Billing Orchard - a review

A secure "Virtual Terminal" for PCI-compliant credit card processing.

This is our review of Billing Orchard, the online virtual terminal, invoice manager.

We use for credit card processing, tracking of invoices, recording of standard fees, processing of recurring charges to ouir clients, and general client account management. We recommend it for some of our clients.  

• Enables you to get PCI certified easily at low cost (at the SAQ "A" level").

• Charges credit cards easily without using a terminal.

• Can give customers a login to their account online.

• Helps in managing invoices, handling recurring charges, and keeping client credit cards up to date.  

This page has

• A summary
• List of advantages
• List of disadvantages

Summary
It is also called a  virtual terminal".  Virtual terminals are a big deal. They are probably in the future for many credit card merchants. They can save you a ton of money, improve your business process, and make it easier to get PCI certified. 

For an explanation of what virtual terminals are, click here.

Below we discuss one particular virtual terminal that we often recommend, Billing Orchard.

If you decide you want to go to the Billing Orchard web site, please do so by clicking on one of the links on this page (like this one). We offer this review for free, and if you buy when you click from this page we get a few cents. It won't pay for a night on the town, but could help. Thanks.

Billing Orchard advantages:
Billing Orchard is a simple and easy to implement terminal that includes most of the advantages and few of the disadvantages of virtual terminals. Simple and easy is huge, since if it is not those things, many will never actually use it. 

It seems to have no competiton at its low price for all the featuures you get.

Virtual Terminal advantages:

• Charge credit cards easily without using a terminal.
  

  No need for a "swiper" or any other hardware, other than a computer with internet connection. 
• No need to purchase software or install anything. (Although there is a monthly fee, usually $20, for the service.)
• Simple Web-Based Interface
• Nothing to maintain or repair. The entire operation (except for your connection through your computer) happens at the Billing Orchard company. They keep it running at the peak running level that a major bank, for example, would. 
• Works well with Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari.
• Works with any credit card processor.
• Easy isuance of credits and voids, and excellent records of it kept. 
• Enables sales on your web site. (Simple, but very effective for some uses. Simple can be very nice if it does what you want.)

Invoicing advantages:

• Invoices are recorded and organized, easy to review. 
• Clients have access to see their own billing history, current charges, and credit card information.
• Move through the different screens and features easily and intuitively. 
• Automated billing for recurring fees (i.e. the monthly fee for a website, or for the school lunch fee. 
• Works well for hourly time billing,
• Works well for billing fixed fees or job pricing. 
• Automatic mailing of invoices option.
• Automatically emails your clients when their credit cards are going to expire, so they can log in and change them or call you. 
• Automatically sends Past Due notices.
• Create an invoice with a couple of clicks and a few words. 
• Client Mailing List
• Client Access to Billing Records
• Tracks web site sales integrated with your other charges processed for the same or other clients.
• Anti-fraud features built in. 

Integration:

• PayPal Integration
• APIs available.
  
• Custom Payment Integration
• Exportable transaction history.
• Client and account data import and export  
• Reports available are quick and easy. Good quality of information. Very nice.

Support advantages:

• Excellent support via email.
  (Most services at this price level don't offer anything this good. I suspect they can afford it because Biling Orchard does not get a lot of support requests, since the system is so clear and intuitive. And just works.
  

Most importantly, it gets the credit card processing out of your local office and network, so that someone else has to bear the burden of becoming PCI compliant to hold the data.

You will still need to become PCI compliant, but the path is much easier.

Billing Orchard disadvantages:

• Features:
  If you need a more fully featured product, you may have a need for a POS (point of sale) kind of product, or may need a different kind of product. 
  
  Be prepared to spend up to $100 or more on a monthly fee for a similiar service. Alternatively, you could find and purchase a software and install it on your computers. You pay much more initially, still usually pay an annual maintenance contract, and  need to maintain the system, which may involve occasional costs to an IT professional.  
  
  
• Speed 
  Because it works over the internet, the screen does not move to a new one or recognize your input as quickly as a computer that is simply running the software. 
  
  We have not found this speed issue to be a problem, mostly becasue Billing Orchard works so well in other areas that we put up with it. Although the slower speed is noticable, it is not bad. 
  
  
• Downtime
   We notice about twice yearly that the service is down for up to about 10 minutes. Not bad. Much better than software installed in your local network, probably.

Features it does not have are:

• Customized settings for individual customers are sometimes not available. For example, you either send an invoice automatically to all clients, or to none when the program automatically processes your charges for a particular day. 
• You cannot change the price of a product or service for all subscribers at the same time. Those changes must be made for each client individually. (Recurring fees are the only situation in which this might be important.)
• Works best with Authorize.net, though this is really just because Authorize.net has features that other processors do not have, so that it is really a case that if the feature is available, Billing Orchard provides it. 

Although there is no "one-size-fits-all" product, Zirius recommends Billing Orchard to its clients. We have used it for four years for our own needs, and it was mentioned in an article by the New York Times. There are a ton of testimonials, and a free trial.

Virtual terminals put that burden on other businesses. We recommend that you consider them if you are small and enter credit card info on a keyboard.

If you want help in navigating this decision, we are available as consultants at 877-270-5557 Option 2.