A void is the cancellation of a payment transaction that has been authorised but not yet settled. When a merchant voids a transaction, the hold placed on the cardholder’s funds during authorisation is released, and the payment is effectively erased as though it never happened. Because the funds were never actually transferred, only reserved, a void does not trigger the interchange and processing fees that apply to settled transactions. This makes voiding the cleanest and most cost-effective way to cancel a payment, provided it is done before the settlement batch closes.
The window for voiding a transaction is limited. Once a payment has been captured and submitted for settlement, it can no longer be voided. At that point, the merchant must issue a refund instead, which is a separate transaction that incurs its own processing costs and takes additional time to appear on the cardholder’s statement. Because of this, merchants benefit from building void logic into their order management systems so that cancellations, inventory issues, or fraud flags detected before settlement can be handled as voids rather than refunds.
Common scenarios for voiding include order cancellations where the customer changes their mind before shipment, duplicate transactions caused by technical errors or double-clicks, and fraud prevention workflows where a risk engine flags a transaction after authorisation but before capture. In each case, voiding avoids the downstream complications of refunding a settled payment: no negative settlement entries, no impact on chargeback ratios, and no waiting period for the customer to receive their money back.
Shuttle Global lets platforms void an authorisation through one API call, whichever connected PSP took it, whether the authorisation was taken through Embedded Payments or Voice Checkout. Platforms do not need to know which PSP handled the original authorisation or how that PSP’s own void call works. This is useful in contact centres using Voice Checkout, where an agent may take an authorisation on the call, for example a deposit hold, and later need to cancel it: the void goes to whichever processor took the authorisation, and the hold is released. Only an authorisation can be voided; a completed payment is refunded instead.