The PCI Compliant CenPOS gateway can be used with virtually any shopping cart, including Magento, Prestashop and others, without any special integration by using emulators of many popular gateways. CenPOS is a multi-channel payment SaaS that works with merchants existing credit card processors and financial partners.

Payment gateways convert data to acceptable message formats for payment processors. With the emulator, CenPOS takes the merchants existing gateway message and automatically translates it to a CenPOS format which is then sent to the processor. When the transaction is complete, CenPOS converts the response back to the native gateway format. The emulator enables a merchant to change their gateways without any integration.

What are the benefits of the gateway emulators?

• No integration required.
• PCI Compliant

What payment gateway emulations are available?

• Authorize.net
• Payflow Pro
• Mercury
• IC Verify
• contact us for others

How do I get started with the CenPOS emulator?

• Ask your relationship manager for the emulator you’d like or contact us for a new account.
• In your shopping cart administration, go to SETTINGS>PAYMENT>PAYMENT GATEWAY. The gateway name will remain the same. The API or account ID, Password or transaction key, and return URL will be replaced with CenPOS information provided to you. If your shopping cart does not let you provide a return URL, the emulator cannot be used.

Why would I want to change my gateway to CenPOS?

• Multi-channel availability with one reporting system for all.
• Extended capabilities. For example, securely storing payment data (check/credit card) with automated reminders to customers to update credit cards; accept mobile payments,  electronic bill presentment & payment.
• CenPOS solves many business problems, particularly for mid-size or business to business, automotive, non-profit and health-care industries. Call for a consultation.
• If you have a small business that sells items to consumers that are immediately delivered, online shopping is the only method you use to sell, and your system works for you, there may be no compelling reason to change. Free Magento and PrestaShop community editions are not PCI Compliant, but with our free version with native CenPOS integration. CenPOS does not provide shopping cart hosting, consulting, or support other than as it relates to payments.

How could this business to business vendor error have been prevented? How could everyone have saved time? Let’s review what happened, the resolution, and the repercussions for all parties, both time and money.

SCENARIO:

• Business “A”, an equipment seller for business to business only,  issued a PO to a vendor, a wholesale distributor for the trade only.
• The vendor, “merchant”, created an invoice.
• The accounting department uses the invoice and pulls the credit card information to charge the card. Business A credit card information is on file with the merchant, sent via fax some years ago. Where is that information stored?
• The business asked that the equipment ship in 2 days, which is also when the card will be charged.

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT:

• Two days later, merchant called business A to report that the card declined.
• The Business reviews their credit card account online and does not see any pending transactions or any reason for a decline and calls back the vendor to report same.
• Vendor runs the card again, and again declines.
• Business calls the credit card issuer, pressing voice prompt keys, finally gets ‘press 3 now’ to be connected to an operator, and then is promptly disconnected. DON’T YOU HATE IT WHEN THAT HAPPENS?
• Business calls card company back and spends 5 minutes reviewing what they already checked online- the account is in good standing and there is a sufficient credit line.
• After further review, it’s determined there is a large charge from the vendor that is pending, but not yet funded. It would be 5-7 days to remove the hold if the transaction is disputed.
• Business does not want to dispute – this should be worked out with the vendor.
• Business calls back vendor, who realizes they made an error and had charged someone elses invoice to that account.
• Vendor issues a refund to the business for the difference between the original charge and the amount that is really owed. (Difference between actual invoice and some other customers invoice. )

REPERCUSSIONS:

• LOST TIME. How much time did everyone waste?  At least 15 minutes for each party. Both operations were disrupted.
• NO ACCESS TO FUNDS. The business does not have access to credit card funds availability until the refund goes through.
• EXTRA FEES. The merchant pays multiple transaction fees.

HOW THIS TRANSACTION COULD HAVE BEEN MORE EFFICIENT:

• ERROR FREE. The vendor could send the business an email confirmation the PO total is correct and the business self-pays via a secure online payment page.
• ERROR FREE AND SAVE TIME. The vendor could have used electronic bill payment and the business would click and pay the invoice.
• ERROR IDENTIFIED FASTER. The vendor could have sent a copy of the transaction receipt immediately. The business could recognize there was an issue and notify the vendor. The transaction could then be voided, or preferably a reverse authorization could have been requested, if their credit card processing vendor supports that transaction type.

HOW CENPOS PAYMENT WOULD HELP THIS MERCHANT:

EFFICIENCY

1. AUTOMATE TO SAVE MAXIMUM TIME FOR BOTH PARTIES AND ELIMINATE ERRORS. EBPP- CenPOS automatically email the invoice for payment. Business clicks the email link, chooses how they want to pay, and the merchant ships upon payment completion.
2. ERROR FREE, SAVE A LITTLE TIME. Merchant sends email with their invoice or other method to confirm bill amount owed. CenPOS Free online payment page and business would have self paid with their payment of choice.
3. ERRORS FOUND FASTER. Merchant could have key entered the transaction in the virtual terminal and emailed a receipt. The cardholder would have known instantly of the mistake.
4. SAVE TIME. Merchant could have securely stored payment data with the business saving keystrokes to process the transaction.

 HARD DOLLAR SAVINGS

• I know that this merchant uses a desktop terminal and a virtual terminal (authorize.net). Neither of those requires the user to enter data into fields that could qualify transactions for lower interchange rates. Additionally, neither of them support enhanced or “level III data”, required to qualify certain transactions for extra low purchasing card rates. Sending the right data could save a merchant up to almost 1%, a big deal when margins are tight.
• The merchant will pay auth fees for one sale, two declines and a refund, 3 more than they should have.

See something relevant to your business? Contact us for more information.

16 February 2012, Authorize.net: We are pleased to announce that we have released new reporting capabilities for merchants using our Automated Recurring Billing (ARB) service. Merchants can now use the new Transaction Status tab on the Monthly Subscription Status Dashboard to see how many ARB transactions have been or will be processed in a given month, or anytime within a 12-month timeframe. The report only pulls recurring billing transactions and now includes detailed ARB payment information, such as payment number, subscription ID and the date the actual payment was submitted for authorization.

For merchants to run the report, they need to log into the Merchant Interface and click Tools from the main toolbar. Then click Recurring Billing to get to the dashboard where they can simply click the new Transaction Status tab and select a timeframe from the Month dropdown, or click View Transaction Status Report from the Search and Reports section.

We hope this new report will better help your merchants manage their recurring billing transactions.

Reminder for Merchants to Download Transactions 14 February 2012

Important: On February 21, 2012, all your merchants’ transactions from 2009 will be permanently archived and no longer accessible through the Merchant Interface.

Authorize.Net retains your merchants’ transaction history for a minimum of two years, which is accessible though the Merchant Interface. As a standard business practice, we highly recommend that your merchants download and save their online transactions on an annual basis. That way the data will be available for their records, even after it has been archived.

For detailed information on how to search for and download transactions within a specific date range, please refer your merchants to the Download Transaction File Guide.

This graphic table illustrates some of the key differences of CenPOS vs Authorize.net. Using a Catholic High School for items needed, CenPOS crushes the gateway competition and it’s easy to see why schools are flocking to CenPOS.

There’s no question that Authorize.net is a solid product from a reputable company. I’ve actually recommended and used them for over a decade. However, for years they failed to innovate and CenPOS provides better value in every key area, including automated recurring billing. Authorize.net only just entered the multi-payment source market, primarily through acquisition and tying different products together, whereas CenPOS was designed from the ground up to support all payment methods. This is key to why CenPOS is much more flexible to be customized and deliver real-time data that merchants  need to increase efficiencies in operations.

Following up on last weeks Virtual Terminal checklist, here is the new Paypal vs Authorize.net vs CenPOS virtual terminal comparison chart. It highlights some key differences whereas the last article asks, “which Virtual Terminal features do you need?”.

The chart is hardly exhaustive, but is a good starting point to understand some key differences between the terminals. Nearly all virtual terminals fit the “basic” model. I’ve omitted listing most things that are common to all and instead focus on their differences. The ADVANCED VT has many more features not listed that are not in the others, but again, the idea is to identify what key elements you must have in order to choose the best solution for your business.

Download the PDF Virtual Terminal Comparison.

Read more articles about Virtual terminals.

Which is the best virtual terminal for card not present merchant accounts? I’ve looked at and used many including Paypal, Orbital by Paymentech, authorize.net, and CenPOS. I created a spreadsheet to compare them, and it’s still hard to put into plain english why I like one so much more than all the rest.

I’m going to eliminate any small business discussion for detailed comparison because the needs are vastly different. Paypal Payments Pro Virtual terminal and authorize.net are fine for small businesses. Orbital can only be used if you have a Paymentech merchant account. CenPOS can be used with any merchant processor, but it was created for larger businesses so they have a high minimum to keep the client base on target.

In this article I show why I like CenPOS more than any other for day to day user management. Even where virtual terminals have the same function, I prefer the easy navigation and user interface of CenPOS.

Easily add, delete and modify users. Total control over what permissions each user has. You can decide who can perform voids, refunds, auths, force and much more. You can set parameters for dollar thresholds to alert management via email for refunds over a certain dollar amount. There are probably dozens of ways to set up a user, but most importantly, I can do the most common tasks- who has access, and resetting passwords, in about a minute.

SCREEN SHOTS

Figure 1. CenPOS Basic fields to add a new user, including security control for transaction types. Sale= card swipe. MOTO = key enter. There are more advanced controls on a second page if desired. This user is allowed to process key entered transactions, voids ( delete a transaction same day), look up past transactions, and pull a report of their sales dynamically for any date range.   This type of tight security is perfect for new employees and other scenarios where you want to limit job functions.

If you check Return, the user can only complete a refund if the original transaction (any user) is recognized, and it cannot be credited for more than the original charge.

Let’s compare the above to authorize.net.Figure 2. Authorize.net adding a new user with “User Role- Administrator”. The administrator adds new users by first adding what type of role the user will have.  The group of options are pre-determined based on the role. This image shows the permissions automatically assigned for the administrator role. There is no option to edit them.

How much protection do you have from internal fraud? In CenPOS, you can provide just the right access to data needed, without giving the users access to anything more. Certain controls are at the merchant level (not shown), not the virtual terminal administrator level. The controls can be set for all merchant accounts within an entire organization, within a division, or at the merchant account level.  Plus, with the CenPOS Executive Dashboard, management can also quickly identify potential internal fraud with dynamic graphic illustrations.

Figure 3. Authorize.net adding a new user with “User Role- Transactions”. Part 1, Select role type. Again, all checked boxes are standard- you can manually turn any of them off.

Figure 4. Authorize.net adding a new user with “User Role- Transactions”.  Part 2, enter the user information.

Note the significant differences between the level of permission choices for this type of user, vs even the basic permissions you have for the CenPOS user? Especially In a larger organizations, these types of controls are essential to reduce risk.

This is part one of a series on Virtual Terminals.

What is CenPOS? CenPOS is an innovative host-based payment processing platform. It is not a gateway and it’s compatible with all major processors. Although there are many features and benefits, at the heart of the technology is the intelligent switch. It routes payment processing via the least cost method by identifying what it is and knowing the least cost way to process it. This all happens faster than a traditional desktop credit card terminal.

Merchants have hit a wall in reducing credit card processing costs via negotiating reduced merchant discounts. Real cost management today is achieved through interchange management which CenPOS does intelligently and automatically. CenPOS resides virtually between the merchant and the Acquirer- ie the merchant payment processor (merchant account), Amex, check processor, loyalty card etc. All transactions hit CenPOS via high speed internet connection before being routed automatically. Real time cash flow reports, fraud prevention, and PCI Compliance are other key benefits.

Email received from authorize.net updates MasterCard partial authorization requirement. “In late March, we sent an e-mail regarding MasterCard and Discover’s modifications to the rules concerning the processing of debit, pre-paid and gift cards for merchants located in the United States.

Recently MasterCard and Discover relaxed the requirements for e-commerce merchants so that support for partial authorizations and balance responses are no longer required, but recommended best practices. All retail and mobile merchants, however, must still support the requirements.

Additionally, all merchants are still required to support authorization reversals for any non-settled authorizations. The deadline for all Authorize.Net merchants to support the requirements is still June 30, 2011.

IMPORTANT: Although no longer a requirement for e-commerce merchants, Authorize.Net intends to support partial authorizations and balance responses for all merchants. We highly recommend that your merchants provide support for these features as they can help decrease declined transactions and potentially increase sales.

You can review the timeline of when we expect support for each processor in our Partial Authorization FAQs at < http://www.authorize.net/support/pafaqs#when>http://www.authorize.net/support/pafaqs#when.

We have also updated our FAQs to reflect the latest changes. If your merchants have questions, please refer them to the FAQs at http://www.authorize.net/support/pafaqs/ for additional information, including integration updates, value-adding services and more.”