> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.vortexiq.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# CyberSource audit profile, Vortex IQ

> What the Vortex IQ CyberSource health audit checks: CyberSource: keep approvals high, decline mix healthy, disputes bounded

**[Nerve Centre KPIs](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cybersource) · [Audit Profile](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cybersource/audit) · [Sentiment Settings](/nerve-centre/kpi-cards/cybersource/sentiment)**

CyberSource-specific health audit. Answers four questions: (1) is the authorisation success rate healthy and is the decline-reason mix free of a dominant soft-decline; (2) is Decision Manager / 3DS friction tuned right (not over-blocking, not under-protecting); (3) are refunds and chargebacks within network thresholds; (4) is settlement batching on schedule. The cross-channel area joins decline and dispute signals to the commerce-sibling checkout funnel and fulfilment status to size live revenue at risk.

## What this audit checks

### Authentication & access

* REST API shared-secret (key id + secret) is live-mode for production merchants
* Merchant ID + API host (api.cybersource.com vs apitest) correctly classified
* Roles cover Transaction Search (tss), Reporting (reporting/v3), refunds and settlement
* Report subscriptions enabled for settlement + dispute reports

### Transaction health

* Authorisation success rate above 92% baseline
* Decline reason mix - no single soft-decline reason code > 25% of declines
* Soft-decline retry / account-updater recovering > 25% of recoverable declines
* Top declining issuers (BIN-level) identified for a recovery playbook

### Decision Manager & 3DS friction

* 3DS challenge abandon rate \< 25% (otherwise review challenge routing)
* Decision Manager reject rate not surging > 50% vsP (sudden tightening can mask an outage)
* Frictionless vs challenge mix healthy for the merchant's risk profile
* Manual-review queue age within SLA (stale reviews leak revenue)

### Refunds & chargebacks

* Refund rate not spiked > 50% vs the 7-day baseline
* Chargeback rate below 0.9% (90% of the Visa 1% cap) on a 90-day window
* Pending dispute response time \< 5 days
* Top dispute reason codes flagged for prevention

### Settlement & payouts

* Settlement batches submitting on schedule (no stuck batch)
* No payout / settlement pending > 5 days vs the typical cycle
* Capture-to-settlement reconciliation matches authorised totals

### Cross-channel: revenue protection

* Decline-driven checkout-funnel drop (sibling = shopify/bigcommerce/adobe.checkout\_step\_completion\_rate falling concurrent with cybersource.decline\_rate spike)
* Dispute-to-fulfilment correlation (sibling = shipbob/commerce.shipment\_delayed\_orders converting to not-received disputes)
* Recoverable revenue forecast (soft-decline value \* sibling.avg\_repurchase\_rate \* retry success rate)

## Severity thresholds

| Signal                      | Warn | Critical |
| --------------------------- | ---- | -------- |
| `decline_rate`              | 6    | 8        |
| `authorization_rate`        | 92   | -        |
| `dispute_rate`              | 0.9  | 1.0      |
| `refund_rate`               | 5    | 8        |
| `payout_age_days`           | 3    | 5        |
| `threedsecure_abandon_rate` | 25   | 40       |

## Data sources

* `POST https://{api_host}/tss/v2/searches` - Transaction search across timeframes (auth, capture, refund, void)
* `GET https://{api_host}/reporting/v3/reports` - Settlement, conversion-detail and dispute reports
* `GET https://{api_host}/risk/v1/authentications` - 3DS / Payer Authentication outcomes for friction analysis
* `GET https://{api_host}/pts/v2/refunds` - Refund history for refund-rate baseline