When does a credit card order process?

When someone orders online, I am wondering how it works.

Does it charge them immediately or is there a way to verify funds and wait to bill once their order is shipped?

Any info on how this works would be great!

I have an account with authorize.net.

Thanks!

If you are using a gateway like authorize.net, the buyer should be charged immediately.

To add to afo's comment, if you're using an interactive gateway to process transactions, you can usually do an immediate "capture" or you can "authorize only" and then do a manual capture later when the order ships.
Authorize.net allows this approach.

Ok, we do have Authorize.net. I do see you can set it to "Authorize" or "Authorize/Capture".

Is there some way that Zen Cart would first only authorize the order, then once we actually click the order as "shipped" in Zen Cart admin, it would then capture the order?

At the present time, if you want to Capture after initially authorizing, you'll have to do that step manually.

Damn, I was afraid of that.

It would be sooooo nice if it didn't capture until AFTER we set the order to shipped!

You can still set it to auth-only before shipping.
But, you'll have to still capture separately.

Yeah, I understand the process as it stands now.

It would be groovy if zen cart had the ability to authorize and then capture only after order is verified as being shipped by an admin.

Maybe someday...

What version of Zen Cart are you using?