authorized for $30.00.
The reason for this is that each time a credit card has to be authorized for a sale, the vendor receives a charge. To eliminate this double charge for the restaurant industry (once for the check amount and once more for the tip amount), the practice of authorizing for the expected tip was put into place.
This authorized amount will be ‘held’ on a person’s credit card until the transaction is finalized through their own banking institution. This can take anywhere from 1 to as many as 7 days to happen.
The Vanilla Bean Café finalizes all of its credit card transactions at 3:00 am each day. The amount that is indicated on your register receipt is the amount that will be charged to your credit card. The amount you see on your on-line statement is the amount that has been ‘held’ until the transaction finalizes with your banking institution. When you get your printed statement in the mail or your on-line monthly statement, the charge will appear exactly as your receipt indicates.
This all happens independently of my business, in other words, I have no control over this in any way. Because I am classified as a restaurant in the credit card industry this is how they will handle authorizations. Even though tipping is not a common practice in the segment of the industry called fast-casual (of which The Vanilla Bean Café is part), there are some people who do leave a tip on their credit card.We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused you. If you have further questions please email us at info@thevanillabeancafe.com
The Vanilla Bean Café Management
