About Elavon

Elavon is the merchant account provider and only involves card transactions. Elavon processes and approves the transaction, handles the transfer of funds from the purchaser, and deposits the funds to the financial institution. You may hear Elavon referred to as “MSP” or “Merchant Account”. Please note these terms are all interchangeable. 

Authorize.net and Elavon are tightly integrated. For card transactions, Authorize.net takes the information from the card and encrypts it to make sure the transaction is secure. Because of this, you will see a record of all card transactions in Authorize.net and the corresponding status of the charge (settled, declined, etc.)

While Elavon is only involved in card funding, Authorize.Net acts as the terminal in the transaction for both card transactions and external bank funding. Elavon is a standard third-party vendor (TPV) and integration with this vendor is required for all customers using Narmi's Account Opening product that would like to enable account funding via credit/debit cards. 

The Elavon Administrator Platform can be found here.

How Elavon Works

If a new account in the Account Opening flow is funded via debit or credit card, Elavon is involved in the following flow:

After selecting a credit/debit card as the funding method, the applicant will be prompted to enter their card information for initial funding.

Once the card details are submitted, Narmi sends the following info to Authorize.Net:

• Card Number
• Cardholder Name
• Expiration Data
• CVC
• Billing Zip Code

Next, Elavon will:

• Process and approve the transaction
• Handle the transfer of funds from the purchaser and deposit the funds to the financial institution

Both Elavon and Authorize.Net charge fees for processing card and ACH funds. Learn more about fees here. 

Example Timeline

Monday

• Debit Card Transfer by Customer A
  • A $75 deposit is made into the new account along with a 3-day hold
  • The deposit is offset against GL Account 749150001
• Credit Card Transfer by Customer B
  • A $105 deposit is made into the new account along with a 3-day hold
  • The deposit is offset against GL Account 749150001

Tuesday

• $180 is released by Elavon
• This is ACH’d from Elavon to the Banker’s Bank or Corporate CU account

Thursday

• The holds in the newly created accounts from Monday automatically expire periodically
• Accounting reconciles GL account 749150001 with the funds received from Elavon and Authorize.Net
• Accounting books the processing fee expenses (monthly for Elavon, daily for Authorize.Net)

Periodically

• Accounting reconciles GL account 749150001 with the funds received from Elavon and Authorize.net
• Accounting monitors Authorize.net and Elavon for return and chargeback activity
• Accounting books the processing fee expenses to the appropriate line item