How to Allow Online Processing
Businesses can allow online processing to their website easily due to the advancement in technology and high levels of competition among payment-processing companies. Accepting credit cards is no longer a difficult or time-consuming process. Business owners need to decide if they want to use a merchant account and gateway or find a third-party processor to handle all aspects of payment processing. Since most businesses save money by having their own merchant account, and it allows them to have the ultimate level of flexibility and room for growth, this article provides the steps needed to set up this type of online payment processing.
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Instructions
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Procedure
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Integrate a shopping cart program to your website. You can use a hosted shopping cart program or upload shopping cart software to your website. A shopping cart resides on your Internet Server Provider's computer and aids your customer to shop in your store. If you sell more than just a few items, a shopping cart is useful.
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Review which gateways the shopping cart is able to connect with to make sure it offers an adequate selection of options for you to evaluate. A gateway is a company that connects the shopping cart program with your merchant bank account. Each gateway has different features and benefits; therefore, compare them carefully to find the one that best fits your company. Register with a gateway that is on your shopping cart's list.
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Submit an application for a merchant account. Find out which banks your gateway connects to, then apply for one of those bank accounts. If you have a business bank account, you can set up your merchant bank account to it, so you can transfer money seamlessly.
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Connect the gateway to the merchant account. Provide the gateway with your merchant account details in order for it to be able to process sales. This usually can be done online through the gateway's administration panel.
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Integrate the shopping cart with the gateway. Sign into your shopping cart program, then update it with the details about your gateway account so it can connect to it.
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Test your online payment processing. Browse your website as if you were a potential customer. Make a purchase with a credit card to test the entire process. Review what the transaction looks like in the shopping cart program, gateway, and with your merchant bank account to ensure each report matches each other.
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Monitor your reports. Since gateways provide many settings to prevent fraud or duplicate transactions, monitor your declines to ensure that you are not losing customers due to improper settings. This is done by looking at the reason codes for decline transactions in the gateway's reports.
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References
- Photo Credit credit card image by Christopher Hall from Fotolia.com
