ORIGINAL COMPANY-CONTEXT PRACTICE
Handle authorization reversals that arrive out of order
Original practice scenario: A hypothetical payment network receives an authorization, retries, a partial capture and a reversal in different orders. Design a record model for the remaining hold.
Written for independent practice using company context; this is not a verified question from a company interview.
A REASONED APPROACH
Model answer.
Model authorizations, captures and reversals as identified events with stated relationships. Compute remaining exposure from valid state transitions rather than overwriting one mutable status field.
Work through it
- Assign stable message identities and retain the original authorization reference, amount and currency; deduplicate equivalent retransmissions without merging different adjustments.
- Define which captures and reversals are permitted against the authorization and how partial amounts, expiration and unmatched messages are represented.
- Apply updates consistently within the relevant account or authorization boundary, retaining a reconciliation queue for late or missing references and auditable correction events.
Tradeoffs to discuss
- Immediate provisional handling improves responsiveness, but final reconciliation needs clear authority when counterparties disagree or messages are missing.
Common pitfalls
- A reversal of an already captured amount is not automatically the same operation as releasing an unused hold.
- Reject cross-currency arithmetic unless an explicit conversion contract applies.