Process Credit Card Later Without Authorize method on Gateway - Rails 3

I'm working on processing credit card orders only if a certain quantity of a deal are met. (Think Groupon). I'm using ActiveMerchant in my rails app.

Processing orders after minimum order met - Rails 3

The gateway I'm using only (Eway) which 开发者_JS百科doesn't support the authorize method.

http://activemerchant.rubyforge.org/classes/ActiveMerchant/Billing/EwayGateway.html

Can this be done without storing credit card details in the database and without an authorize method from the gateway or do I need to find an alternate gateway that has the authorize method available.

If you use an authorize transaction, customer funds are reserved until the transaction is captured (or voided). This might not be what you want.

Another alternative is putting customers' billing and credit card information into a CIM (customer information system) when they create the order upfront, then authorizing/capturing against the stored information when actually processing the charge. This means you don't have to store the CC in your own database, but the customers do have to agree to store their information in the CIM. Or you could offer customers the option of storing their data in the gateway's CIM, or reserving funds on the card with an authorize transaction.

The CIM option may also cost you additional processing or account fees, so there's that.