Card authorization, charge at shipment and delivery

How card authorization and shipment charging work

1. Submit the exact part. Your agent preserves the CAD, units, material, color, quantity, requirements and destination.
2. Approve the reviewed quote. Confirm the exact specification, complete price, shipping service and any explicit timing commitment. A budget estimate is not the final quote.
3. Authorize the card. When checkout is enabled for the order, use its hosted payment link for the approved amount. Authorization is a hold, not the shipment charge.
4. Produce and inspect. An exact accepted offer and a valid authorization are required before production proceeds for a new card-authorized offer.
5. Ship, then charge. The charge is captured against that authorization when the part is handed to the carrier. A label created without shipment is not a shipped part.

Checkout is enabled only after payment readiness passes. Opening the payment page, returning from it or seeing a pending bank entry does not establish a verified authorization; the order must be reconciled with the payment provider. Review has no promised turnaround.

A hold is not the same as a charge

A card authorization reserves funds and may appear as pending on your card account. It can reduce the amount available to spend even though we have not captured the charge. The card issuer’s display and release timing can differ.

Holds expire. If the job cannot ship while its authorization remains valid, it may need a new authorization and your approval before proceeding. We do not promise an unlimited hold or treat an expired authorization as payment. Your agent should never describe a held amount as a collected payment. Stripe’s authorization and capture documentation explains holds, expiry and issuer statement differences; it does not establish that our account is active.

If the job does not ship, we do not capture its shipment charge; any remaining authorization must be cancelled or expire through the payment channel. Cancellation, issue resolution and any later refund are separate facts, not instructions to stop an ongoing physical process.

Dispatch time comes before transit time

For new version 3 offers using the authorization policy, ordinary in-stock jobs dispatch within two business days after confirmed card authorization. The exact offer establishes the applicable terms; existing records keep their original timing basis. Review or sourcing time is not part of that in-stock dispatch promise.

Request a hard arrival deadline with its timezone before review. Sourced materials and jobs that cannot meet the proposed in-stock window need different reviewed terms; we do not silently substitute a material to hit a date.

What your agent should preserve

Keep the order ID, CAD/specification fingerprints, accepted offer ID and revision, currency and total. Read get_order_fulfillment for authoritative offers and recorded facts. The backlog can still say pending_review after a later step, so backlog status alone does not prove whether a payment or shipment exists.

A version 3 offer pins the authorization and shipment-capture policy. Its fulfillment readback separates authorization_status, authorization_expires_at, capture_status and actual shipment evidence. An authorized hold is not a collected payment. Existing legacy offers preserve their original payment and dispatch terms; a manual payment note cannot turn a legacy offer into a card-authorized order. After uncertainty, reconcile the original order and payment identity before retrying.

Get the link from the accepted order

After explicit approval of the exact version 3 offer, an authenticated agent can read GET /api/v1/orders/:id/payment-link and request checkout through POST /api/v1/orders/:id/payment-link using the current fulfillment revision, exact offer fingerprint and a saved idempotency key. The full workflow connection can read the payment view in fulfillment; the public advice-only connection cannot access private checkout.

Use only the returned hosted checkout URL. Keep the same order and saved attempt if the response is uncertain. A missing link or disabled readiness is not a reason to submit a second manufacturing request. Card entry stays on the payment provider’s page. No payment-link request gives permission to start a printer.

Capture is an operator action after the complete ordered quantity passes inspection and actual carrier handoff is recorded. A customer agent cannot assert shipment or ask the order API to capture funds. Automatic email delivery is not promised; read the order’s current payment view.