The NetSuite Credit Card Soft Descriptors feature allows you to display soft descriptors on your customers’ statements for their transactions. In this article, we take a quick look at working with credit card soft descriptors in NetSuite.
Credit Card Soft Descriptors Overview
What do your customers see on their bank statements for their purchases from your company? If what they’re seeing is confusing or difficult for them to connect with their purchase, you might want to consider the NetSuite Credit Card Soft Descriptors feature. Credit card soft descriptors allow you to prerecord information that appears with transactions, including things like a specific company name, your company phone number, and a product name or description. This information allows your customers to quickly identify charges from your company.
Initial Setup
Let’s look at how to set this up in your NetSuite account.
Gateway Prerequisites
First, you need to be using one of two payment gateways: MerchantE or PayPal Payflow Pro. If you have the PayPal Payflow Pro gateway, you must be using either the Paymentech processor with it or the FDMS North processor.
Enable the Feature
If it’s not already enabled in your NetSuite account, you’ll need to enable the Credit Card Soft Descriptors feature, which you can find on the Payments section of the Transactions tab in Enable Features.
Creating Credit Card Soft Descriptors
To create credit card soft descriptors, navigate to Setup > Accounting > Financial Statements > Credit Card Soft Descriptors. Here, you can create a list of soft descriptors that will then be available for selection on item records.
When adding a new descriptor, use the Descriptor column to provide helpful company and product information. Because of varying limitations on credit card issuers, NetSuite recommends using no more than twenty characters total in the Descriptor column and avoiding special characters. Then, record the appropriate phone number in the Phone column. Use the Default checkbox if you want this Descriptor/Phone combination to be the default descriptor on all new item records. You can add as many soft descriptors to this list as you want. When you’re finished, hit the Save button.
Add Credit Card Soft Descriptors to Items
You can set a default soft descriptor that will be assigned to all new items, but what about existing items? You can either add descriptors to item records individually or using a mass update.
Individually Add Soft Descriptors
To add soft descriptors individually, pull up an item record and navigate to the Sales/Pricing tab. Here, use the Soft Descriptor dropdown under the Sales section to set the descriptor for this item. Whenever this item is on a transaction, NetSuite will display the designated soft descriptor on the customer statement.
Soft Descriptor Mass Update
To update the soft descriptor of a large group of items, use a mass update. Navigate to Lists > Mass Update > Mass Updates, expand the General Updates section, and select Inventory Item.
You can use the Criteria subtab on the mass update to ensure that the change applies to the appropriate inventory items. Then, under the Mass Update Fields subtab, locate the Soft Descriptor checkbox and dropdown fields. Select the checkbox to enable the Soft Descriptor dropdown, where you will choose the appropriate soft descriptor for this group of items. When everything is set with the mass update, hit the Save button to run it.
Conclusion
The NetSuite Credit Card Soft Descriptors feature allows you to have better communication and transparency with your customers on their statements. If this is a feature you would like to begin using in your account or if you have any other NetSuite needs, SuiteRep would love to come on board and help. Our diverse NetSuite experience enables us to provide NetSuite solutions tailored to your unique needs. Contact us to get the conversation started!