Online Payment Processors Credit Card Processing

Online Payment Processors

A huge number of online payment vendors specialize in specific types of online payments. For instance, it's easy to find vendors who support online donations, event registration, or item purchases. While these vendors typically provide an interface optimized for your constituents to submit payments on their own, most work perfectly well to allow your staff to process payments as well.

Does your staff get registration requests by phone? There's no reason they can't enter credit card information into the same interface a registrant would use to register themselves. Just make sure that any automatic emails sent out to the registrant make sense in either situation. This method might even work for in-person scenarios — for example, to process on-site registrations, or sell a few items in a store. Keep in mind that unless you buy some compatible swipe hardware, you'll need to type in credit card information by hand. This may seem odd to the person paying, as it's more typical to swipe a card in this situation.

Point-of-Sale Solutions

If you want to accept credit cards in a permanent physical location like a gift shop, registration desk, or at cashier station, consider more hardware-intensive options. You'll certainly want a way to swipe cards and print receipts. You could do both with a credit card terminal, or use separate swipe hardware and a receipt printer. You may also want to add up a number of items and calculate taxes, which terminals typically won't do. If you often sell a number of items to one person, you may want a price scanner and a display pole (the small screen that displays what you're ringing up to the customer).

How to Decide

With so many options, how do you decide what will work for you? Think through the following considerations:

• Will you have access to the actual, physical credit card? Having cards in hand will save you time. For any volume, you'll want a method that will allow you to swipe the card rather than typing in numbers, and to print a receipt.
• Will you have power and connectivity? Processing credit cards without an Internet connection substantially limits your options. Similarly, if you don't have a phone line, you'll need to use an imprinter, mobile device, or specialized terminal.
• Does the transaction need to be stored in your constituent management system? Processing donations or membership renewals that need to be tracked in another piece of software means integration should be a key concern. Payment-enabled software, an online payment processing solution, or a point of sale setup can help.
• Is this a short-term, low-volume need, or a permanent high-volume setup? The right hardware and integration with other systems can be a big time-saver, but they require some initial up-front investment. Does it really makes sense to use a quick and dirty method like an imprinter or virtual terminal, or will investing in a more-efficient solution save money in the long run?
• Do you need to store credit card numbers? Doing so in any format requires strict and specific security measures under PCI requirements, and unless you have a thorough understanding of the regulations and have spent the time and money to create a system that is in compliance, you'll want to use an online payment processor or payment-enabled software to handle recurring transactions.
• What will your constituents expect? Don't forget this important consideration. Be careful of methods that require you to gather someone's life story in order to run a simple payment, or require your staff to go through strange and time-consuming machinations with a constituent standing in front of them.

It can be complicated to understand your options in processing credit cards. Many of the methods themselves are actually quite straightforward, however, and every organization should be able to find one that's suitable. Whether you're taking donations, registering members or attendees, selling T-shirts, or running a complex retail organization, there's a method that will allow you to take credit cards straightforwardly and securely.

Rob Olson, President

Quantum Merchant Services

1-888-881-0657 ext 707