What's better UX in a payment rejection screen: provide just 2 main calls-to-action OR show links for all possible actions as shortcuts?

Question

The situation is this:

A cashier has placed a payment. For a successful transaction he sees the success confirmation and the corresponding invoice, BUT for a rejected transaction, he sees an error summary with the rejection description.

There are multiple payment methods involved (coupons, credit card and loyalty points redemption). Some of those methods were rejected.

There is a purchase amount to fill, let's say $400.

$100 were approved in Points. $200 were approved in Credit Card. $100 were REJECTED in Coupons (since the promotion ended at that same moment).

So, the cashier will have to ask the customer/shopper what to do. There are 4 possible actions here:

1. Reallocate methods or change amounts per method to fill the $400 in a different way. (result: cashier will be taken to the rejected method selection so he can use other coupons, or perhaps change other methods from there)

2. Edit the purchase amount ($400) to a lower value, to use other points available. (Put it on $350, to use other 50 points available). (result: cashier will be taken to the first screen where the $400 was entered before, and then place the payment again. The customer should pay the other $100 in cash later.)

3. Leave the options as they were, but place the order accepting the rejection to charge only the approved methods. (result: cashier will place the payment as it is now, without changing any previous selection, so only the approved $300 will be invoiced. They will have to handle the pending balance offline)

4. Abort the whole transaction and prevent charging the user.

The BIG QUESTION is: What is better for the cashier experience: show him the 4 possible buttons (Reallocate Methods; Edit Purchase Amount; Charge Approved Methods; Cancel Transaction) OR Show him just two main buttons (Reallocate Methods; Cancel Transaction), considering that the first button "Reallocate methods" will take the user back to the previous selection, and from there he can change the rest of the options?

I think the 4 options will be good as shortcuts but they can be confusing, putting the user in trouble with too many options to decide from (and also 4 options will take too much space). But perhaps a cashier needs efficiency and they will do this operation mechanically so they'll know the purpose of each button.

On the other hand, leaving just the 2 main options can be clear enough but complicate the cashier's process: to take a specific action the cashier may need to go back and do some other 2-3 clicks.

Any similar examples that you know of?

Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

One option (which I think is essentially what method 2 is doing) is to consolidate the "change" options into a single option, so the choice is between "make a change" and "cancel." I would just call the main call-to-action "Change Payment" or "Make a Change," etc., instead of "Reallocate Methods." Then you would give them all 3 change options on the next page if they click "Change Payment" (it sounds like this is already what happens).

This actually matches the first mental choice that the user is making before they click a button -- "Do I want to make a change or do I want to cancel?"